TouchstoneFeste

1 hour ago, Windsurfboy said:

The solution to facing wall in QG , is to make it a mirrored wall , will also make room seem wider.

Ewww. One thing worse than looking at a wall is looking at me!

21 hours ago, WantedOnVoyage said:

when convincing Osman I should not be so assigned.

So Osman has indeed jumped ship to the QA?

The Archeological Museum is probably the best bet since it has a much broader collection (and yes, you could spend days there). The Acropolis Museum is well worth it, though: beautifully designed but single purpose. The top floor is a walk around of the top of the Parthenon itself. It's quite an experience, we thought.

17 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Sorry, I’m being very dim here, but why does it matter if you’ve disembarked?

I'm trying to come up with a witty answer here, but all I've got is - Sorry, my mistake. I meant "embarkation".

1 hour ago, worldtraveller99 said:

Thank you all. I guess because it's a one-off with a paper tag, being taken from a dock 10 yards to our room on the ship! I already have super leather tags on our cases for flying, but they are small and would not fit the long paper tags from Cunard. Thank you anyway, I shall let the porters staple the paper tags when we give them the cases (which also have our names on anyway in the leather tags).

Your point is well taken :) and your plan ought to work.

If you do decide to use tags, I'd recommend the plastic ones so both sides of the folded tag are visible. Makes it much easier for the crew onboard. (We had a bag misdirected to another stateroom when I fumbled the tag attachment.)

FWIW, I attach them at the hotel on the morning of disembarkation. Too much risk of an airlline tearing them off by accident.

Are folks taking a picture of the stock brokerage page with information redacted (as has been recommended in the past)?

On 4/28/2024 at 4:49 AM, shippmates said:

I seem to get behind the person who uses the Cunard app for their boarding pass, and they have to stand and scan through all their downloads to find the boarding pass.  I am old school so I print all my needed papers.  I think if you have to look for your needed documents, persons with the printed documents should be able to go ahead until they find what they need.  

For what it's worth: The US site still says

"Have your printed boarding pass ready to present as soon as you arrive, and we will show you to the nearest check-in desk."

if you dive down into "Before You Sail", "Embarkation & Disembarkation". Obviously this isn't strictly enforced. But ...

Cunard app?

12 hours ago, Korimako said:

 I did look on their website, but it seems they only do cruise-ship to cruise-ship and not on Saturdays. I need someone to take my luggage from one domestic UK address to another domestic UK address.

 

But thank you for replying so quickly.

In the US Luggage Forward just uses the regular shipping companies, UPS, FedEx, and DHL. So maybe go straight to those companies or their UK equivalents?

(LF does do pick-ups and drop-offs at domestic addresses, but you're right that their focus is on cruise lines, and they evade weekends except for meeting cruise ships.)

12 hours ago, T-2 said:

I can pick up the tickets at the station, they give you a confirmation number. 

If you pick up your tickets at the station kiosk, be sure you have the credit card you used to purchase them (I use American Express to purchase things online, but don't always carry it with me overseas because it's not as widely accepted). You can still see the agent with your confirmation number, but that can take longer (depending on how many confused tourists are ahead of you in line).

9 hours ago, John Bull said:

A website ending in .org is usually a government department.

 

Is that an Old World convention? In the U.S. .org just means "not commercial" and there's no implication it's government-related, per se. Most of the government departments use a .gov extension. (Our postal service even uses a .com).

4 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

Yes, it should be at the London-end of the train. On GWR 9-car trains that will be coaches L and K, on 5-car sets it’s D and E.  On GWR trains there is a large white sign with a ‘1’ and the words ‘First Class’ by the door on the First Class carriages.  

 

The platform train indicator sign will usually say if they are at the front or rear on the day (it will have a rolling scroll of information beneath the train indication), as will the train announcements. At some stations, and I’m afraid I’m not sure about Bath, there are ‘zones’ on the platform and so you may hear that First Class is in Zone 1, for example - the zones are indicated by numbers on the platform itself.

Very much appreciate your help (and that of @gumshoe958).

We'll be travelling from Southampton to Bath, then from Bath to London a few days later. From searching this forum, I see that first class train tickets (at least on the first leg) don't confer much of an advantage. Would that also be true for the Bath-Paddington leg? We won't have much luggage, just carry-ons. Both legs would be on weekdays - the first after disembarkation, the second probably late morning or early afternoon.

And ... embarrassing to admit, but the last time we took longer train trips around southen England, we had a lot of trouble finding the first class section, sometimes just giving up and travelling in regular seating. How are they marked?

On 4/15/2024 at 6:12 AM, exlondoner said:

I certainly would not wish to irritate a games player, but can’t recall seeing more than three tables in use simultaneously, so it might be OK to sit there.

I recall one day when all the game tables were full, but generally you are correct. I prefer the games corridor because the chairs are straight-backed, not "loungy". I've certainly moved on when the other tables start to fill up. Also makes it easy for me to wander over from time to time and place a few pieces on the jigsaw puzzle that is currently in play.

I did a quick search and see at least one tour that would take you there (and to other neolithic sites and the Italian Chapel) from Kirkwall. There are also a few taxi companies and I'm fairly sure you could contract with one for a trip to Skara Brae.

Kirkwall is a charming city with a few worthy sightseeing items and a bunch of shops that are much lest touristy than most of the places we visited. But I agree with @gnome12 that the ancient sites are far more interesting. Strange that a city tour would be offered but not the other. We selected our northern Scotland tour because it spent a day and a half in the Orkneys, so we saw both. Maybe you should ditch the city tour for a full day exploring the ancient sites?

15 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

I’d bet a lot of money on it not being in force when you arrive in June. 

While I certainly wouldn't take that bet, I'd encourage the original poster to check again later. The site is already operational for some countries, and now it's just a matter of rolling it out to new ones - in theory that could happen quickly.

4 hours ago, jfavenuex said:

I am going on a transatlantic cruise with Norwegian fjords on QM2.  In the middle of the Atlantic do you get reliable internet reception with the Cunard internet plan?  

Reception during our crossing last December was fine throughout, even mid-Atlantic. We're rather light users, however: email and some browsing.

18 hours ago, marazul said:

You should be ok. The visit is one hour, but you should be ready to end it by 4 pm if need be so you can get back to the ship by 4:30. You need a little extra time just in case. 

I think it is also self-paced? You get a device with the recorded tour, I think, so you could speed up toward the end or skip a station if you feel you're running out of time. So I'm told.

When we visited Dubrovnik, we asked the cruise director what he thought of the included tour of the city. He suggested we looked fit enough (mid 60s but mobile) to walk the circuit of the city walls and thought we might enjoy that more. Boy, did we! It's a longish walk, great views of the city and surrounding areas. Game of Thrones was also current at the time and it was fun to turn a corner and realize we were approaching the House of the Undying or the place Varys and Tyrion chatted.

On 2/28/2024 at 11:29 AM, Jim_Iain said:

Wow.. surprised that so many have not heard of Alan Cummings.   I first saw him in 1995 while living in Ireland with his Sitcom The High Life on BBC.   He was also a star in the U.S. Series The Good Wife.  

 

He is a very talented actor On the Stage, Movies and TV as well as a voice actor.

He won a few Oliviers and Tony awards (and nominated for more). Mostly for Cabaret, but also a couple other West End and Broadway shows.

4 hours ago, shay1 said:

Thank you all for taking the time to give us your opinions/advise on the best way to get to Gatwick. We will wait until we get to London to make our plans the day before we fly out to which way we will go. Probably take the Train (not the Gatwick Exp). I am looking forward to taking the train. Last time we rode the train in London was many, many years ago, we went to Hampton Court. 

Did anyone ever answer the original question? I don't know the answer, but I imagine you can order up a cab from your hotel at any hour of the day or night. (Obviously no one on this forum suggests this is the right way to go ...)

1 hour ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

It's called "London England Syndrome". According to TVTropes.com: "The name was 

Sorry, that's TVTropes.ORG.

8 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

I just love the way people in the US always state which country they're talking about if it's not in the US for example 'London, England' or 'Paris, France'! For most of the world, it wouldn't need stating.

 

 

It's called "London England Syndrome". According to TVTropes.com: "The name was coined by Bill Bryson. He discussed it in an essay in which he suggested that the stereotypically lower intelligence of Americans compared to people of other nationalities is not down to some sort of racial defect, but a result of Americans being regularly freed from any need to think, ever. This trope, he argued, is one way in which American newspaper-readers are not required to cognitively exert themselves in the same way that British newspaper-readers are."

As others have pointed out, there are a lot of US cities named after foreign ones. In my home state of Ohio, you can do an extensive tour of world capitals in one day: London, Berlin (and Bonn), Paris, Lima, Canton, Cairo, Athens, Dublin, Amsterdam, Lisbon (twice), Moscow. Plus many provincial capitals (Medina, Calcutta, etc.)

Most are ferociously mispronounced, of course. My favorite is Mantua (pronounced "man tuh way")

Greatly enjoying your reports.

1 hour ago, WantedOnVoyage said:

It's spelled respect... you respect the occasion and the venue and indeed those who work to achieve it, too.  Maybe we need the staff to wear shorts and tees on "formal nights" to make the point. And in a community which is what a ship at sea is, it is not just "your" vacation, either... it's ours.  

I now have a picture of Osman in shorts and a tee in my head, and I'll never un-see it.

48 minutes ago, buchanan101 said:

I find all this "it barely moves" stuff a bit strange. The QM2 WILL move in a rough sea. Just a

I think after a day or so people get their "sea legs" and don't notice the moderate movement over small- to medium-sized swells. On Day One I notice many passengers (including me) wobbling down the long passages; by Day Two most are navigating as well as the crew. Again, talking about moderate seas, of course.

Hence some of the "no movement" comments.