ballroom-cruisers

Quick answer about dance hosts on this voyage. There is a couple who are official dance hosts, and they do indeed have badges, and have been dancing with anyone who needs a partner. Dancing has been fabulous and the Orchestra are superb musicians in the Queens Room, playing great music for dancing, including a wonderful Big Band night last night. It's a glorious pleasant day today with lots of people relaxng on deck as we sail towards Barcelona. Great on the blog and pics, HH.

The way all travel insurers work is that they work out the risk of a particular medical condition and calculate the chance of needing help that costs various amounts. In the case of Saga the insurance is included in the cost of the fare so not really 'free'. If you already have a travel policy with a different insurer (or a Saga annual travel policy) then you don't need to pay for the included insurance. But whichever your insurer is, they will always require you to declare your medical conditions - and they will have had their actuaries calculate whether the likely cost of needing to help a policy holder is a high enough risk that they need to require additional premium. They will do that for each medical condition. Also every insurer will say your policy is invalid if you haven't declared all medical conditions so you have to declare them. They will then tell you whether the particular conditions you have would be included at the standard premium, or if they require you to pay extra to be covered. In general Saga are pretty good and their insurance policies are well thought out. If you have a condition that is low risk of leading to a problem during the period of your voyage then it is likely they will cover you with no additional premium. Clearly some conditions have a significant chance of becoming unwell at the level of needing hospital emergency treatment and possible helicopter evacuation during a few weeks of a voyage, and in that situation there is a strong chance that an insurance company would require an elevated premium, and for some conditions the risk is so high that insurers would not cover them at any cost. Anyone with such a condition would then be subject to major costs if they needed expensive medical care whilst on holiday. Either way the only way to answer the question is to talk to the insurer directly and ask them if they will cover the conditions you have, and at what cost, in the circumstances they are stable and under control with whatever medication is being taken. Usually if you are awaiting test results that complicates the insurance situation, and often the outcome would be needed before the insurer would cover you. It would be much the same whichever insurance company is approached.

It is nice you have gathered the data and made it into a neat spreadsheet for the community to refer to. I have used it already to check if we will be likely to get a half decent signal!

QM2 is currently enjoying a tour of Norway and the fjords. It is surprisingly quiet on CC with nobody posting anything from that voyage. Is it all going so nicely that passengers are enjoying themselves 24/7 and don't have time to post here!

Oh and having ballroom dance classes during the day is also useful - and with those only on sea days then nothing is missed if you go ashore on port days.

That sounds very encouraging for those on board. From the pictures the space available on the floor is not bad by cruise dance floor standards. We are Cunard regulars for years but are encouraged by what we have seen on this forum with the way Saga operates their cruises - for us the ballroom dancing is a key part of holidays. For dance couples who can move fluidly within the available space between other couples on the floor, then even a modest sized floor can be a pleasure to dance on. If there are solo dancers who need a partner then having the dance instructors available to be a partner gives solo dancers the opportunity to do some dancing too - which is lovely by the sound of it.

OK presume the music was pop though even some pop music is fine for various ballroom and Latin dances. We are anticipating going on SoA next year and we are trying to find out how much dancing we may be able to do. There are also some well known songs, not strictly pop - which are great for some ballroom - for example there is a lovely version of Adele's Skyfall that is a wonderful waltz. There are quite a few pop songs, particularly from some time back which are good jives and cha chas. Some are nice rumbas too. So it all depends what the range of songs they play are. I wonder if there is a band playing and they realise people would like to dance that they might adapt the music to give those who want to dance more opportunity - and equally if there is a good DJ who knows his/her music the same might apply to recorded music.

By 'modern' manner did you mean disco dancing rather than ballroom/Latin?

Thanks - was there enough time to complete the pre-dinner dance session before the start of dinner? Also were there other sessions after dinner in the evening when ballroom/Latin dancing is done as well? For example before or after any shows in Britannia Lounge?

If anyone does reply, can you also give an idea how much time on a typical evening there is social ballroom dancing on SoA/SoD please, and what time the social dancing to either recorded or live music in Britannia Lounge? Thanks.

I thought most of us look just as good as those models in the picture - at least in our own eyes!

What's so difficult understanding the phrase 'smart attire'?

There word 'casual' is not in the dress code, so why is it brought back so many times in posts?

It would seem to me that whatever the fine details on the wording of the dress code the majority of people on the voyages I have been on, no matter which of the three ships, dress up rather than down including on 'smart attire' evenings. Very few men were not wearing jackets to dinner, and very few ladies were not wearing pretty smart outfits, whether smart separates or dresses and often very evening-out styling. Perhaps I have just been lucky on the particular voyages I happen to have been on the past year or so. Nevertheless there will always be a few who wish to diverge from what the majority generally wear on the non-Gala evenings, and certainly Gala evenings have seen almost everyone dressing elegantly and making it quite an occasion on the cruises I have been fortunate to enjoy. Perhaps a significant fraction of passengers are not even aware of the long running discussions on this forum, and others, about the dress code and how it should be interpreted!

It is certainly not nice getting Covid, and even more so if it is the second time, especially when on holiday. But one positive is that if you are unlucky enough to get it, then at least most people will be very unlikely to get it again within several months, so once you are just over a bout it is a good time to go on holiday again!

Yes indeed, foodsvcmgr, and perhaps not even then.

Excellent, Mercruiser, and yes from the pictures I have seen elsewhere the ones in your photo do indeed look like others I have seen for Starlink - though the design may well be continuing to change and get optimised of course. But that is very promising and indeed once the antennas are in place, and the cabling from them to wherever within the ship the main networking kit is installed then turning it on should be quite quick. It will be very interesting to hear whether people have access from the next voyage once QM2 gets back to Southampton.

It should be way better for sure - though the performance any one passenger sees on their phone or tablet will depend on how many other people are trying to use the internet at the same time - after all if 2000 people all want to get 90Mbps at the same time that would need a connection speed of 200Gbps which I am pretty sure is not available from Starlink! So the real performance in speed will depend on only a small fraction of passengers trying to use the internet at any one time. Dare I say it but this may be one reason that a fast internet service might cost more so not everyone will use it?

Is that on QM2 and are they working on the installation during the voyage? I guess once the antennas are installed on the upper deck area, all the rest of the work is under cover within the ship once the cabling from the antennas is linked in to the central networking hardware in wherever the comms centre is on the ship. It is possible that the rest of the network cabling throughout the ship is being left as it is, with the only difference being the external router is feeding signal from Starlink rather than from the box that was connected to the original satellite antenna(s)? At some point improving the (many) wireless routers around the ship so that better wifi is fed to cabins and public areas may be on the cards, but unless a discussion is held with the engineers who are actually doing the install, or the managers who are directly involved with the decisions, then it will remain supposition and speculation!

Certainly some English hosts we know will be on board some QM2 voyages coming up this summer, but I don't know what the central policy is on numbers, and whether there is any co-ordination between the British and American host recruiting agencies. and whether they are managed centrally by Cunard, or not.

Covid will be present at some low level in the human population into the future, and never be zero. So all we can do is hope that we as individuals don't get it too many times in the future, and especially on a cruise. When case rates are really low, as they appear to be at the moment, additional protocols like mask wearing and distancing have a limited effect in bringing about a change - but if case rates rise and there is clear transmission leading to too many cases then temporarily bringing in more stringent measures makes sense - it seems Cunard is keeping that option open to bring in if and when the situation warrants it. However it also seems that case rates have generally remained pretty low, and most people aren't even aware when a few others have come down with it on a voyage, in recent times.

I suppose at the end of the day speeds like those are workable even if a 'bit' slower than typical on land, and the longer latency we can live with. It is really the inconsistency that bothers us, in not knowing whether you would have a signal at all when we want to send an email or WhatsApp message, or whether you might be bumped off the connection in the middle of doing something. Consistency (as well as latency) is what is likely to be significantly better with Starlink. Does anyone have any current information from Cunard directly about whether and when Starlink is scheduled to be installed on the current three ships? Also will Queen Anne have Starlink already operational when she goes on her maiden voyage?

Interesting - I wonder if the limited number of dance hosts is because that is all that Cunard wishes to have, or if they are struggling to persuade dance hosts to take on the role?

Aside from noticing there were no flambee dishes being cooked at the table, did you actually ask the maitre'd if they would do one for you if you would like one? Or did you ask and were declined? Of course with the huge cash burn that Cunard and all the other lines endured during lockdown it is not surprising that there is a management thrust to save money - after all cruise lines, like all businesses need to make a positive return after several tough years. However let's see if your experience is repeated by the majority or if you just had an unlucky few weeks. I do agree though that the Silent Disco is a ridiculous joke and I can't imagine ever wanting to participate, and our friends are of the same view!

I do think that sometimes a single review may not reflect what always happens on a regular basis. There are always risks that supplies may vary in quality over time. We were on QV around the start of this month, and I must freely admit that the food quality in Britannia Dining Room was excellent, and way better than it was last year on the same ship. The steak, venison and duck entrees were superb, both in the quality and tenderness of the meat, as well as how they were cooked, and pretty much faultless. Equally some of the desserts and starters were excellent would have been highly regarded at some of the best fine dining establishments on land. So perhaps the post above on the reduced quality of food was an unlucky couple of weeks on a particular voyage. One evening my favourite dessert - lemon souffle - was perfect with the exquisite spearing of the top with a knife by our waiter, and the pouring in of the lemon sauce to gently 'lift' the light and fluffy and warm interior ready to gently slide the spoon in and enjoy eating it was about as good as a dessert can be. So for that voyage the food was wonderful. Hopefully there are more voyages with a corresponding passenger dinner experience as we had and that voyages where it was bad are a minority.