ballroom-cruisers

It was a brilliant voyage, fabulous Coronation celebrations, amazing good weather, fabulous food, great dancing in the Queens Room, and a wonderful atmosphere with pretty much everyone dressing up for the Gala nights. Superb and shame to be going home.

Actually the Cunard web page for this new cruise looks much more like it is really pushing the formality and the splendor of the Gala evenings and dancing as well as the glorious dining...

Whatever the opinions posted in this forum I'll take a bet that every stateroom on the new special Coronation cruise will be sold within a very short time after release to sale. The lucky people who get to go on that voyage will likely have a fabulous time and many will want to book future cruises with Cunard. So good marketing ploy by Cunard.

Not on sale till tomorrow but pre-registration will presumably get in the queue ahead of those not pre-registered.

I am quite sure that Cunard will do everything in its power to try to make sure cancellations do not become the 'norm' - if they did then it would be better to sell the ship or scrap it. After all ships have been operating that are quite a bit older than QM2 without frequent cancellations or significant loss of operational time. We all know that there is nothing any of us do that is zero risk of a problem - we plan holidays, and activities as part of normal life knowing that there is always some probability that is non-zero there will be a problem or issue - same when driving your car to the stores - you could have a flat tyre, or the engine could fail at any time - but normally those things don't happen and most of the time things are fine - same with a cruise ship.

I would take a bet that the TA that would have been taking place during the dates of the Coronation weekend would have already had in place special Coronation related activities and events on board, and organised well before the current period. It is quite possible that the newly advertised voyage is a replacement for what would already have been a fabulous special cruise, and some of the pre-arranged happenings will now be on the new Southampton to Liverpool voyage instead. Those who are lucky enough to get a stateroom on this new cruise will no doubt have a glorious trip and I bet the crew will enjoy it as much as the passengers. I would go if I could too.

It looks to me like Cunard are doing their utmost to get the ship operational in the shortest time consistent with the necessary repairs, and also going the extra mile to offer a lovely Coronation voyage at a price that is a generous giveaway. They could not do more for passengers in the circumstances and they should be lauded for making this all happen when the circumstances that led to the cancellation of the two TAs was not within their control. Everyone who books a holiday of any kind would know it is not risk free - and indeed walking down the road to post a letter is also not risk free. We should make the most of the positive things we have and not dwell incessantly on the negatives.

There was a post about 7 hours ago that was entered by Cunardline on the same public social media system that Mercruiser quoted from - which said in answer to a customer question, "currently the only impacted sailings are M310, M310A, M311 & M311A. All impacted guests will be contacted directly of any necessary changes." - so this is more or less the same information as Mercruiser posted - with the additional word 'currently'.

Fine for USA... Not for UK

I am sure we all hope that the post with a statement coming direct from Cunard staff as posted by Mercruiser is reliable, where the chatter over dinner with a friend working at Carnival House may still be staff speculation as opposed to a full engineering assessment by the engineers involved. After all if Cunard staff have 'confirmed', effectively 'in writing' that a particular voyage is definitively not going to be impacted by the current 'technical fault', and it turns out that it is affected, then Cunard would be liable for more than it bargained for. So let's hope an official statement will be forthcoming before too long.

Since you have said this, I am sure there will be a lot of people concerned that this is definitive, and is not rumour and has a reliable source from the ship's company, or Cunard engineers, for that information. If this is indeed the case then people who are booked on any voyage that could be cancelled in the next month or more on QM2 will want to know as early as possible so that they can make arrangements to find alternative holidays. So this needs to be confirmed or denied as soon as possible.

There is a video on Y**Tube showing QM2 at her berth with a constant banging noise around the middle of today, so presumably repairs are well under way now. However it is surprising that Cunard haven't said what the fault is - after all now that everyone knows she is being repaired to fix a major technical fault, one would have thought keeping secret what is actually being repaired would be pointless?

I imagine that, as usual, it will just be a minority who wish to not follow the majority of others in dressing to make the evenings an occasion. Even if Cunard no longer wishes to make it a strict formality, most people want to enjoy making it exactly that. Then it won't need Cunard to enforce the rules, but there will be a few who want not to be part of something special when it comes to how they dress in the evenings, formal or not! I have noticed a subtle change in the advertising emails from Cunard, where they are bringing back mention of Gala evenings with the enjoyment of dancing in the Queen's Room - something that was glaringly missing from their advertising until fairly recently. So perhaps the results of the recent questionnaires has given them a better idea of what the majority of passengers want from the voyages.

Lovely tongue-in-cheek review, roscoe39 - took me a few intakes of breath before I realised - though the ultra large font had me moving back away from the screen, as well as the content!

Useful link - thank you.

If the global climate patterns continue to give more disastrous weather, such as we have seen in so many places in recenttimes, perhaps there will be increasing likelihood that more restrictions will come in - and gradually ships, aircraft and vehicles will be designed and built to be close to zero polluting in operation. That might be better for our grandchildren in the world they inherit from us as the older generation?

This Norwegian document details the proposed plans too: https://www.sdir.no/en/shipping/vessels/environment/prevention-of-pollution-from-ships/zero-emissions-in-the-world-heritage-fjords-by-2026/ which was published in January 2023

It would be interesting to have a chat with crew on any Cunard ship to know if many were transferred/recruited from other lines within the Carnival group but outside of Cunard?

Whether it is 50% or a bit lower or higher matters not. Increasing the number of ships from 3 to 4 will of course need a significant number of new crew, across the entire range of roles from engineers, to maintenance, to dining and entertainment, and they will have to come from somewhere. So there will inevitably be upheaval at some level with a major change to the fleet. Whether or not passengers start to notice a big change in the quality of the service on board in the next year or so, on all the Cunard ships including Queen Anne, remains to be seen. Of course I would bet that Cunard managers will be making every effort to try as far as possible to maintain the high level of service that Cunard regulars will expect and is why they are prepared to continue to pay for a holiday on board that is not a cheap option, otherwise their sales may suffer - and of course in the current economic climate maintaining income will be strong focus in the company manager's minds. Cunard will need to survive financially into the future, and that means making the cruises, the ships, and the service attractive to us as passengers from every possible aspect of cruise life and the voyages they plan.

In general dance classes on cruises that are open to all tend to be aimed mainly for beginner introduction lessons to get people started in one or other of the ballroom or Latin dances. On the cruises I have been on (not yet Saga), that was always the case, but the dance teachers, if they were themselves top level such as national champions, were available by private arrangement to do private lessons for every level from beginner to top competition dancing. The dance teachers are different to dance hosts, with the latter generally being available to partner anyone who is on their own, but not tasked with any dance teaching. Perhaps someone familiar with the way it works on Saga voyages will add comments.

I had a discussion a few days ago with a Saga agent and was told that bringing back dance hosts is now being worked on, though there is not a specific date for when that will happen. Also the professional dance teachers are going to be progressively training some of the staff (presume the entertainment staff) to be able to dance ballroom and Latin to a level where they will be able to act as dance hosts too in between other duties. That will take time to achieve, but I guess over the next year or so they will have some staff who will be able to act as dance hosts, as well as experienced dancers who are not permanent staff, who might be on board for one or two voyages at a time. So during the coming year there will hopefully be more opportunities for single passengers to be able to dance in the evenings when there is ballroom and Latin music in Britannia lounge with Saga provided partners who are there to provide that opportunity.

There is a lot I like about what I have seen and heard about Saga - car from home, departure and return from UK ports, happy and superb crew across the board, nice well designed new ships, great entertainment, and lovely dining. For us having the chance to enjoy ballroom and Latin dancing in the evenings is a key element in the decision to book a particular cruise line, and of course nice itineraries are a bonus, but it is the life on board that makes the holiday special, as well as visiting nice places along the way. Lots of positive comments from your blog coverage adds to the nice anticipation of enjoying time on the same ship when we get to the time we will be on board too. Keep up the nice posts.

I enjoy following your posts - and looking forward to being on a Saga cruise next year after being loyal to another cruise line for years. Saga cruises sound gorgeous from every aspect of the way they are managed on the two new ships.

Thanks for adding some input - I did wonder why the original posts led to no more information.

People disembark from early morning through to towards the end of the morning, and embarking passengers go aboard from lunchtime onwards - in the meantime the cabin stewards do their best to get the rooms cleaned after people have left them so they are ready for the new occupants.