frankp01

Thanks for the additional confirmation. One of our fares is a Memorial Day sale and I'm not sure what the other one is, but it was a sale. If I were a lawyer I think there'd be a suit here. There's a bit of bait and switch.

I fully understand that. But the FCDs I've purchased recently were in January '23, and there's no mention of them not being valid on conventional sale fares. I think that's my complaint is that there's no explanation of on which fares they are, or are not, valid.

Precisely. Are they no longer valid with any sale fare? If so, there's not a whole lot of reason to invest in them. When I'm on board in December I'll have to see if I can get clarification on just which fares they're valid. Further thought: I was able to get my shareholder benefit on the December trip. But I think the only fares the shareholder benefit is not valid on is *deeply* discounted fares, like travel agent and tour conductors. I wish there were some consistency.

Let me start by saying - this is for North American bookings. I realize FCDs are a sensitive issue, but I have a question on redeeming them on a US booking. I have two QM2 bookings. We used Future Cruise Deposits on both. In neither case did we get any OBC. I called Cunard and they said it's due to the fare we booked. We have *always* booked a sale fare of some sort, and still received OBC. The fine print on the certificates says "not combinable with Last Minute Deals, Sailing Soon Savings and other fares offered inside final payment" Both bookings were made far outside of the final payment. This December's trip was booked in May and June '24 was booked in July '23. Has Cunard gotten crankier about which fares an FCD will be eligible for OBC? Has anyone else encountered this?

True. But their terms, particularly the requirement to get pre-authorization, may render the policy worthless for someone travelling alone.

The New York Times travel column just had a very unflattering column about Seven Corners.

Remember, the outlet by the bed is UK: 230 Volts / 50 Hz. If your intended use is for a CPAP, unless your north American CPAP supports multiple voltages, you would still have to plug it in to the outlet on the desk. I don't use a CPAP machine, but based on a very quick search, it appears that most do support dual voltage. If they us a 'brick', as BlueMarble indicates, if you travel in the UK extensively, rather than use an adapter you can get a replacement cord with a British plug. They come in both 'figure 8' (as illustrated here) as well as 'Clover' fittings. I bought mine at Curry's in Southampton, when I inadvertently brought the wrong cable (I need the figure 8 and I had brought a 'clover').

Me, too. That's why I made the effort on one trip, just to see what the bedside lamps were plugged into. Note: the bedside outlets on QV and QE are European, not UK!

I realize this response is several years after the question was posted, but the info might be useful. There is, in fact, a single UK outlet on either side of the bed. Unless you want to go without the bedside lamp you'll need an adapter to plug in 2 or 3 devices into the single outlet. And you need to pull the bed out a few feet to access the outlet, which is easy.

They were, last July. I like to plug my laptop in there, since I can then use the laptop's USB ports, as well as work from bed. It's not that hard to pull the bed out to get access to those outlets. All you need is an adapter that will give you 2 or 3 UK outlets in place of the 1. Which, in the States, was hard to track down. I think I bought 2 at Currys in Southampton, before boarding. I also bought a cable with a UK plug for my laptop to plug it in without using an adapter.

I'm going to assume you're British, since 'pavement' is a British-ism. However, I'm from Philadelphia, and as far as I know, it's the only region in the States that uses the term pavement, rather than sidewalk. Perhaps it dates to colonial times.

I realize that it's not the most scenic of a walk, but thanks for confirming that it can be done. I prefer to walk, when I can and there are suitable accommodations for walkers.

We did the opposite. We sailed out of New York, ending in San Francisco, where we caught the California Zephyr home. There were at least two others on the train who had the same . It was a fabulous trip.

I did a quick search on the issue. Here's a pretty good story on how much fresh water the old canal uses. https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/04/26/panama-canal-drought-threatens-one-of-the-worlds-most-important-shipping-routes#:~:text=It requires around 200 million,each ship to pass through.

We did the canal transit in January. I wish I'd written down the exact number, but each of the "old" locks use millions of gallons of fresh water from Gatun lake for each ship. The "new" locks store and recycle their water, so are much more environmentally friendly.

It's not a particularly long walk (depending upon the terminal at which she arrives). However, on our first visit to Southampton, we were *completely* lost, and you would have to allow for that.

= Pocket squares!

This was very true when the plans had you paying by the minute. It's now by the day, so the need for efficiency isn't quite as urgent.

If all those bears go with you, Roscoe, do you have to pay a child's fare for each?

I neglected to include an emoticon here! 😜

That was an interesting experience, and it further persuades me to use Cunard Air rather than frequent flier miles. We've been *very* happy with Cunard Air, so far: selecting city pairs, being able to upgrade our seats, selecting seats, etc. And the fares have been incredible. We haven't had one this low yet, but our travel agent said she had a Cunard Air fare out of Boston of $280! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Cunard reinstitutes its good deals by next year.

I suspect not, although I've never tried. You're charged for the airfare on your Cunard booking confirmation. I'm not sure how that document would be able to handle miles in lieu of currency.

In my experience, yes. I asked our travel agent for a range of dates and two departure cities. There was a significant difference in the fares, based upon the day of the week. As I recall, there were two airlines involved, depending upon the departure city. One airline was the one on which I have the most miles. It also happened to have the best fare, so that's what we ended up flying. My experience with Cunard air is that the fares have been incredibly good. That is, until today!

Thanks, @david,Mississauga I'll definitely take a look at travelling via Toronto. Surprisingly, the fare on Air Canada isn't too bad.

Thanks, thought of that too! In fact, one of the reasons we're sailing home, in the first place, is that the airfares were so high, when we looked a month or two ago. I assumed that the Cunard air add-on would be its usual bargain. With the air fares the way they are, I had considered sailing over, too. With sailing eastbound we'd have 10 days to spend in London. Two of the three of us can probably swing that much time off, but I think one might have a hard time.