ShipboardSteve

In Bright Lights Society for late night disco if there are three couples on the floor you have a chance to move two or three steps in one direction or the other but not to or from the tiny stage. Any more people than that and all you can do is more or less stand in one spot and wiggle to the music so it is way smaller than the Yacht Club floor. The floor in the Queens Room is an unusual crescent shape, but it is fine for ballroom and Latin dancing, provided you are there at those times when they play decent appropriate music. The problem is they won't announce any specific dance, so all 'styles' are welcome - so if you want to do a waltz or foxtrot you have to negotiate a bunch of people doing Night Club Two-step, modern jive, general disco dancing, and a few trying to move around with waltz or foxtrot - Latin is a little easier unless the floor is very packed. So you can dance but takes a bit more effort than on the other Cunard ships.

HH or Myles, do you know the names of the two ballroom dance instructors, please. Usually that would be printed on the daily programme, but I didn't see that on the copies you posted. Thanks.

From what I have seen and experience on many Cunard voyages over quite a number of years, and including this year, is that the majority of people on Cunard cruises know what smart attire means, and know what is appropriate for a Gala night in terms of dress too. But a small minority are intent on trying to push the limits to try to test whether they can wear the more casual end of smart they can get away with, and try to spoil the overall intent that most people enjoy dressing well to make for a nice atmosphere among like-minded passengers. As such that is a shame because it remains the case that most people do enjoy dressing up for evenings beyond the 'anything goes' casual during the day on holiday.

Does anyone know why the Cunard Feefo reviews stopped being updated about two months ago? More recent reviews would be useful to read for anyone planning on booking with Cunard.

I suppose people on board must be enjoying themselves so much they have no time to post comments here. I had thought that out of almost 3000 passengers on board, a few more may have posted about the current voyage. It seems out of character after so much has been posted from all the voyages up to now. Or perhaps the new group of QA passengers aren't on CC as much as in the past?

Can anyone on board at the moment comment on how this voyage is going? There seems to have been very few posts about this cruise, which is unusual given how much has been posted on every voyage until now. How is the dining, the entertainment, the first, and now second, port of call?

I think it is when you do the online check-in process - which becomes 'live' 21 days before embarkation. It is part of the preparatory stuff that culminates in the boarding passes being available to download.

Perhaps it is all due to cost saving since you only have to paint one line for the legs instead of two!

Cunard should employ you as "one's" MD support agent!

A Wudu facility is a special 'cleansing' room before going to pray! Perhaps this was essential in the modern world of passenger flights!!

Now if only they could hand out those over ear sound muffs for those who want to watch and enjoy the loud sounds of the events on the screen and leave those who prefer a quieter atmosphere some peace - or even have quiet music as an option instead of the football or tennis?

The cabins that become free you are welcome to book, and enjoy the excellent service that Queen Anne offers.

I had hoped the dining would have been sorted out as a matter of highest priority by the managers. Clearly it is not, and we are now cancelling all our existing bookings on Queen Anne - when I go on a cruise I certainly don't want this kind of hassle every evening. It would totally ruin my holiday.

The QA Queens Room dance floor is not much different in area to that on QM2, but it is a very different shape and the room is not a ballroom. The way in which music is played is also very different, and the recorded music in between 'live acts and music' is deliberately managed to not be dance music.

People are not saying there is 'no' ballroom dancing, but it is becoming ever clearer that Queen Anne and Queen Victoria are driving ballroom dancing down by design and by top down management from head office, and making it less of a focus on those two ships. On QM2 and QE it seems there will still be more focus on the ballroom used for ballroom dancing a significant fraction of the time. Of course whether ballroom dancers wish to travel to those two ships if they don't generally have what may are perceived as attractive itineraries or focus on fly-cruises time will tell. Service levels are being driven down as is become more and more clear from the posts on various forums.

Maybe this is the Cunard plan for the coming year or more?

Did anyone spot that Cunard has a new wording on their FAQ about dance hosts that clearly states the difference between how things will be on the different ships? The new section is at https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/activity-types/evening/gentlemen-dance-hosts

Good to hear this. Maybe I won't cancel or transfer the cruises we have booked on Queen Anne for the next year. If things are looking up, we might go on the next one rather than cancelling it. With all the hassle, arguments, reports of poor dining service, and other issues on the new ship, I was about to make a long phone call to Cunard. A cruise is not a trivial investment for a holiday, so it has to be enjoyable or it isn't worth throwing the money away,

What could work for all categories of 'dancers' would be if there was a mix of different kinds of dance, but in separate slots for different genres of music - for example, play a disco song and announce it is for any kind of dance people want to do, but then next song is specific, such as a foxtrot, waltz or rumba, because to dance a foxtrot you need space, with couples moving in a good flow anti-clockwise around the floor - that way beginners as well as experienced couples can share the floor, not necessarily at the same time, and everyone who knows the foxtrot can enjoy the foxtrot, and passengers who enjoy watching trained dance couples can enjoy seeing them - experienced dancers feel exhilarated when they can move without hindrance, and it has nothing to do with showing off - it simply feels wonderful when the body can move to the music in a very easy way according to the movements that the dance requires, and whilst doing so couples can easily flow around and between less experienced couples. After that perhaps another disco song with all flavours of dancing again. Clearly on a packed floor when people are enjoying dancing, the experienced ballroom dancers can't easily do a foxtrot - but if each kind of dancer has some time to enjoy their style of dancing then everyone could be happy? However making every song an opportunity for any and all kinds of dance means only those who can move around in a small space on a crowded floor can enjoy themselves. Some Latin dances don't need much space, but even then experienced Latin dancers will move around a bigger area of floor if it isn't busy but restrict themselves to figures that don't move much if it is a densely packed floor. So there is a way to satisfy both disco dancers as well as ballroom and Latin dancers by announcing different dances to the different kinds of music, if the understanding and the will to do it was there, in the way the managers are able to think and then run the Queens Room accordingly. Having no announcements which which dance the song is for, at all, means it is indeed a free-for-all, and clearly experienced trained ballroom and Latin dancers will lose out in that way of running the Queens Room. But perhaps the loss of the relatively small number of passengers who do enjoy utilising their trained bodies in dancing is not important to Cunard now, and particularly for Queen Anne? That is a shame as with a little thought and planning all passengers could be happy with at least some time on an evening to do what they like in the way of dancing.

This situation appeared to be how the management wished to run the ballroom dancing on Queen Anne, and from discussions with staff it was expected that ballroom dancing would be downplayed further on the new ship over the course of the year, but it was suggested that this would not be extended to the other three ships. It is sad to hear that this seem to have happened on QM2 also.

Actually no - having been on both P&O and Cunard in the past few months, my experience was that on Formal evenings on P&O, the adherence to dress code and the kind of suits and ties for men, and dresses for ladies, during the evening. was not too much different to Gala 'evenings' on Queen Anne. Many might think that would not be the case. But certainly Cunard was no more formal or extravagant than P&O on those voyages I have been on. The younger (30s and 40s) passengers on P&O seemed to revel in being nicely dressed for those evenings and were looking delighted at meals in the main dining room, including those with young kids, who also looked lovely in their formal wear.

OK - I will give you an example - which may seem surprising to some - I was recently on a P&O voyage where in the Crow's Nest one evening a man wearing shorts came in with his youngish son to join some friends for a chat and drink. He was politely told that wearing shorts (in the P&O equivalent of the Commodore Club) was not permitted, and asked him change to the required type of trouser if he wished to stay. So the two left to get appropriately dressed. Si it does happen but not seen on Cunard ships in recent time. So I am not reporting second hand stories, which could be construed as non-facts.

It is clear that other lines are already reaping the benefit of once pure Cunarders now booking with lines where dress codes are adhered to, where there is happiness among both crew and passengers, and where more traditional cruise passengers are happy to be party to a set of codes that others around them value the same way. This is clearly now a loss to Cunard. Yes, there are newcomers to Cunard - but whether they book repeatedly and remain loyal Cunard passengers will be interesting to see over time. As has been mentioned there are people across all ages who value being able to dress up nicely for the evening - and there are those who want to not do so whatever holiday they are on. However some of the stories posted in this forum as well as on the many groups on other social media are a very big negative for the large number of people who do like tradition (of all demographics). Whether Cunard will come to see that their change in policy will be a drag on their revenue, or not, will be in the financial returns for the future years. Cost cutting eventually leads to a product that is so undesirable that the resulting loss of customers can sink a company.

This appeared in one of the main news media in the UK a short time ago from Barcelona quoting local newspaper: " El Pais newspaper: "We are going to propose... substantially increasing the tax for stopover cruise passengers. "In the case of stopover cruise passengers (less than 12 hours) there is intensive use of public space without any benefit for the city and a feeling of occupation and saturation. We want to have tourism that is respectful of the destination."

I am sure we have all seen the various news stories about changes to welcoming cruises in various locations in recent months - Alaska restricting the number of cruise ships and passengers, the changes to limit cruise ships in Venice, the new Spanish anti-tourist and anti-cruise protests, the news today that the tax on cruise passengers in Barcelona will rise substantially, and the protests in the Canary Islands, as well as restrictions in Amsterdam. All this may lead to changes in cruise itineraries for Cunard in the near future and I wonder what impact it will have on choice of voyages? Itineraries two years away are published, and many have booked for 2026. All this will no doubt lead to careful thinking about the cruises we book, and those we don't. Have these changes affected other forum members in their choices?