bluemarble

Yes, Cunard didn't announce QE's 2024 Alaska itineraries until early March 2023 whereas they announced the Summer itineraries for the other ships in late November 2022. You would think though that would still have given them plenty of time to work out the dress code and theme schedules for QE prior to late October 2023 when they stated posting the schedules on My Cunard. Plus, I'm pretty sure Cunard announced QE's 2024 Japan itineraries in November 2022, so I can't come up with a good reason why we don't yet have at least the dress code and theme schedules for those Japan itineraries.

Here's one other nuance about the survey I didn't mention in my previous reply. The alternatives I was given for the "Refund" option were "Non refundable" or "Fully refundable up to 90 days before sailing". In the US, refundable deposits are currently refundable only up to 120 days before sailing (for sailings of 30 days or less). I don't know if they were intentionally proposing a loosening to that policy for the US. More likely I figure they meant the 90 day cutoff for those in the UK. If they were to offer refundable deposits in the UK, that would be in line with the 90 day final payment date in the UK rather than the 120 day final payment date here in the US. My guess is they were being a tad sloppy if they stated "90 days" in the survey wording for both the US and the UK.

Similar experience here. I received the survey a short time ago for the 7-night April 30th transatlantic crossing from New York which of course Cunard cancelled. Here are a few of the oddities I noticed in that survey. 1) They reminded me of the amount of on-board spending money that was included with my booking, but they listed that amount with the £ symbol rather than the $ symbol. 2) They also asked me "What was the main reason for cancelling that cruise?" even though they were the ones who cancelled it. 3) They presented me with several alternatives which included money for shore excursions, but of course there isn't any opportunity to take shore excursions during a transatlantic crossing, so those alternatives had no appeal for me. 4) They presented me with several alternatives which included a wi-fi package, but as a diamond member of the Cunard World Club I already receive sufficient internet credit to cover a wi-fi package for a 7-night crossing, so those alternatives also had no appeal for me.

Interesting. Were the "different items" they asked about things such as pre-paid hotel and dining service charge, alternative dining meals, spa credit, photography credit, other? Just trying to think what other items they might be considering offering in more inclusive bundles.

Currently on the US website, Cunard is offering the following New York hotels as pre- and post-cruise add-ons for 2024 voyages. Hilton Midtown Marriott Marquis The Knickerbocker Marriott Brooklyn Bridge I think this is the first time I've seen a Brooklyn hotel listed.

Sorry, I'm afraid what you've found there is an itinerary from one of those sites I was cautioning about earlier when I said "There are sites out there that purport to show itineraries for future years but in actuality are rehashing itineraries from previous years." That's actually a portion of QM2's 2006 itinerary. That site is listing it as if it were a 2026 itinerary when it is actually an itinerary from 2006, 20 years earlier. Edit to add: I think you'll find that same site is also listing 2027 itineraries for QM2 which are actually rehashes of her 2007 itineraries, 2028 itineraries which are actually from 2008, 2029 itineraries which are actually from 2009, etc.

I first learned that the 2023 dress code and theme schedules were posted in My Cunard on November 24, 2022. That included most if not all all of the QE dress code and theme schedules for 2023. It definitely included the QE Alaska cruises. It is odd that Cunard have apparently not released any of the QE dress code and theme schedules beyond the end of the Australia/New Zealand season in March 2024. I have not heard from anyone yet about the schedules for QE's repositioning cruise from Sydney to Japan on March 10, 2024 or any later cruises on QE. I have also not heard anything yet about the dress code and theme schedules for QA. Not sure what the holdup is for the QE and QA schedules. They've released the entire 2024 dress code and theme schedules for both QM2 and QV as well as some of the 2025 schedules.

Happy New Year everyone! Just getting going this morning after watching the ball drop in Times Square, New York on TV as usual last night and then staying up another hour to see in the new year here in the US Central time zone. There's the Tournament of Roses parade to watch on TV shortly followed by several America football bowl games, also as usual. And it will be a turkey dinner for us today to celebrate the occasion. On a pratical note, @Host Hattie, it's probably time to unstick my "Dress Code and Theme Schedules for 2023" sticky.

Here's a reprise of QV at Funchal, Madeira for this year's New Year celebration. This is a capture from one of the webcams found at "www.madeira-web.com" showing QV at the lower right along with some of the fireworks display.

Sunset this evening during QM2's departure from Philipsburg, St Maarten a short time ago. This is a capture from PTZtv's "Port St Maarten Webcam" found at "www.portstmaartenwebcam.com".

Assuming yours is the 13-night cruise on QM2 from New York, that's definitely a departure from previous years which have had three gala evenings. I don't yet have the dress code and theme schedule for the 21 December 2024 QM2 cruise. Please let me know which dates are scheduled for your gala evenings and which one has the Red and Gold theme. I can guess your Red and Gold gala evening will be Christmas Day and your other gala evening (presumably without a theme) will be New Year's Eve. But please confirm those dates for me. Thanks for your help with this.

I was thinking of jumping in on this one earlier. Since you brought it up @D&N I'll jump in now. @tlc1972 might be looking at the "Our Lowest Fare" on the Cunard US website known elsewhere as their "Value Fare". That's similar to a Saver Fare on the Cunard UK website where you can't select a specific cabin. It's one of the conditions of that fare that it's guarantee only. In order to be able to select a specific cabin in the US, you need to pick a fare such as the current "Explore with More" promotion or the "Cunard Fare". Now if @tlc1972 is picking a fare that normally allows selecting a cabin but is running into the situation where Cunard is showing guarantee-only for the category they are looking at, then that's probably a case of low availability for that category on that particular sailing. Or sometimes on specific segments of world voyages, I've seen Cunard make that entire segment guarantee-only at least initially regardless of which fare you select.

Yes, some excellent contributions today to add locations to our "seen" list. Glad to see there's still interest in this thread. I wasn't totally convinced @sogne's latest photos were Hrisey even though the comments certainly pointed that way. I put those on the back burner while I worked on @Colin_Cameron's photos. I finally found a couple photos of Hrisey taken from a similar angle, one of which has identical snow patterns on the hills in the distance. You may gotten to that point before me. Anyway, I'm convinced now those are indeed photos of Hrisey.

Looks like it may not have taken long for the newly added cruise-by entry to our "unseen" list to be posted. I haven't found a match for the second photo. And I'd be more confident identifying the first photo if the clouds weren't obscuring what's in the distance. But I'm getting a good enough match to what we can see in that first photo to take a guess. I think the first photo is showing us Dusky Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand.

Is this on QM2? I'd like to confirm that so I can update my master schedule to remove the Roaring Twenties Gala originally scheduled this evening if that's the case. And if so, please let me know if they do add another gala later to replace it.

Yes, Hrisey is listed as a "sail-by" or "cruise-by" call from Akureyri on several Cunard itineraries. For example, there are two such voyages listed on the 2020 itineraries (V019 and V022) and two on the 2021 itineraries (V117 and V120). There are three more listed that way in the 2024-2025 brochure (H417, H516 and H520 on Queen Anne).

Are you referring to QM2? Are you on board now? If that's the case, I'm not too surprised they'd change your port day in Castries to Smart Attire. Please let us know how the dress code schedule plays out for the remainder of your voyage.

Marvelous picture! Since this was taken at Norfolk, I'm afraid we'll have to count it as another view of the port of Norfolk which is already in our "seen" ports list. I appreciate the contribution nonetheless. Always good to see a new perspective on a port we've seen before.

Good point. Here are the previous posts on this thread regarding Fiordland National Park and Milford Sound. I think you will see a couple of familiar names who posted those earlier images and identified them. 😉 It's unfortunate that the Cruise Critic search function no longer indexes posts that are more than about a year old. I would like to include each of the individual sounds within Fiordland National Park in our "seen" ports list if we can identify the specific sounds. I think QE may have also visited Dusky Sound on the afternoon of Christmas Day after visiting Milford Sound in the morning. At least I think that's what I saw watching her track but I couldn't find any webcams at Dusky Sound. We should certainly remove Milford Sound from the "unseen" ports list now. My suggestion is to add Dusky Sound as another "unseen" Cruise-By Call and change the existing entry for Fiordland in our "seen" ports list to read as follows. "Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand" Then if we can identify or get future images of a Cunard ship in Doubtful Sound or Dusky Sound we can add those as separate entries in our "seen" ports list within Fiordland National Park. Here are my updated lists of our "seen" and "unseen" Cunard ports including those suggested changes. Where in the World 2023-12-28.txt Cunard ports not seen yet 2023-12-28.txt

QE is in New Plymouth, New Zealand today. I posted a similar image on the "Where in the World?" thread. Now that that's been identified, I'll post another image here. This is from the "Chimney North-East View" webcam found on the Primo website at "primo.nz/info/primo-webcams". As far as I know, this is the first time any Cunard ship has called at New Plymouth.

Correct. I couldn't resist posting that one right away since New Plymouth is a port we haven't seen yet on this thread. It isn't on our unseen ports list since this is not only a maiden call for QE, as far as I know this is the first time any Cunard ship has called there. Until today, New Plymouth has not been a Cunard port. That image is from the "Chimney North-East View" webcam on the Primo website at primo.nz. They host a variety of webcam images around the New Plymouth area.

Here's a webcam capture showing a Cunard ship at a port we have not seen yet and is not on our unseen ports list.

Ah, yes. Thanks. Here is your photo of QV anchored at Ny-Alesund. It was identified as "Ny Alesund" (without the hyphen) which is why I didn't find it originally.

To recap past northern contributions, I think these are the two northernmost locations on our "seen" list. This photo from @sogne is Kongsfjorden, Spitsbergen/Svalbard at about 79° 1′ North. This photo from @Colin_Cameron is Magdalenefjorden, Spitsbergen/Svalbard at about 79° 34′ North. Interestingly, I can't seem to find any photo of the port of Ny-Alesund, Spitsbergen/Svalbard itself posted on this thread. Perhaps I added Ny-Alesund to our seen ports list simply because that would have been the port of call for one or both of these photos. It would be great if @sogne, @Colin_Cameron or anyone else could post a photo showing Ny-Alesund so that we can say with certainty we've seen that port here.

That's correct. My reference to "Christmas" was a sublte hint because I posted that webcam image less than 24 hours after I captured it. That's from QE's Christmas Day call to Milford Sound this year.