bazzaw

We are about to do our 10th Cunard cruise - having sailed with them in Australian, American and European waters. They , like most other cruise lines , serve up what I call "Western hotel food" . There was one Scandinavian cruise where they seemed to serve up a lot of pickled type herrings and raw fish at the breakfast buffet (which I enjoyed) - but for the rest of the time, I would never have been able to guess where we were in the World by the food being served. So now we are about to embark on a QE cruise around Japan and am wondering if there will be any Japanese food?? I am hoping so 😞

Yes - thank you - have done everything I needed to do now. I sympathise with those who dont have at least 10 years of Internet usage plus a Degree in Computing these days. 🙂 How do they get anything done??

Thanks everybody - yes, My Cunard is down !

Just got an email from Cunard that we now can check in online - but "My Cunard" will not let me in - booked a cruise tour in there last week - any Cunarders here who have a cruise booked can see if it is working for them please??

Just got an email saying that I can now check in online - but "My Cunard" will not accept the Booking number, etc. Was inside there only last week when I booked a shore tour.

I am starting to get a bit worried - we board QE In Tokyo on 28 March . She had better start making arrangements to sail North soon!! 🙂

I think that Cunard place a hold on funds in the Credit card that we give them details of when boarding and also think it is a daily amount. Anybody know what that is please??

All fixed now!! Could get no sense from the bank. They claim that there is no reason for the cc to have been declined - it is fully active (just bought a couple of bottles of red with it) Booking agency basically arranged for the hotel to contact me, they gave me a link to pay for the booking, my cc was declined again so I tried my wifes cc from a different bank - BINGO! went through immediately. Lesson is that all these technological wonders - Apps, online booking agencies - all work wonderfully , until they dont . Then it is almost impossible to contact them to work out what is going wrong!!!

This booking is through Booking.com - they have several means of payment but I think it depends on the requirements of the hotel. This one involved the hotel claiming payment before the date of accommodation. There seems to be no way I can get back into this booking to change it to pay either now or on the day. I did also have another hotel booked to be paid on the day - I could go back into that booking and pay it now. I don't want hickups when away !!

It's Sunday night now and I can't get any help from my bank - I tried to book and pay for a hotel room in Japan online using my CC and the hotel reported back to me that the CC had been declined. Tried again and declined again! . Now I had/have not yet advised my Bank that I am going to Japan for a period in the future but I will do so to avoid them closing down my CC when I use it while there. So I am a bit surprised that this has happened as I have purchased "stuff" from overseas online before without this problem. Any thoughts please? I will try to call the Bank tomorrow - but Banks are very reluctant to talk to customers these days trying to push you towards their Apps.

Have been to London many times - but always sailed from Southampton . Would just like to sail from Tilbury to experience going out the mouth of the Thames but getting too old to fly to Europe anymore 😞

I have always been intrigued about cruising from the London Port of Tilbury and coupled with my fondness of Pacific Dawn , I have been watching Ambience closely. I was surprised that they sent her of a WC - she is after all pretty old. Has there been any feedback anywhere about this current cruise??

I think that we all read a bit between the lines about this - Cunard use lots of weasel words (IMO) and specifically do not say "Thou shall or shall not" regarding dress. And regardless of the many opinions expressed here , they do not impose dress codes. One of my dinner companions on a "3 Queens" back to back was a wealthy Australian cattle farmer whose cattle property was about the size of Scotland - had never been out of the country, much less on ships like the 3 Queens. He was a giant of a man but a loveable giant - he did bring a suit because somebody told him that he should , but on the flight over from Australia his feet swelled forcing him to wear a dark suit with rubber thongs to the Gala nights. 🙂 The Cunard dress code doesn't mention anything about shoes 🙂

I haven't done much business with the Captain - but apart from this small glitch (which was quickly corrected) , I have been happy enough with them. I was VERY surprised to get my money back from the Captain during Covid - for a non-refundable flight with Qantas.

I live in a similar style in Austrlalia - will soon be doing my 10th Cunard cruise , this time around Japan. Most of my Cunard cruises have sailed out of Southampton and we have enjoyed the formality of the line . BUT - this time, the cruise is only 10 days long, we have been on QE six times before and we are only sailing on her again for the itinerary. I am now completely over bringing a Tux with me and I dont own a dark suit, so I will simply wear trousers and a shirt at night ( probably with a blazer jacket) and not participate in the so-called Gala nights in the MDR

What is a CFAR?

That's a beginners mistake !! 🙂

We were booked on a long QE cruise out of Yokohama in May2020 - but you know what happened then!! 😞 We also were to stay at the Intercontinental on the night before sailing and were kind of looking forward to doing the same thing as I hate "unfinished business 🙂 " - but it does seem that we will sail from the new Tokyo International. Cunard are always a bit backwards in coming forwards with info .

I does say just "Tokyo"

I needn't have panicked - apparently it is all fixed. But I could see myself having to pay some big money for it to be fixed 😞

Last time we were to join QE in Tokyo was 2020 at Yokohama ( cancelled due Covid) . Have now just booked a QE cruise for 28 March (not too far away) and need to know where it departs from so I can book a nearby hotel - any ideas please ( and please dont tell me to ask Cunard else they would already have it in my Cruise Personaliser)

Went to a shopfront TA today - and organised with them to book a cruise around Japan - plus flights to and from Brisbane. Gave her our brand new Passports with our details. She sends me texts on my phone for me to peruse and approve - and also gets me to sign the docs in many places. I am very careful that all the dates and times of flights, etc are correct. BUT - when I get home I peruse all the paperwork I have been given and find that for the cruise my wife's given names of Christine Angela are correct , but on the flights she is named as Angela Christine!! I rang them immediately and of course could not talk to here ( on lunch) but I have not heard from her as yet. I can see on the paperwork that for these flights name changes are not permitted 😞

There are two ways to cruise - the cheap way and the expensive way. The expensive way is where you know exactly what where how and when you want - and select the ship, itinerary, cabin class, cabin location etc - the less expensive way is to be an opportunist and take good things when they pop up - you can wait for them to popup in your emails , or you can be a bit more organised about it and look wider. I prefer this latter approach. Hence my search for a better search engine.

In all our many years of cruising, I have never really be able to find a satisfactory Cruise search engine - They all leave something missing . For example I might be able to tell one search engine that I am looking for a cruise from say Brisbane to Singapore but it will want me to input what month? I don't know what month because I am available during any month. Another will allow me to do a year wide search but wants to know what ship I want - I don't know what ship I want until I know what's available and when. Anybody know what is the widest ranging cruise search engine??

Years ago, I had to pay P&O Australia some money on behalf of P&0 UK for some services pre-cruise on a P&O UK ship. The currency exchange rate that P&O Australia used was very different to the then current Bank rate. ( And I understand that we as retail customers never ever get the buy/sell Bank Exchange rates which are actually only for use between Banks. )