frankp01

@snowballs mom Thanks for your thoughts. You're seeing fares similar to what we're seeing. Our travel agent didn't say there was an issue of having to wait to book our airfare this early. But I'm wondering if we should wait until 10 or 11 months out. That's more-or-less the deadline you quoted. When we've bought Cunard air in the past, I never paid attention to whether the fares were refundable. I do know that we didn't have to pay for the flights until the final-payment date for the cruise fare. You may have a point. I'll ask our agent to go ahead and book flights that are refundable, and keep our fingers crossed that the fares drop.

But my ultimate Precisely! Knowing that the Cunard transatlantic air fares in the past have been in the $280-350 range, I'm willing to gamble a bit. Maybe until December 2023, which would still be 5 or 6 months from the date of travel.

JetBlue has a pretty good fare. But it means having a 7 hour layover in Boston. I'll have to look into Norse. I know that TAP has a pretty good fare, if we don't mind spending some time in Portugal.

I'm ahead of you. I started with return fares. They are about the same, or $100 lower, at best. But that's the advantage of getting the air through Cunard. One way fares are (normally!) extraordinarily good.

You must be in the UK. AFAIK, cruise fares in the States have never included an air portion. That's why Cunard sells discounted add-on air tickets.

I think someone has a bit too much free time on their hands!

We have a friend in London celebrating a milestone birthday in June. It was a treat to find that the QM2's return from Southampton to NYC also fits nicely into the celebration. We booked the Cunard portion thinking that the Cunard air would be reasonable (as we have booked Cunard air several times, at a great rate, including December 2023 for $350). I just checked the air fares, booking directly with the airline. One way fares are $800 - 1200, depending upon the departure city. Youch! I emailed our travel agent to see what Cunard would offer. Double youch!😮 The Cunard fares are the same. Even our agent said "This is awful!". The agent is hypothesizing that Cunard has had some downsizing, and they may have let their air contracts lapse, as well as the staff that manage that area. I'm just curious if anyone has booked Cunard air for 2024 at this point. Are you being quoted the same high fares? I realize that we have 10 months, so hopefully things will improve.

For men: There are lots of gold or red and gold ties and pocket scarves. They take no room and weigh nothing (especially self-tie ties). If you're attending a 20s gala you can get inexpensive spats to wear over your shoes. Ours always generate lots of comments. And I have a nice silk scarf that adds a period touch.

Honestly, I don't think there's a way to predict. We've done the same December crossing 3 or 4 times (and again this December). TouchsteoneFeste quoted one summary of ours above. If the weather's bad, then it's an exciting experience, watching the waves crash up over the 3rd deck windows. If the weather's good, then you get to enjoy the promenade. They're both valid experiences, and I wouldn't let the weather dictate whether I sailed in December, or not.

The story to which I linked was from early 2022. Omny cards (and other contactless payment methods) are relatively new, and weren't mentioned in that article. I had the hardest time finding anything specifically about the SBS routes (which require payment before boarding). This article confirms that you can, in fact, pay on entry with a smart device: Bus Rapid Transit - Paying Your Fare (nyc.gov) I forgot to mention that the SBS buses have a very low floor, so it's easy lifting even big cases on board through the rear door.

Here's the catch for you, however. You have to prepay your M34 bus fare before you board. When in NY I travel with a Metro card. There's no Metro card vending machine at the 34th St terminal, just one that reads Metro cards. This story says you can pay with coins... I've never tried it, however. https://www.tracykaler.com/select-bus-service-nyc/#:~:text=SBS or as you'll,on high-traffic bus routes.

That's what the M34-SBS bus is for! A dedicated bus lane really helps with midtown traffic, and the bus drops you right at the ferry terminal.

I thought you meant by ferry to E 34th St. Transfers are included, so one fare covers red Hook to Wall St, then Wall St to E 34th.

No, it's $8 round trip

And riding the ferry is so much more pleasant than the subway.

The ferries are a lot of fun, especially when approaching the QM2 from the water. The fare recently went up, but it's still a good deal: $4 per trip, with free connections to other routes.

If starting and ending in lower Manhattan, why not use the ferry from Red Hook to Wall St, and back.

I mirrored to our cabin TV from my laptop on QV in January. I had carried onboard an HDMI cable, thinking that's what I'd use. The TV was anchored too solidly to the wall to be able to reach the HDMI input, however. That's when I switched to mirroring. And the TVs are also Samsun on the QV.

We weren't offered it, when we called the medical center to report our having tested positive. That's not to say it's not available, of course. We did bring our own, on board, and when we told the medical center that we had it they said 'Oh, good!' Our physician is normally very cautious about prescribing something for prophylaxis reasons. But he didn't blink an eye when we asked for Paxlovid to take aboard. At the time, Paxlovid was covered by our insurance. I think I had read that, when it is available onboard, Paxlovid can go for $800, so it's definitely advantageous to carry your own.

Because it takes several days for an infection to be detected by a test, testing is not foolproof. We tested ourselves almost every day, up to and including departure day. In fact, we had to present a negative test result for the day of sailing. That didn't prevent us from coming down with Covid 5 days later.

I hope he has a short, mild case. And, of course, I hope you remain negative!

> Are they offering compensation? As mentioned above, no. We were provided with letters from the Purser indicating the number of days we had to isolate. While I had medical coverage, I did not have a policy under which we could file for having to isolate. Frankly, I wouldn't expect Cunard to be responsible for compensating us. It wasn't their fault that we came down with COVID... I'm pretty certain we picked it up prior to boarding.

We were on Queen Victoria in Jan/Feb when we both developed Covid. In advance of the trip, we had been extremely cautious, but we think we picked it up the night before we boarded (in a crowded NY restaurant). Fortunately, we had come aboard fully prepared. We had 5 tests each, a course of Paxlovid each, and a medicine cabinet full of medicine: cough drops, VapoRub, Cold and Flu capsules, etc., all just in case. We both tested positive on the 6th day after boarding (we tested ourselves, because we both had very sore throats), and called the medical center to let them know. We were advised to isolate, and that we'd be tested again in 6 days. On the evening of the 5th day, we tested ourselves. Still positive! We were afraid that the test the next morning wouldn't be a good one. The nurse came to our cabin, tested us both, and said she'd call us in a few hours. Good news! We were negative and could resume normal shipboard life. We immediately ran to the restaurant for lunch! We encountered several fellow passengers who had also come down with Covid. One of them had tested positive for 11 days. On the 11th day he was released from captivity, because he was told that he wouldn't be contagious at that point, even though he still tested positive. But, 11 days in a cabin! If we had to recuperate from Covid, there could be worse places than on a cruise ship. After all, sea voyages used to be prescribed for convalescing.

I'd second the ASAP. On prior trips that tour had sold out very quickly. If I recall, it was handled by the tours/excursion desk.

We did a voyage in Jan/Feb and were concerned about staying entertained if we had to quarantine. I had 4 or 5 audio books, and probably 15-20 hours of video downloaded (Netflix, among others, lets you download files for later viewing). As it turns out, we did have to quarantine, and we were well prepared. I couldn't use the HDMI cable I'd brought along (I couldn't reach the HDMI port), but I was able to cast to the TV, fortunately