MrsPeel55

We were in a balcony cabin so no machine, actually we thought the instant provided was nice, but only had coffee a couple of times, we did use the kettle a lot for my night time teas, I always carry Camomile and a South American one called bold in tea bags, for the coffee, we had same thought as you @Victoria2 that would have been great to have fresh milk, we didn't think about @Pushpit 's option to grab from Lido, I think that was because we were a way away from the dinning on the 6th deck, but were told we could ask room service if we wanted fresh milk.... @techteach some of my friends laughed at the fact that I always travel with some tape, glad to know I'\m not alone!!! and never without safety pins! Gonna start thinking about what we will need for Christmas 2024 on board Queen Victoria again, have spent Christmas on the beach many times but never at sea.... for what I hear and read, I'm so exited!!!

Hi, I don't know about Oceania, but (as you asked for other lines wheelchair friendly) we were at Cunard's Queen Victoria in the 1st/2nd week of September and my daughter was surprised of how marvellous the access was all over the sip. Not just the physical access, but both crew and most of the passengers are fabulous and will help you out. We don't like big vessels. I think Queen Victoria is under 2000) we felt great and had the most wonderful time. Also we saw a lot of people with mobility impairments having a great time too, not just wheels hairs but walkers and other mobility aids. The boarding and disembark were made a breath of fresh air by their system and crew

so sorry to hear..... 😞

@Winifred 22 oh yes, I am sure I will love every minute!!! I'm waiting at the moment to see if my daughter will be able to get the time off 2024, if she can't (which I am not sure but she is getting 2 weeks off in February and then our Christmas sailing is 12 days but we will go a couple of days before to stay in Southampton before sailing, which will make it another 2 weeks and we surely will do something in summer) I will do it solo... I don't think I can wait until 2025! and also, yes, I know we are lucky we are in a wonderful part in London, we are near a lot of amazing stores, but secluded from the traffic and noise, tons of green around, very residential, I don't think I would have stayed in London after my daughter graduated if we were still in the previous place, where my daughter was born 🙂

We have a Fortnum & Mason near us in St Pancras International, love them in general, but after I tried their loose leaf green tea with lemon, I could not go back to any other brand.... I turned into a big fan of marmalades when I came to England, these days after years of my mother in law's teachings, we make our own, but nothing beats having tea @ their Jermyn St, we used to go regularly to Piccadilly for dinner too, not so much now that I'm not driving... We are lucky enough to have a M&S food store less than 5 minutes walk I can send my daughter to, so we do shop for food with them.... the price different now that supermarkets are so expensive in London (unless you can get to Aldi or Lidl), is not as steep as it was when my daughter was in primary school, but we still only bought fruit & veg from them for years, so well worth it. They have a food restaurant at one of the hospitals I go to, they don't have table service but I'm rarely alone as the wheelchair is not self propelled, they would help me brining food & drink to the table if If 'm in crutches.... can't be compared with Fortnum & Mason but it does help feeling better about spending almost 16 hours in hospital.... 🙂

yes to this. I posted asking before we sailed in September and was amazed with the amount of wonderful things to do in Southampton, we were gonna stay a couple of days but decided to do it next cruise so we could book things a bit more in advance to make it a bit cheaper (especially hotel booking) I want to do Transatlantic because to me, cruising is about the ship, being 7 days at sea is the closest idea of holiday heaven to my daughter too, especially with Cunard. I'm looking to book QM2 TA but this maybe for 2025 if I want to do it with my daughter, who also cannot be away for too long, may go for B2B if I go on my own. Have a great time!

We too had an amazing time sailing 7 nights QV in September as first time Cunarders, amazing to the point that not only we booked another slightly longer sailing for Christmas next year but are also looking to see if we can book another cruise for April, May or beginning of June next year with Cunard too. I keep seeing VERY cheap cruises for what is left of this year and January & February plus some summer 24 much cheaper than the Cunard ones BUT...all of them are in the huge cruise ships which are most definitely not what we like, especially now that we have tried Cunard... even though we were not in the Grills, just a balcony cabin that we were able to choose ourselves, we did not encounter any of the negatives I had read about in the boards before sailing or after.... I may agree with some stuff, but it isn't enough to make me feel negative. To us the Cunard experience was marvellous, and, even though I can see the cuts affect every industry, overall I can say that the only negative thing was me getting Covid in the end of the trip, but even that I count as a positive as we were able to enjoy every minute of the whole week, I didn't feel unwell until the very last night on board, still didn't have temperature until late at night the day we arrived home, we got a private car service to get us home in London (I will be eternally grateful to these boards for enlighten me on the benefits of using this kind of service!) way before 13:00 hs, so, still in love with Cunard and QV and, health and financials providing, will sail many more times with the line. 🙂 also @QuestionEverything were you in this same cruise? Most of people I hear or read talking about not just Cunard but all cruise lines are seeing the cuts but 98% think the good outnumbers the bad....? Also, we love land holidays too, but I wouldn't compare to the point of doing it instead of a cruise...the cruising to us is the ship experience much, much more than the ports, maybe because of my age and health and the kind of travel we have done since my daughter was very young, a short day in a port can be a delight, but FOR US (this is very much a personal opinion) the way we love knowing a city, a cruising Port stop is kind of a sample to see if we would like to come back there on land holiday, have at least 4 or 5 days to get to experience local cuisine, history and architecture and all the discoveries, little adventures one can have...one can most definitely not compare cruising with land holidays......

So I came here curious after finding an offer from Fred.Olsen for this November coming, same itinerary as the one we have booked with Cunard for 2024, but less than half of the price (even much less if you consider all drinks are included in the FO one). I thought the boards would give me at least some info on the line, as so many people here have been instrumental in making our sailing with Cunard in September a much better experience, you, @Pushpit , being one of the main fabulous info people, what a delightful surprise to find in the very first posts this amazing one from you, this is almost as if I had ask for the comparison between lines! Thanks so much for this! I think we can see ourselves going for the MV Balmoral, but decided to keep our Cunard booking and keep looking for a Fred.Olsen offer for April/May next year, will keep an eye on their site nearer the time, as, as you well point out, one can get very good prices nearer the sailing date. Thanks again!!!

? I thought it was clear from day one that this was precisely the reason we like you so much? we ourselves are pretty ordinary people, don't think I have ever spoke/typed anything that suggested we are not...... maybe is me being a bloody foreigner LOL even after 35 years sometimes I have to think a few times to put together sentences proper meaning when I can't see people speaking, facial expression and tones of voice get lost online. anyway, never mind.

thanks for this, gonna try get to the 05th December one 🙂

@Pushpit thank you. Yes, this is what we have been doing. We got friendly with some people who had different drinks packages, one of them had the Premium Soft Drinks one. My daughter said we should look into that because we did order a huge amount of Coke, cappuccinos, hot chocolates, Indian tonic, fruit juice, etc. We just finished unpacking and our living room is full of different piles of clothes for laundry and some to go to Dry Cleaners. I just finished yesterday putting together the paper work from the trip. Next step is making the calculations of how much we spent on non alcoholic drinks, we were gonna do this later, but seeing this I think it will be the next step. You maybe right, so, yes, will carefully make calculations. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that our final bill was considerably lower than I thought it would be, as every lunch and dinner saw me in an extremely happy ability to enjoy wonderful wines!!!! @Victoria2 my daughter says hi and she hopes we one day we cross path on board Queen Victoria!!!! ❤️

thank you!!!!!!!!!! ❤️

@shippmates thank you. We are looking into booking at least one other sailing before the one that is booked for Christmas 24... fell in love with Queen Vic tore and the whole Conrad experience! @SilverHengroen thanks.... I only started looking into other companies after talking to some non Cunard friends and after I joined Cruise Critic, so differences between lines offerings and passengers types, etc is something I'm not well informed. So sad that QA's has given so little importance to the library.... @Host Hattie thanks, you got a very loud laugh from my daughter here! - a positive thing, I should add 🙂

welcome to Cunard. We just did our first on board Queen Victoria , came back home Friday 15th, couldn't be happier, and I totally get the using "voyage" instead of cruise!... I'm sure you will love your sailing! Also, Cruise Critic Community made our whole trip be more than perfect, these guys are knowledgeable and willing to share info that made a world of difference to us! ❤️

Thanks @bluemarble for that info. I haven't read the whole thread, but within my foggy brain I have a question: When I log in to my account looking at our QV Dec 2024 sailing, it gives me the prices bluemarble shows us above. We decided to go for the Premium Soft Drinks as I can't drink much alcohol, we did find the prices of bottles of wine we bought for lunch and dinner and the cocktails very reasonable, but when we were looking at the booking yesterday, first thing that comes up is inviting us to book the drinks package. We thought there is still over a year for this cruise, let's leave to pay when we are close to sailing..... now after something I read here, got a question: (once again, apologies if I miss the answer already there, not having a good day with my health today) Does paying the Premium Soft Drinks now (for our Xmas 2024 sailing) means if the price goes up in the future we wont have to pay the increase?

do we need to worry that they may want to do same in their Cunard vessels? I found the Cruise Mummy site/blog after someone posted a link here, I thought in the beginning that was a good source of info, a young woman in the UK.... but fast I realised it isn't fit for what I am looking for (she is a young mum of young children, enjoys the mega ships...nothing wrong with that, just not my style or my daughter's) I didn't unsubscribe from the emails because I had caught a couple of articles that were of general interest for any cruiser, when it does not interest me I just delete. Now this one just arrived in my inbox.... I'm quiet sure in this instance it is just their Carnival Line they are talking about... but it really got the seed of a doubt growing in my mind. The Library was one of the features I loved even way before I had the experience of sailing on Queen Victoria...and my love grew hugely after I walked in that beautiful room with that amazing staircase, elegant decor and some wonderful people sitting there reading..... I also have heard QM2's library is something fabulous... I know the worries about dress code changing is of great important to some, I personally would LOVE Cunard sticking to a strict dress code and can say that was one of the main reasons we went for Cunard, but seeing a few people not going along with it does not bother me as much as the closing of a library would..... Do you think there is a risk they would want to do away with Cunard's vessels libraries too?

my daughter on our gala Night last week on. Queen V. (not quite Audrey as she is very curvy, but the black dress & pearls are the most gorgeous options indeed!)

I'm cheating a bit as this is a sunset, our very first on board of Queen Victoria, leaving Civitavecchia, September 08th.

OHHHHHHH the Greek Islands!!!!!!!! doubt we will be able to join you this time, but am of to look at the itinerary to add to our list!!!!!!! would love to meet you on board one day!!!!! your blog is inspiring!!!!

there are obviously many different kind of cruisers..... We also dislike the fly cruises, the only reason we booked far in time for our next was that we could not get anything south-SOUTH before December 2024 Queen Vic. I think I did mention when I first landed here that for us the cruise is the sea days....we are with @Victoria2 , the experience is the ship, being at sea....the ports may be a good point of reference to later do a few days land holiday... we looked at Marella at some point, some friends said the prices were convenient, but when we discovered they had everyday ports..... most definitely not for us! Having said that, I do understand you guys wanting different itineraries.... Maybe they will get a bit more creative after they recover from the pandemic loses?

❤️❤️❤️

I have to say... we most definitely had at least 85% of people dressed to the nines, but if percentage was different...... I would not waste my time worrying about the jeans or the ones not dressed accordingly. I know you talk about QM2, I can only speak for our experience, Queen Victoria is a marvellous ship with so much to look at and fill your heart with happiness, one is treated like Royalty.... why bother with the ones who are not following the dress code? If Cunard is willing to overlook in order to make up for the looses of the pandemic and keep the ships available... they wont worry reading even if one floods social media with complaints. I doubt very much that Cunard can turn into a less elegant, marvellous experience just because people are not dressing up, We enjoyed shopping pre cruise, packing some outfits I had not been able to wear in YEARS, enjoyed dressing up getting ready for lunch and dinner, booked the salon to do our hair, fascinated with the marvellous elegance in the main dining room, the couples dancing in the Queens Room, our last afternoon enjoyed the Tea experience (and everyone was amazingly dressed up!)..... honestly, why wasting time with negativity when there is so much positivity?

oh God bless you guys with all the best info!!!!!! So I presented all your wonderful suggestions, she turned up with a very (very!) convincing argument for not doing winter, plus showed me a number of options Cunard has for late May- early June or early September , once I get down to 2 or 3 options, will come to get your opinions!!!! One thing is clear, we are not gonna be able to wait until December 2024, we are IN NEED to go back to feel like real queens before our booking! Also getting some friends who want to experience Cunard after the communication we had through the week, 3 friends already booked to go to our Christmas 2024 sailing with us!

We went too Brussels when she was 11, 5 days wit the idea of spending a day in Bruges, but were so marvelled with the city we decided to make Bruges a destination for another trip, but never happened. We had a Belgo restaurant in Chalk Farm Road (across the road from Stables Market) use to go often until they closed down I think in 2018..... I think I maybe able to convince her with more food options LOL She is half way convinced as would be back in Queen Victoria! @rakkor love your blog, gorgeous photos too, she started reading last night, maybe that will help too! Will keep you updated!

Thank you all once again! I'm still a bit achey but 2 days without temperature, so all is well and we are still basking on the marvel that was the sailing! I found an itinerary that could help us pass the time until our next booking which is in over a year.... there is a Rotterdam & Bruges this Christmas ...... now I need convincing arguments to get my daughter to think that could be a great trip.... she wants to do it but in either early or late summer..... will come back with some more thoughts when I can type better 🙂