IB2

And you can go on Youtube and watch a load of travel tip videos, take all the extra stuff they recommend, and when you open your case in your cabin you'll be able to use all the drawers that Cunard helpfully provides to store your spare bathplug, spare coathanger, long piece of string, collection of clothespegs, travel clothes line, small roll of ducktape, laundry bag, carrier bags, luggage scales, mending kit, earplugs, and the rest.

You'll be fine. If you spend an active day on the ship you won't be in your cabin much if at all during daylight, anyway, and other than the state of the sea (which is interesting, tbf) and the very occasionally bit of marine wildlife, there is nothing to look at. One tip is to leave the TV on at night, set to the bridge camera with the volume muted, so when it gets light in the morning some light starts to appear in the room. For New York many people get up at 4am or thereabouts, to catch the passage under the bridge.

Is it? Perhaps someone should tell long-distance drivers on the Interstates!

The gyroscopic force of so many people circulating in the same direction puts strain on the automatic steering and forces the computer to keep making course corrections as the volume of passengers doing their orbits fluctuates? Whereas if there are even numbers circulating in both directions the ship's course remains nice and stable. I'm sure that must be it...

Some of the above replies seem to be over-egging it, if the question were "how few clothes can I take?". The absolute minimum, you could get away with a single dark suit or dark jacket for the week, and meet the rules. Of course, most (but not all) diners go for tuxedo/dinner jacket for the formal nights; bring one of those and you have those two nights ticked off (in terms of luggage I find having then to bring a pair of black shoes more of a nuisance than the suit, since for the other nights more normal brown shoes work fine). For the remaining nights you just need a decent shirt - you could just bring one and use the laundry, but most travellers will bring a range. And despite the more relaxed rules many diners still wear a jacket to dinner; again one is sufficient. As the OP says, you don't have to add many additional (sensibly chosen) items to be able to mix and match for variety during the week. Whilst I don't knock people who enjoy the dressing up and bring a whole week's worth of different outfits, it isn't necessary and for people with limited baggage or who are making onward journeys and don't want to be carrying a whole wardrobe of clothes around, it really isn't necessary!

Yes, but the alignment of the jet stream means that the remnants of them, after they have travelled across the southern US, are far less likely to affect the mid-Atlantic than in winter

First time, just go with the cheapest. Cunard might even upgrade you, you never know. In August you most likely won’t be aware the ship is moving.

I can only look back to 2019 but the food hasn't got worse since then. The laundromats are still free, and busy, as is the soap although it's now powder-in-a-box with a scoop, rather than the old individual sachets. The lectures seem as good in-the-round and variable in practice as before; the internet connectivity is now much better. Since the pandemic I'd say the staff are less experienced and the service a bit more haphazard, but just as friendly and helpful as before.

Isnt that just the 5% they knock off for WC early bookers? Which will already be in the price you paid.

It felt like a reasonably sized single to me. Certainly not a double bed.

They do a lot of maintenance while at sea, but the refit is a chance to do some more significant changes to the various parts of the ship. When I was on her in October staff were expecting some reasonably significant changes and had been consulted for suggestions as to how the design or facilities of their areas could be improved - but back then nothing had yet been decided.

I took Essential for both of my QM2 TAs last year, and it was fine - good for browsing, Instagram, Facebook, email. Yes, you couldn't watch videos on YouTube and the like, but that was hardly a handicap during a week on the ship. Connectivity was good in the public areas of my ship and fine in my cabin - which was on Deck Three. On the longer decks some passengers said connectivity in their cabins was less good/reliable.

There’s a whole separate thread (indeed more than one!) on the ever-changing dining arrangements …

Well I hardly saw any, over fourteen days. Having been in a ‘long corridor’ standard cabin before, I’d say the foot traffic along those is much higher, especially if you are near a laundry.

Having done the crossing four times with a dog, there isn't a lot of barking out on deck in any case. The barking comes from those dogs left locked up during kennel opening times, because their owners are off doing something else. The kennel section is inside the ship's bulkheads and I'd be very surprised if any noise travelled through the deck to the rooms below. On a nice day the passengers sunbathing on the QG sun deck will hear the occasional doggy noise from the dog deck above, but that's about the size of it.

The share price is low because of all the extra debt they took on to make it through the pandemic years with no income, now made a bigger burden because of rising interest rates, and residual restrictions such as having to run with some cabins vacant for potential quarantine. One other line has already gone bankrupt, and Carnival faces a challenging task to return to profitability - while the ships will continue to run, it isn't impossible that they are forced into a refinancing that puts some or all of the existing shareholders' capital at risk. So always DYOR!

Having done QM2 crossings in 2019 and 2022, I'd say that it's now more relaxed, with more people wearing business suits for formal nights and skipping the jacket for regular nights (the latter of course used to be mandatory but now isn't). Everyone was perfectly presentable but post-pandemic there does seem to be less rigour over dress codes.

I'd stick with the fixed dining. I certainly didn't enjoy the flexible arrangements running for the late sitting on the QM2 in October, queing up every night not knowing where I'd be sent, and one night finding myself on a table where only one other person spoke English. To be fair, the other nights all worked out fairly well, and it was quite fun meeting different people every night - and by the end of the crossing encountering a few people for a second time. But dressing up and going to the Britannia not knowing how dinner would pan out wasn't enjoyable, particularly on formal nights. The only downside of the fixed arrangement is if you land on a table you don't get on with, and in such a case it is always possible to ask for a move.

The one bottle rule has been around for some time, I think, but I've never known it policed. Particularly if you put one bottle in each case, they'd never bother to dig any further!

Yes, the cabins are great and they're easy to find (once you're in the know) - the key is remembering which way to turn when you come round from the centre lifts. The location is good, between staircases C (for Kings Court) and D (for stuff at the back of the ship), and very handy for the Britannia which is so close. There's a kettle and tea/coffee stuff in the cabin. The only - very minor - issues are that the attendant serves other cabins - probably at least the solos on deck two - so he or she isn't always around and not as easy to find as when you're on a longer deck. And there's no laundry, so you need to travel up to one of the higher decks to do your washing. And there's a very minor design fault in that the wardrobe door can catch in the handle of the bathroom door, so the bathroom doors tend to have long scratches in them.

No. And they're not really large enough.

They're not Queen size, I'm sure. Here's my photo

I did two crossings last year in a third deck single cabin, and it isn't noisy at all. There's a poster in another thread who said that the corridor is used when the nighclub turns out, but I didn't notice this on any of my crossings. There was hardly ever anyone walking down the corridor - just people going to and from their rooms, or the cabin attendant - and the only noise I heard was a little bit through the wall from the cabin adjoining. The steps and heavy fire doors at each end of the corridor make it feel secluded from the rest of the ship. These cabins are very good - but also very popular - and highly recommended if you can get one!

As of October, they hadn’t finalised the schedule of works and we’re still taking wish lists from the various departments. You’re right that it’s likely to be more than just a bit of painting and repairs.

I didn’t take the risk of asking him before I made the booking! Cunard have tried a new system this time of requiring kennels to be requested from the customer centre when booking the cabin, then they come back at the end of the week with the good or bad news. This is, I think, just for the first week that bookings are open, and replaces the old system where you had to contact the kennels afterwards, with the booking number, and they then told you yes or no straight away. I was relatively relaxed as I booked within the first 45 minutes, but for those booking later it must have been nerve wracking and from the figures a bunch of eastbound passengers have found themselves on the waitlist already, in some cases quite a long one. Plus I received four notification emails from Cunard for each of my bookings and had to read them all and check each attachment, just to make sure they all said the same. Cunard admin at work, I guess?