Patria21

I apologize if this news has been shared before but this notice today on the Elizabeth is the first I’ve seen of a change in the Diamond lunch/dinner benefits. Luckily it’s not as bad as Cunard’s odd explanation might make it look on first read. Here’s the new policy: “We are delighted to invite you to a complimentary lunch at The Verandah Steakhouse to the value of $20 per person. Alternatively, you may prefer to have dinner in the Verandah where a supplement of $20 per person will apply. Or dinner in the Lido Alternative dining located on deck 9.” Lunch in the Verandah is now $30. Dinner is $50. Dinner in the Lido Alternative is still $25. When I read that my “complimentary” lunch had a “value of $20 per person,” I assumed that meant the lunch would now cost me $10. But the World Club Representatives said the $20 value was only a matter of internal accounting and lunch would still be free. (If it’s only for their internal purposes you might wonder why they’re telling us, but never mind.) So effectively the voucher is worth $30 in the Verandah, since the $50 dinner comes with a $20 charge. And it’s worth $25 in the Lido because apparently that is still a free alternative. At least that’s what I was told. I’ll let you know how it turns out in practice.

We’re on the Queen Elizabeth at the moment. Last night was the Red and Gold Gala. There are two more Gala nights coming, one of them Roaring 20s - which I hate, but that’s not what you asked.

Last time we arrived in Brooklyn, a transfer to Moynihan was offered. I don't remember the exact price, but I do remember that it was only a bargain if you were traveling alone. If you have anyone to share expenses, taxi or Uber were much cheaper and a better bet. Unless, of course, you're willing to pay for the convenience of the bus transfer.

If Cunard follows its recent pattern, there should be a ship going from South Africa to Australia again in 2026. Recently, the line has been offering that trip every other year. No guarantees, of course, as things can always change - but that has been the pattern.

For the last few years, at least, it has been possible to take the QM2's traditional January 3 eastbound crossing to Southampton to meet up with the Queen Victoria on January 11, when it would begin its world cruise. In 2025, however, while the QM2 will still arrive in Southampton on January 11, the two ships doing world voyages - Queen Victoria and Queen Anne - won't be there. They're leaving on January 9. I just find the switch puzzling and wonder if anyone has heard why Cunard has made it. It would seem like the company would want to encourage people, particularly people coming from America, to make that connection.I know my friends and I loved taking the QM2 to meet the Victoria this year: We referred to the ship as our "World Cruise Taxi." You can do use it yourself in 2024, but that appears to be the last time.

I did the full world cruise on the Queen Victoria this year, and as Roscoe39 says, there were some bumps along the way - though no more, I think, than might reasonably have been expected given the obstacles that had to be surmounted. But here, I think, is the bottom line for you: At the end of the world cruise, all of my friends agreed that we would have gladly stayed on board to do it all over again.

We're traveling with friends in January who are on different segments of the world cruise. We were all given a "Travel With ID.' So they are still being provided. We'll see if they work. I love Cunard - but I find I often have to go to the restaurant on embarkation day to fix some table problem that I had tried to fix in advance. Not always - but more often than I'd like.

I had hoped to book the Marina Bay Sands for a night when the QM2 stops there on March 22. I contacted the hotel directly and unfortunately all the rooms are blocked out from February 29 to March 24 for a large group. (I wasn't told what the group is.) I'll probably keep an eye on the hotel anyway because sometimes groups end up being smaller than expected and rooms are released. But for the time being, it isn't possible to book a room there.

After our official tour on our visit, we had lunch in the Lido and then we just - wandered. Unlike when we visited the Rotterdam (which is, to be sure, in much more pristine condition) there were no locked doors, so we went all over the ship. OK, my guess is they may not have wanted us in the Princess Grill, which was all torn up - but we didn't know it was torn up until we got there, and there were no signs asking us to stay out. Anyway, the point is there is much to see, and while much is gone, much that will strike a nostalgic spark remains.

Here's another suggestion, then, for the OP. Research is seldom a bad thing, and a great research tool (if it's available to you) is the TripIt App. It's not just a great travel organizer; it will also give you safety advice. And it breaks that advice down by neighborhood, which is much more useful than looking up citywide statistics because those may be skewed by crime in areas you won't visit. For example, we're staying at the Bryant Park Hotel in New York prior to our next world cruise - TripIt scores that neighborhood as "lowest risk" under five categories: Physical harm, Women's safety, Gay Safety, Theft, Basic Freedoms and Health and Medical. Two caveats. You can't just list a city; you have to give it a neighborhood. When I want to check an area in a city, I enter some restaurant or hotel in that area into TripIt so I can see the neighborhood's score. The other caveat is that Location Safety Ratings may only be available to Pro level subscribers; I'm not sure of that. Anyway, it's a good system, and it gets you past individual differences in experience and risk aversion.

I visited the QE2 when the Queen Victoria was docked in Dubai. I also had friends who stayed the night there and enjoyed it. The QE2 was quite some distance from where we docked, but I don't know which terminal the Queen Anne will use and other ships do sometimes dock closer. There wasn't anything of any interest in walking distance from the ship, but then, most of the sights in Dubai aren't in walking distance of each other, or at least didn't seem to be to me. As for shore excursions, there were none offered to the QE2. In fact, the port lecturer didn't even mention that the ship was there, which struck me as sad.

On our world cruise (and I would imagine on others) the ship's program gave safety hints for every port - most of them along the lines of "keep track of your possessions; watch out for pickpockets; don't wear flashy jewelry." Those should help you, but honestly, I found that what was true for tourists where I live was true for us wherever we went: The areas that tourists want to see are by and large safe. Pickpockets are a risk, but violent crime seldom is. In over 40 years of travel, the only time anyone I was with was robbed was in Rome, where a friend disregarded the advice of our guide, fell behind the group, and was surrounded by a group of children who stole his wallet. So there's two sensible precautions: Listen to your guide's advice, and be wary of anyone or any group of people who get too close!

We did the 2023 World Cruise on the Queen Victoria and the only stop where we felt we needed (instead of wanted) to be on a ship's tour was Jakarta - not because we felt it was dangerous, but because the city was far from the port and traffic was a hard-to-calculate issue. Everyone's risk calculation varies and there are many places I would not wander alone at night. But my fear is that if you go into a world cruise with the belief that every person in every port poses some sort of crime threat you're not going to get much pleasure out of the trip. Read up on the stops. Take sensible precautions. But please, don't approach this trip like you're part of an invading army facing a hostile native population - because in my experience, that just isn't true.

On the Victoria's world cruise this year there were a number of people who had been confirmed for fixed dining only to find they'd been shifted to open seating. The reason for the switch, as I understood it, was that more people asked for fixed dining than could be accommodated - which to me sounded like a good argument for increasing the numbers of tables allocated to fixed dining. Anyway, as far as I know, there was no explanation ever given to the people who were switched as to why they were chosen. I'm puzzled by the whole process, to be honest. Cunard is obviously and understandably going through some issues restarting its cruising schedule, from staff shortages to increased costs to supply chain problems. Why the company would choose this moment to introduce open dining, something they have no experience handling, is beyond me.

I did open dining on a QM2 crossing in November and used it on occasion on a recent Queen Victoria voyage - so here are a few more things you may want to think about. The first is that open dining is new to Cunard and rules in place today may not be in place tomorrow. The QM2 experience was completely chaotic; by the Victoria, the staff seemed to be a bit more in control of the situation. The second is that on both ships, the maitre d' was willing to set aside the same table at the same time for each night, a kind of fixed/open hybrid. Nothing in the documentation says they will do that - but they did, perhaps because it meant fewer diners they had to fuss with every night. So think of that as a possibility, but not a guarantee. The third is completely subjective, so it may or may not apply to you. I liked some aspects of open dining, but what was lost for me was the sense of occasion you get dining in Britannia on the set seatings. On the set seatings, the dining room is full and lively and you're surrounded by people who are talking and (you hope) enjoying their meal. When we did open seating, particularly if we went later, we were mostly surrounded by empty tables - or by tables where everyone was finishing and getting ready to leave. That was particularly true on the Victoria where open seating proved to be hugely unpopular (in part because the front-of-the-house staff were not Cunard's finest) and the open seating part of the dining room was often mostly empty. Honestly, on some nights it was like eating in a tomb. Anyway, if you're in doubt, you might consider taking fixed seating and asking to switch if you don't like it. Again, my experience may not hold, but on both the QM2 and Victoria trips it was easy to move from fixed to open seating and impossible to move from open to fixed. That may not be true of every voyage, but it did hold true on those recent ones.

I believe the QM2’s previous stop was St. Thomas. If so, that could be the answer: the passengers had already cleared US immigration there.

As is often the case, it depends on whom you ask. We’re on board now and returning November 13 - and we were assured by a maitre d’ that when we come back the ship will once again offer a fixed second seating option. So we’ll see.

This note may not apply to the OP as the dates are blocked on the card, but I figured this additional reminder of what Cunard considers fully vaccinated couldn't hurt. As was mentioned above, they don't always actually ask to see proof, or ask about the dates of your vaccination, but you don't want to be caught out at boarding because you don't meet the date requirements: "If more than 270 days (calculated from the last day of the cruise) have passed since the full completion of a vaccination course, a booster vaccine will also be needed and must be administered a minimum of seven days prior to travel. "Guests who have had one booster vaccine, regardless of the date, are considered fully vaccinated. At this time, a second booster vaccination is not required, however, we strongly recommend all guests to have booster vaccinations at the earliest opportunity, should they be available to them, in order to comply with evolving vaccine policies from the countries we visit."

According to the Voyage Personalizer (which isn't always the best source, I admit), there is no fixed late seating dining on our October 25 QM2 crossing either. When Cunard said open dining would be available on the QM2 as of November 1, I thought that meant the new three-choice system would start then - and until then the ship would follow the old system where both seatings were fixed. But apparently not. I can't say I'm happy about it, but nothing is going to keep me off that ship as long as I'm healthy.