Se1lad

As long as there’s some natural light I’ll be happy. To be fair, I don’t think you get that great a view from the lounge on the Vistas - you get the view of the deck outside and a lot of sky if I recall correctly - but you do get plenty of natural light in the daytime.

Whilst it may be windowless - I wonder if there is a big skylight - it looks as if there may be going from the plan for the deck above?

Though you can always book a separate connecting flight in economy for a few hundred dollars? If you are not based near New York you’d need to do something similar to connect to the ship anyway?

The rum and raisin ice cream is the same one they serve in QG. I often request it when it’s not on the menu. It’s particularly nice with a flambé Banana Foster prepared table side!

You can fly business class much cheaper than $8000 one way! I just did a quick search and found Delta/Virgin Atlantic flights for under $2600 return from New York to London.

Unless it forms part of a Fawlty Towers episode!

I think they have gone with the restaurant design like this to maximise number of tables at the windows. It looks like it would be difficult to talk to people at adjacent tables at the window, but not a problem at the row of tables behind without a direct window view. You would hope they have allowed sufficient space between to allow people to pass round a flambé trolley safely. It’s not just passengers, but also waiters etc carrying trays of food who will need to get past.

They may have to come up with a priority system at peak times - of course they could just keep it as first come first served.

I believe there are 55 QG suites on QA vs 66 on QV. 127(!) PG suites on QA vs 61 on QV - so that’s why there is such a difference in restaurant sizes. It does make me wonder who everyone will fit in the lounge at peak times though. Maybe that’s why there are no windows to make the lounge less popular!

Most cocktails when you add the tip come to round $15 - which currently works out as under £12. If I was comparing Cunard to a land based hotel I’d put it in the mid to high end 4 star bracket - cocktails would probably cost more in the hotel bar, so I don’t think the prices are unreasonable.

Looking on the plans for QA, the Grills lounge doesn’t look that much bigger than the one on QV and QE. Seeing that there is a lot more PG on QA and how busy the lounges on QV and QE get before dinner do you think they may restrict access to QG only at peak times? The design of the lounge looks like you enter the QG restaurant through the lounge which could make it easier to restrict access at certain times.

The Hilton in Brooklyn is pretty decent and much cheaper than staying in Manhattan. It’s also near the subway with convenient links to Manhattan if you want to go there during your stay.

With the airline frequent traveller model you probably wouldn’t have any loyalty status with the trips spread out over so long. If I was designing a revised scheme for Cunard I’d use a hybrid model: 1. obtain status based on rolling number of nights (and not number of cruises) over a period of 5 years. This would help to reduce the number of diamond and platinum members therefore alleviating the current situation where sometimes over half the ship has priority boarding. It might also mean that Cunard could enhance the status benefits a bit. 2. obtain lifetime status based on overall spend with Cunard. This would mean it’s still possible to be lifetime diamond but it would be based on how much you’ve spent with them. There could also be a tier higher than diamond with some added benefits - free transfers to the terminal etc. The above suggestion would reward people both on frequency of trips and cumulative spend. Some airline frequent traveller schemes have started to move in this direction. For example, BA introduced lifetime status in 2010ish. They had sufficient records to go back to the inception of their loyalty scheme (sometime in the 1980s I think) to add up all historical tier points to give lifetime totals. Also, Lufthansa’s scheme is now based in part on how much you spend on your tickets. Sadly I don’t think Cunard’s IT is capable though!

I’d prefer they move to a system where you had to do a minimum number of nights (or even fairer minimum spend) over a rolling period (say 5 years) to maintain status. With reduced numbers of platinum and diamond Cunard could potentially improve the benefits as well!

You don’t necessary have to spend a lot of money to get diamond status - you could to diamond with a £3000pp spend, or platinum with a £1400pp spend if you were doing 2 night cruises in an inside cabin. At the other end of the scale you could spend the same on a 1 week trip in QG and only be silver !

Some of my friends elderly relatives (who don’t drink very much) will often start a glass of sherry before dinner, and continue it through dinner. Considering how busy the waiters in the Commodore Club are, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect one of them to carry the glass all the way to the restaurant if the owner of the glass is capable of carrying it themselves.

Lunch in the pub if travelling Britannia/Club or in the restaurant if in PG/QG. After the stress of boarding it finally feels like the holiday has started!

You can take as much wine as you can can carry on board to consume in the restaurant. Corkage fee of $25 per bottle.

Cunard could do with revamping its loyalty scheme. It's not really that difficult to get to Diamond status (I've only started cruising properly in the last few years and I am already nearly there). Once you've got the status you never loose it. They could do with a tier above Diamond maybe linked to spend and minimum regular trips with some better benefits. They could then make priority boarding just Diamond and the new tier. On one of my recent trips it appeared that half the ship had priority boarding!

What rule applies if it’s two gentlemen? 🙂

Been quoted on a few FB pages: Queen Mary 2 arrived into Southampton last night for assessment of a technical issue. Unfortunately, after further investigation, it has been confirmed that this work will take longer to resolve than anticipated and the ship is unable to sail until this is completed. Therefore, we are so sorry to advise that voyage M310/A on Queen Mary 2 can no longer continue as planned to New York and is now cancelled. You will receive a full refund and a Future Cruise Credit of 20% of monies paid. This will be set up automatically and will be registered to your Cunard World Club number. You will be able to use this Future Cruise Credit on any future booking booked prior to 23rd April 2025. Any shore experiences purchased for this voyage will also be fully refunded to the original payment method. If you booked your voyage as part of a holiday package with a third party tour operator, your operator will be in touch with you regarding any gesture of goodwill. Once again, we are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience this will cause. Kind regards, Cunard

I doubt they would allow personal bottles to be stored on display for this reason! There might be the possibility they would store it out of view, but I think the logistics may not allow for it. Multiple staff work in the bar, you would need to ensure they were all aware etc. if the idea became popular it would very quickly become unworkable. I do think it’s a nice idea though.

If you’re requesting a pretty standard product such as Grand Marnier and Cunard are unable to provide if, then I don’t see any issue with going back to your cabin, pouring a glass and returning to the bar. It’s not like you are trying to deliberately engineer a situation/excuse to get you out of paying. In any case, they probably wouldn’t be able to tell - after dinner you do see people moving between bars and the nightclub with drinks they purchased already in one of the other bars. You could always ask the bar staff if it’s ok - I would be surprised if they said no in this situation.

I would suggest 50ml cognac, 25ml grand marnier, 25ml sweet vermouth, 5ml grenadine and 25ml lemon juice. If you have a sweet tooth use 10ml grenadine. If you don’t want a really strong drink use 25ml cognac.

That’s what I’m worried about - as there are no other infinity hot tubs on board they might prove too popular! : )