bluemarble

Let's try this devious webcam capture. It shows a Cunard ship arriving at a port we've already seen. Since there's not much to go on, I've only blurred out the date this time. The caption at the lower right may not provide much help on it's own. But if you reverse the words as well as the direction that will give you the name of the beach where the camera is located. That's a start anyway.

I'm not certain these are the current amounts, but here is what I have for the amount of onboard credit you receive for booking on board, based on the length of the voyage and the cabin category. 6-9 Nights $100 per person for Inside/Oceanview $150 per person for Britannia Balcony $200 per person for Grills Suite 10+ Nights $200 per person for Inside/Oceanview $300 per person for Britannia Balcony $400 per person for Grills Suite

My reading is that QV will be at the Mekjarvik terminal about 10km northwest of downtown Stavanger once again, for both of the replacement calls there on 8th June and 27th June as well as the previously scheduled call there on 8th August.

Was any reason given for the changes other than the usual "operational reasons"? Since Geiranger has been replaced it does make me wonder if it could have anything to do with environmental concerns. It looks to me like the next two scheduled calls to Geiranger this year have been replaced as well. For the 25th June 2023 cruise (V317), the call to Geiranger on 29th June has been replaced with Skjolden (the call to Kristiansand has been replaced with Stavanager on the cruise as well). For the 16th July 2023 cruise (V319), the call to Geiranger on 19th July has also been replaced with Skjolden. The call to Geiranger is still on the itinerary for the 6th August 2023 cruise (V321) and Geiranger remains on the two 2024 itineraries for Queen Anne.

That's very interesting. I wonder what the captain meant. Here's a link to a YouTube video showing QM2 at Trondheim as scheduled on 24 August 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KcCCKEZ3sQ

By the way, Caribbean Princess was the culprit for damaging the gangways at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal which caused QM2 to divert to Manhattan on May 21, 2010. She apparently struck and damaged two of the gangways there on May 9th while docking in high winds. There's an article in the New York Times stating one of the gangways was repaired in short order allowing QM2 to dock at Brooklyn once again on June 7th. The second gangway was slated to be repaired during the following weeks.

Probably not the former since QM2 is scheduled to return to Trondheim in November 2024. The latter is plausible since prior to that November 2022 call, she hadn't called at Trondheim since August 2016.

Here's another image from my webcam archives. This one from Wired New York shows QM2 at Manhattan on July 1, 2011. I originally posted this on capnpugwash's blog for that crossing. The blog mentions Caribbean Princess was at Brooklyn that day as well.

Your wish is my command! There are a couple photos posted by cruiserking on this thread from capnpugwash showing QM2 and Prinsendam at Manhattan starting with this post #117. Scroll down to post #121 to see the other. Some of you may remember capnpugwash's frequent blogs from QM2. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/1347767-capnpugwash-is-on-the-qm2-to-new-york-may-10-2011/?do=findComment&comment=27883016 Unfortunately there are large "photobucket" watermarks over the images presumably because they are stored on one of their accounts that used to be free but isn't any longer. These are from back in the dark ages before Cruise Critic supported photo attachments. Back then photos had to be hosted on an external site such as Photobucket. Anyway, I figure these images are better than nothing.

Thanks for that report. The ship at Brooklyn that day was Caribbean Princess according to a thread about that voyage I found on this forum. It looks like Prinsendam was also in Manhattan that day.

I think this one is Trondheim, Norway. That's QM2 and the AIDA ship is one of their three smaller Diva/Sphinx class ships (AIDAdiva, AIDAluna or AIDAbella). When I zoom in on the lettering, AIDAbella appears to be the best match. We know you recently called at Trondheim on November 9, 2022 during QM2's Norway and Northern Lights cruise. And @sfred reported that AIDAbella was in port with you that day. So I'll hazard a guess that's the date of the photo. Sorry, I don't know what would have been special about that particular port call. If I have the correct date, perhaps one of the others on that cruise might be able to enlighten us about that. I've been rereading the "Live from ..." thread for that cruise but I'm not finding any hints there.

It was of course during late October 2012 when Superstorm Sandy damaged the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. The first of QM2's calls redirected to Manhattan as a result of that damage was during November 2012.

Yes, QM2 regularly sailed out of Manhattan prior to the opening of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. According to Wikipedia, QM2 was the first ship to use the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal upon her arrival there on April 15, 2006. Our first crossing on QM2 in November 2005 departed from Manhattan. There have been a few times since the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal opened when QM2 has called at Manhattan. If there was a schedule conflict with another ship calling at Brooklyn, QM2 would usually call at Manhattan. One exception was on September 30, 2006 when she called at Bayonne instead of Manhattan when there was a schedule conflict at Brooklyn. During May 2010, QM2 called at Manhattan after an accident damaged the gangway at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, putting that terminal out of service until repairs were made. More notably, after the damage from Superstorm Sandy in November 2012 took the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal out of service for several months, QM2 called at Manhattan during that time. The last time QM2 called at Manhattan was September 27, 2014. Here is a capture I took that day from PTZtv's Port New York Webcam.

I'm keeping an eye on H505, the segment of Queen Anne's maiden world voyage from New York to San Francisco in January 2025. I'd prefer to wait and book this on board in a couple months but if I see availability getting tight I may book it sooner. I'm only looking for a Britannia Balcony so I don't anticipate there will be a problem waiting.

OK, good. I see the Cunard US website is now offering a "Launch benefits" fare on the new itineraries which allows selection of a specific cabin. So that earlier issue with the US website only offering "Our lowest fare" has been resolved. Not surprisingly though based on past experience, "Our lowest fare" is actually higher than the "Launch benefits" fare on some of the new voyages.

That's my understanding from previous discussions on this topic. MSC Meraviglia should be the first ship to be using the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal this spring. She is scheduled to arrive there on April 20th.

Now that bookings are open for the new 2024/2025 voyages, I see the Cunard US website is showing those itineraries once again. One problem though, when I start a booking on the Cunard US website for any of those voyages, the only fare it offers me is "Our Lowest Fare". That's a guarantee-only fare so the Cunard US website doesn't let me choose a specific cabin for any of the dozen or so new voyages I've looked at so far. The Cunard UK website is offering the "Cunard" fare which allows the choice of cabin. And US travel agent websites are offering fares which allow the choice of cabin. Just thought I'd mention this glitch which appears to be happening with the launch of the new voyages on the Cunard US website this morning.

The dress code is the same for all four main dining rooms (Britannia, Britannia Club, Princess Grill and Queens Grill). The "Smart Attire" dress code applies on the majority of evenings while the elevated "Gala Evening" dress code applies on those evenings designated as gala evenings.

Oh, yikes! I see what you mean about the new itineraries having gone missing from the Cunard US website. The "View all voyages" link on their dedicated page "Introducing our new 2024 & 2025 voyages" produces the message "We are sorry; no voyages can be found to match your filters at present." Not a great look for the launch of those voyages tomorrow (for CWC members). Let's hope it's just some temporary issue having to do with Cunard getting ready for the launch although they have had some problems with the launch in years past.

@esrs has explained what sets the Q7 category apart from the Q5/Q6 categories. The Q7 category has been around almost from the beginning. The original QM2 deck plans I have from 2004 only show Q5 and Q6 for the Queens Suites categories. But even on those original plans with only those two Queens Suites categories, all of the Q6 category suites were designated "wheelchair accessible." The deck plans I have from 2005 are the first to show the Queens Suites category divided into Q5, Q6 and Q7 with all the Q7 suites designated as accessible. There's one other bit of early deck plan trivia regarding this subject which just might be worth mentioning. The two accessible Queens Suites on deck 9 (suites 9025 and 9034) were not originally split out into a different category from their neighbors. Those two suites were marked as accessible on early deck plans, but they were not assigned the lower category code given to the other three accessible Queens Suites on deck 8 (suites 8127, 8129 and 8130) until sometime between 2006 and 2008. More than you really wanted to know about the QM2 deck plans, I'm sure!

Similar situation with my survey. One of the itineraries I was asked about was a 7 night Jamaica roundtrip Caribbean cruise visiting 4 ports. There were 9 "potential ports of call" shown on the map: Dominican Republic, St Thomas, Tortola, St Maarten, St Kitts, Antigua, Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire. Not knowing which 4 ports the cruise would actually visit made it hard for me to decide if the cruise appealed to me because it "Visits new places that I have never visited" or I might not choose the cruise because I have "Been to those places before". I provided that feedback via additional comments after choosing "Other" as one of my responses to that itinerary.

The OP's posting history indicates they will be on one of QV's 21-night Mediterranean cruises during 2024. Too soon to know what the dress code schedule will be for 2024. But I can say the OP's 21-night itinerary is being sold as three separate 7-night cruises (Barcelona-Civitavecchia, Civitavecchia-Trieste and Trieste-Civitavecchia). That means there ought to be a total of six gala evenings to ensure each of those individual 7-night cruises have the promised two gala evenings. Of course that's assuming Cunard keeps to that policy during 2024.

One part of the survey I thought was odd was they kept asking this same question for each different itinerary they presented: "Assuming this cruise was available at an acceptable price with the following cruise companies which, if any, of these cruise brands would you consider booking with? Please select all that apply. Carnival Cruise Line Celebrity Cruises Costa Cruises Crystal Cruises Cunard Holland America Line MSC Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) Princess Cruises Regent Seven Seas Royal Caribbean International (RCI) Seabourn Silversea Viking Ocean Cruises Virgin Voyages Another cruise brand Any of these brands None of these brands" This is after they already asked earlier in the survey "Which of the following have you EVER cruised with?" and "Which, if any, of the following would you NEVER consider taking a cruise with?" I kept repeating the same answer for each itinerary, reversing my answer to that earlier question "Which, if any, of the following would you NEVER consider taking a cruise with?". Does the list of cruise lines you would consider vary according to the itinerary?

Mrs. Bluemarble received the survey today. She was asked about a couple itineraries I didn't have in my survey. These look a lot like world cruise segments but they did ask what month she would be interested in taking these cruises with options for months that are not typical for world cruises. Perhaps they are suggestions for repositioning cruises. I thought the suggestion of Easter Island was particularly intriguing. 34 night one way trip between New York and Sydney visiting Aruba, Panama Canal transit, Manta, Lima, Valparaiso, Easter Island, Papeete, Auckland and Bay of Islands. Departing April-August 2025. 30 night one way trip between Dubai and Southampton visiting Safaga, Suez Canal transit, Port Said, Heraklion, Naples, Rome, Ajaccio, Marseilles, Barcelona, Malaga, Tangier, Lisbon, Belfast, Greenock and Liverpool. Departing May-October 2025.

There's one more 2023 Alaska itinerary change I don't think I've seen mentioned before. On the June 30, 2023 cruise the originally scheduled call at Glacier Bay on July 2nd is being replaced by a call to Tracy Arm Fjord instead.