bluemarble

I received the "our solo traveler offer is back!" email about an hour ago. Thankfully, the link in the email takes me to the same page I deduced above (with some additional fields tacked onto the URL including personally identifiable information).

I never received an email today with a link but I figured it out from the previous solo promotions. Try this link. There's an "Enjoy our Solo Traveler Offer for five days only" section on that page with a "View voyages" link. https://www.cunard.com/en-us/the-cunard-experience/solo-travellers "Terms and conditions Taxes, Fees and Port Expenses ranging from $60 to $725 per person are additional and subject to change. *New Single Occupancy Bookings only. Up to additional 25% off the single supplemental fare reducing the supplemental from 175% of the double occupancy fare down to 132% of the double occupancy fare. Additional discount ranges from 14% to 25% and varies by voyage. This offer is not combinable with, but not limited to, Past Guest offers, Flash, Interline, Travel Agent rates, recipient only offers, negotiated rates/offers, and travel agency exclusive offers. This offer is capacity controlled and subject to change. Offer is available to residents of the 50 United States, Canada, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the District of Columbia who are 21 years of age and older. Fares quoted in U.S. Dollars. This offer expires March 5, 2023 Promotion code Z2G."

Just to clarify, the "What to pack" page has been stating "dress shirt" for the Smart Attire dress code for gentlemen since about the time of the restart of operations when jackets became optional on Smart Attire evenings. I can refer you to your "I'm pretty sure the dress code has changed" thread for further clarification on that. It's the Smart Attire dress code listed in the daily programmes once on board which states "collared shirt" rather than "dress shirt".

I know, I know, not another dress code thread!!! 😮 Some of you will recall the infamous "New Dress Code Designations?" thread I started back in 2018 when Cunard first rolled out the "Smart Attire" and "Gala Evening" names for the dress codes. The reason I started this thread is I noticed the "What to pack" page has been revamped on the Cunard UK and Cunard Australia websites. Gone are the photo collages showing suggested attire for the Smart Attire and Gala Evening dress codes. That may be a good thing since a few of those photos caused confusion in the past. But what stood out for me is some of the new wording on the UK and Australia "What to pack" page. For Gala Evenings, that page used to say this (emphasis mine). "At least twice on each seven-night voyage we’ll host a Gala Evening, where we do ask that you observe a black-tie dress code." Now that page says this instead. "At least twice on each seven-night voyage we’ll host a Gala Evening, where we do ask that you observe an elevated dress code." There are also new sections discussing "Formal dresses" and "Formal suits". The "Formal suits" section begins as follows. "Formal suits are only required on board a Transatlantic cruise on Gala Evenings and, even then, there’s no pressure to dress-up if you don’t want to. Most of our guests, however, relish the opportunity to put on a Tuxedo for one night and channel their James Bond alter-ego." What do you make of this? Am I reading too much into this or do you think Cunard is attempting to signal some loosening of the Gala Evening dress code requirements? By the way, the "What to pack" page has not been updated yet on the Cunard US website.

Thanks for that photo. We can now add Bournemouth to our ports list. I'm pretty sure that's QV after her 2017 refit. That image lacks the blockier look of the games deck forward on QE and shows the more jagged aft profile of QV.

I think it probably would be a stretch to count them both. Let's call it Lowestoft, England per @sogne's comment, as port number 607 on our list. That helps the UK extend its lead by one more port.

Counting the port as Lowestoft works for me, especially since QV originally anchored off Lowestoft and then moved a bit further south off Southwold for a few days after that.

I'm of the opinion we should include Southwold on our ports list. We've included Portland, Weymouth and Torquay because Cunard ships spent time there during the pause in operations. Admittedly we aren't being entirely consistent since passengers weren't on board then. But since we've counted those others, I'd suggest Southwold counts as well. @exlondoner, if you (or anyone else) have a photo of a Cunard ship(s) anchored off Bournemouth, I'd also be willing to accept that as another port for our list. Teignmouth would be another candidate since QM2 and QV both spent time laid up offshore there.

Since @sfred and @exlondoner have eliminated a couple of the best possibilities, I'll draw on these posts from the "Queen Victoria current location" thread and take a stab at Southwold, England. No sand castles in @Happyboating's photo to work with 😄, but otherwise it's a reasonable match. Perhaps an even better clue though is this follow-up post from @sogne about QV at Southwold.

Looks like some wonderful historic photos there, @Colin_Cameron! "The QE2 Story" website helped me with this one. There are some good matches in a topic there titled "QE2 Inchgreen Dry Dock: 1968 (photos and film)" where some of the photos in that topic are tagged with the date 19 Nov 1968. I guess that would have been only one week before QE2 commenced her preliminary sea trials.

I was a bit surprised to see the all-aboard time at New York was listed as 4:00pm for our scheduled 5:00pm QM2 departure on November 20, 2022 (for a Caribbean cruise). That was the time listed both on our boarding passes as newly embarking guests and the time listed in the daily programme for those guests continuing on from the preceding westbound crossing. Just thought I'd mention it in case this is now the usual all-aboard time in New York, to assist with planning independent time ashore there that doesn't cut it too close.

I don't have new format daily programmes from a transatlantic crossing, but I do have them from the November 2022 Caribbean cruise on QM2. Here are scans from the gala evening sea day on our way back to New York. The activities are similar to what we've experienced on transatlantic crossings in the past. Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Insert Page (Front) Insert Page (Back)

No announcement yet that I've seen. But I can tell you during the past few days the new 2024 and 2025 itineraries have shown up on several more cruise booking sites, so presumably the announcement won't be too far off. Based solely on past history, early to mid March seems likely for the official announcement date with mid to late March for the on-sale date.

Time for updated versions of our ports lists. @Colin_Cameron has found quite a few new entries for our unseen ports list. I have marked those new entries with ** to make them easy to find. I have made a few assumptions as to which of them are cruise-bys. Some of the new entries could be low-hanging fruit such as Tokyo which has been identified as a port separate from Yokohama and Osaka as separate from Kobe. Also, it looks like we may now consider Suez, Egypt to be a port of call. That was a question I had posed earlier. Anyway, take a look at the unseen ports list in particular and see if you might have photos of any of the entries on that list. As always, photos offering a different perspective on any of the ports we've already seen are also most welcome. Where in the World 2023-02-21.txt Cunard ports not seen yet 2023-02-21.txt

Google tells me that historic sailing vessel at Anstruther is "Reaper". Does that sound right?

Yes, the Google Forms to submit entries for 'Cunard ports not seen yet on the "Where in the World?" thread' is still active. Here is the link to that form. I'll be on the lookout for new contributions and will add them to our unseen ports list. Cunard ports not seen yet on the "Where in the World?" thread (google.com)

Oh, I think I have a lead on this one. That's QE in the photo. I had been looking at QE's Alaska ports since some of them have gangways leading ashore similar to what's shown in this photo. But that proved to be a dead end. From previous posts on this thread (including a photo of Newport, Rhode Island), we know you were on QE's maiden voyage to New England/Canada. Working through the ports on that cruise, I think I've found a match to Portland, Maine. There's not a lot to work with here, but that gangway along the side of the ship is a pretty good match to the one at Portland's Ocean Gateway cruise terminal. What we can see of the structure at the far right behind the trees is also a reasonably good match to the Ocean Gateway cruise terminal building at the end of that gangway. If my identification is correct, it's not a new port for our list, but it is the first time we've seen a photo of that port taken during a cruise. I previously posted a public domain image of Portland, Maine as a place I've visited but not on a cruise in the interest of keeping this thread going. Kudos for posting your own photo of Portland including a Cunard ship.

I wasn't aware the usual "Grills Suite Offer" in the US included basic internet for one device. The grills are way out of my price range, so I can't speak from personal experience. Just going by the perks listed for that offer on the Cunard US website. Is it possible the internet you received was because of your Cunard World Club status or perhaps was from some other offer? Or is the Cunard US website missing an important perk for the "Grills Suite Offer"?

Here's one to correct a glaring omission which @sfred has pointed out on the "Queen Elizabeth Position" thread. Since it should be fairly obvious from that preface that this image is showing Cairns, I'll dispense with blurring the captions and asking for an identification. This is an earlier view showing QE's arrival today at Cairns also captured from the Cairns Webcam found on the "cairnsinfo.com" website. I could have sworn we had previously identified Cairns separately from Yorkeys Knob. But looking back now I see that was only while we were identifying all the Cunard ports for our "Q" ports game. Back then I accepted Yorkeys Knob and Cairns as separate Cunard ports because of a news report about a visit to the Cairns cruise terminal by QE. That was not while identifying a port photo/image of Cairns. We have now taken care of that. Since we've previously listed "Cairns (Yorkeys Knob), Queensland" on our seen ports list, I think we should now list "Yorkeys Knob, Queensland" and "Cairns, Queensland" as separate ports on that list. Now back to working on @sogne's latest contribution.

Yes, this was an email from Cunard. This looks like another iteration of the solo travelers promotion they've run in the US a couple times before. Here's an earlier thread where we've discussed the two previous instances of this promotion. Then it was essentially a reduction of the single supplement and may only have been offered for Britannia cabins.

QE is in Cairns today. Here is a view from the Cairns Webcam found at "www.cairnsinfo.com/info/cairns-webcam/" and hosted by travstar.com. I am posting this image courtesy of travstar.com.

On February 10, Roscoe reported the following information on the "Queen Elizabeth cleaning hull" thread. Hopefully this remains the case for QV.

Very good! Yes, I think this one should also count as another port on our list. Following our previous pattern, let's call the earlier photos of this location "Cadiz (Cruise Terminal), Spain". That makes this one "Cadiz (Navantia Shipyard), Spain". We wouldn't normally count a drydock on our port list, but since passengers were on board Queen Victoria for this one, that counts in my book.

Correct on all points. That is indeed a very recent webcam capture showing QV's arrival at Hilo on 12 February.

My original thinking was the new terminal isn't really a different port. But the precedents we've set in New York and London are good reasons to count two ports for Brisbane as well. I think the deciding factor for me is that the address for the new Brisbane International Cruise Terminal is "1 Cruise Terminal Drive, Pinkenba QLD" (aka "Luggage Point"). On the other hand, the address I'm seeing for the Grain Terminal across the river is "8 River Dr, Port of Brisbane QLD" (aka "Fisherman Island"). That's a good enough reason for me to count two ports for Brisbane as suggested, @sfred.