Wagtail adventures

I would have thought a 7 night crossing would be quite traumatic and risky for a dog of this age. Like you say perhaps a relatively shorter flight might be wiser.

Does anyone know how the guest speakers are remunerated? Is it with a free cruise? If so in which cabin grade? Or plain old-fashioned money? Or both? On our December Transatlantic one of the guest speakers was dining in the QG restaurant...

Your data point noted, however I expect Cunard have done their maths, and looked at average daily onboard spend for single occupancy vs 2 or more in a cabin. If they take into account all onboard spending: bar, drinks packages, internet, shopping, casino, speciality dining, laundry, excursions etc a couple or a family in a stateroom will on average be spending significantly more than a single traveller, hence maybe their reluctance to double up on the OBC.

We also did this same crossing, and loved it too. I didn't realise that the crossing was unusually smooth. We've booked the same crossing again for 15 Dec 24. It is such a lovely way to get to the USA, and immigration was the fastest ever. We noticed mostly other Brits. The December crossings seem to be significantly less expensive than the summer ones - around a third less. The balcony is too cold to spend much time on.

OK, thanks, understood! Looks like the servers did well out of me!

Ah sorry, that has confused me. On my QM2 voyage in December where I didn't have a drinks package, whenever I was given the receipt/bill at the bar there was an optional line for a gratuity (at my discretion, not 15%) - I assumed this would have been the same for everyone, drinks package or not.

You need to be both consistently drinking quite a bit to get value out of $75 per person per day. Assuming a beer is around $7 that would mean 10 pints of beer plus a couple of speciality coffees every single day in order for it to be better value than just purchasing as you go. If you are a wine, spirits or cocktail drinker then it may pay for itself sooner, but even so, you are going to be drinking many drinks every day in order to make it pay. I think for Queen's Grill it would be even harder to derive value, as you get free alcohol provided in your suite anyway, as well as a full bottle of champagne upon boarding. So bottom line is, how hard do you like to party? 😀

I've posted about our experience of suite 11153 on another thread but just to say here we couldn't hear any barking at all except faintly when in our bathroom.

I'm glad this has been useful. This was the view from the balcony, facing forward. I hope you enjoy your voyage as much as we did!

We booked stateroom 11153 on the 15 December 22 Transatlantic on the QM2 but were a bit worried about being disturbed by barking from the kennels which sit right above this suite. Anyway, you can hardly hear any barking at all from the suite. In the bathroom I did hear the barking faintly but it didn't bother me at all. I thought I'd mention it here as after reading some reviews from other forums we were quite concerned about being kept awake at night and could find very little information to reassure us. We actually went straight to the Purser's office when we boarded to enquire about a change of suite but there were none available. In the end we absolutely loved this stateroom. It was 'end of terrace' with its own little corridor to get to its front door, and the view felt better without the Deck 8 lifeboats so close. The QG restaurant was a matter of simply descending 4 floors from staircase D which was very close. We were also a bit concerned about the overhang which I think forms part of the deck from the deck above, however we needn't have been as we didn't find it oppressive and actually liked the greater shelter it gave. So, I'd recommend this stateroom, as probably the other 3 on Deck 11.

Returning for a 2nd Transatlantic crossing in July 24 and just booked a Q6 in this location (9008). What appealed to us was saving around £600 and also we are only partially affected by lifeboat view below us on deck 8 (it looks like they start about half way down out cabin). I am relieved to hear these suites are not that affected by movement. Close to the Commodore Club too ;)