bluemarble

Here are the coach transfer details I have from the past several crossings we've made on QM2 from New York the Southampton. Cunard operate coach transfers to Heathrow and Gatwick airports as well as to Victoria Coach Station and St Pancras International Station. There are separate coaches to each of those destinations and possibly multiple coaches to each destination depending on demand. The coaches to the airports were scheduled for an approximate call off time of 8:30am. The coaches to Victoria and St Pancras were scheduled for an approximate call off time of 8:45am. You will be given luggage tags specific to the transfer you have booked. Most guests on the coach transfers will leave their luggage out for collection and then collect them in the luggage hall before proceeding to the coach. There wouldn't be much advantage to doing self-help disembarkation with a coach transfer other than to possibly assure yourself a place on the first coach to your destination if there are multiple coaches. It won't depart until it is full and most of the other guests on the transfer probably will not have used self-help disembarkation. As you might expect, the time the coaches depart for London depends a lot on how prompt the process is for disembarking the ship, collecting luggage and proceeding to the coaches, as well as how prompt everyone is in disembarking the ship when called off for their transfers. Sorry, I can't recall the actual departure time the last time we booked the coach transfer to Victoria Coach Station several years ago.

Thanks. I'm pretty far off using 3200 NM then. I was using the figure quoted by ports.com.

Thanks, that does help confirm QA is unlikely to be in Southampton on April 27th. Figuring roughly 3200 NM from Venice to Southampton and 20 knots sailing speed, that works out to 6-2/3 days sailing time. If QA does depart Venice at noon on Wednesday, April 24th, then a rough estimate might be the morning of Wednesday, May 1st for her earliest possible arrival at Southampton. Will be standing by for further details as they become available concerning QA's voyage from Venice to Southampton.

Might that qualify as "Formal National Dress" for someone from Bermuda, I wonder? Now we really are getting into a deep dive of the dress code details aren't we? 🙂

Here's a link to the Cunard press release which has been posted now on the Carnival Corporation New Releases page, in case anyone wants to see the original press release at this point. https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/cunard-officially-welcomes-new-ship-queen-anne-ceremony

I certainly don't want to start any unfounded rumors, but there is a possibility QA's voyage to Southampton will be delayed a few days. Cunard have notified travel agents their previously scheduled "test" cruise on April 29th in Southampton has been canceled. There are also a few unconfirmed posts elsewhere on social media claiming QA won't be leaving Venice until April 22 or 23. No need for any alarm concerning the maiden voyage departing as scheduled on May 3, but her arrival in Southampton on April 27 might be in jeopardy. I'll be glad to be proven wrong about this by seeing QA depart soon. I will add the Southampton VTS Cruise Ship schedule still shows QA arriving on April 27.

Yes, indeed. The Italian Line has a long history. I'm sure our ocean liner experts can fill in some of the details, but a couple of the most notable pre-World War II Italian ocean liners were Rex and Conte di Savoia. Rex held the Blue Riband briefly. Unfortunately, neither of those ships, along with several others, made it through the war unscathed.

Interesting tidbit. When I ask Google Translate to translate "ocean liner" from English to Italian it comes up with "transatlantico".

Cruise Industry News has posted an article about the handover ceremony for Queen Anne. The article quotes a Cunard press release I can't find yet in either the Cunard News Room or on the Carnival Corporation New Releases page but that's not unusual. https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/04/cunard-officially-welcomes-queen-anne-with-ceremony-at-fincantieri-shipyard/

Thanks for that. Apparently it's only Cunard's website for North America that's missing Dakar from the QA 2025 world voyage itinerary. I see Dakar is indeed listed on the itinerary found on the Cunard UK website. Dakar is also listed on the Cunard Australia website when I pop over there.

I see Cunard have updated the QA 2025 world voyage itinerary on the Cunard website. The itinerary posted there varies slightly from what's been communicated via email. The online itinerary has QA in Durban on 7 April 2025 instead of Port Elizabeth on 8 April 2025 and it has QA in Tenerife instead of Las Palmas on 23 April 2025. The online itinerary also omits Dakar on 20 April 2025. I recall we had a discussion earlier about Dakar not showing up online on QA's 2026 world voyage itinerary. Perhaps the same thing is going on with Dakar on what's listed for QA's 2025 revised world voyage itinerary as well. There's still the discrepancies between Port Elizabeth on 8 April versus Durban on 7 April and Las Palmas versus Tenerife though. For those of you on the revised voyage, may I ask what are you seeing in My Cunard?

@Poole Boy, welcome to our game! Thank you very much for your contributions to add two more Cunard ports we hadn't seen yet on this thread. I believe there's one more port on your itinerary that's listed on our unseen ports list (unless it was canceled). It would be great to see a photo of Kiriwina if you happen to have one.

I can help with a photo showing QE at Tokyo to make it official. I'm posting this with the kind permission of Barbara O'Connor. She took this photo from the Grand Nikko Tokyo Daiba hotel on the morning of April 16th.

Oh, Zeebrugge is an inspired guess! I hadn't even thought to look there yet. The tower at the lower left looks like a good match to Sint-Donatianuskerk near the port. Having trouble working out an angle that also includes wind turbines but Zeebrugge certainly has plenty of those. I'll be very interested to learn if you've come up with the correct answer. Well done for a good workable hypothesis in any event.

Welcome to our game, @2BACRUISER! Always great to see new contributors to this thread. Thank you very much for your photos of Olbia, another Cunard port we hadn't seen on this thread until now. If you have any more photos of other ports on our "Cunard ports not seen yet" list, we would love to see them. We'd prefer for you post them without identifying the port right away so we can have a crack at figuring them out first. We like to make it a game to try to identify the port photos others post here. I identified the Sibenik photos from earlier today when I posted them only because they had already been posted on another thread so it wouldn't have been much of a challenge to identify them here. Thanks again for joining this amazing long-running game we have going here.

Here are photos showing Sibenik, Croatia @Solent Richard posted on another thread earlier today. He kindly took me up on my offer to post those photos here since Sibenik was on our unseen ports list. Thanks, @Solent Richard, for allowing us to add Sibenik as location #651 to our list of Cunard ports seen on this thread.

Excellent! May I take the liberty of posting one or both of these photos on our "Where in the World?" thread or would you like to have the honour of posting them there? Sibenik, Croatia is on our list of Cunard ports we haven't seen yet on that thread. QV called there once in September 2017 and QE called there once in September 2018. We've relaxed the rules quite a bit for that "Where in the World?" game in that the photos don't have to be taken during a Cunard cruise any more. As long as they show one of the ports a Cunard ship has visited at some point is all we care about now.

That's correct. The current internet credits based on Cunard World Club status are as follows: • Gold members receive $45 per person. • Platinum members receive $80 per person. • Diamond members receive $135 per person. One additional detail about these internet credits. They are similar to OBC in that they can only be used for internet plans purchased once on board. In fact, they prevent you from pre-purchasing internet plans in My Cunard if you qualify for an internet credit. Instead of a button to purchase an internet plan, it says "Use your credits to purchase internet on board."

Our experience has been that the Full Voyage Plan actually means for all the remaining days of the voyage at the time of purchase. Each day we have postponed purchasing the Essential Full Voyage Plan has reduced the total cost by $18. My wife and I are both Diamond members so we each receive $135 internet credit. That $135 gets us 5 individual days at the Essential 24-Hour Plan rate of $24/24 hours or 7 days of the Essential Full Voyage Plan at the rate of $18/day. Let's say for example we are on a 12-night voyage. To maximize our internet credits, one of us would purchase individual Essential 24-Hour Plans (at $24 each) for the first 5 days. Then the other would purchase the Essential Full Voyage Plan for the final 7 days of the voyage (at $18/day x 7 days = $126). That's how it has worked for us on QM2 in the past although we have not been on board since the Starlink rollout so it's possible I don't have all the latest information about the onboard package prices.

Very interesting. What is Ocean Liner?

There was a Valentine's Day sale earlier this year when they dropped the price on Internet plans by 28%. So far that's the one and only time I've seen a sale on Internet plans although that might be the start of something new. Hard to tell. There is no benefit to buying the plan before sailing unless they offer another similar limited-time sale. Once on board you can buy a plan for the same non-discounted price which allows you to use some of your OBC. One other benefit of waiting until you are on board is that you may find your existing cellular connection will handle your connectivity needs on embarkation day while you are still in port. If you find you can wait to purchase a full voyage plan until the second day of your voyage you can save the $18 you would have paid for the first day when buying the plan ahead of time.

Yes, you can transfer a booking you've made directly with Cunard to a travel agent under the following conditions. "Bookings may only be transferred within 60 days of booking creation so long as (a) the request is made outside the Final Payment period, and (b) the booking is not paid in full." One caveat. This is the policy for US bookings I've used in the past. I can't say for sure if these same conditions apply to UK bookings.

Do both. Book on board for the benefits that provides. If you have used a travel agent on your previous bookings, they should ask if you want them to transfer this new booking to that agent. Then your travel agent should be able to discount the booking as they have done for you in the past. That's what happens for my bookings in the US when I book on board and receive the OBC for shorter bookings. Never booked a cruise on board that's long enough to receive the 3% discount rather than the OBC though.

QV has arrived at the Walvis Bay Anchorage. It's approaching 7:00pm local time. Don't know any further details. Perhaps @roscoe39 can provide an update.

I see QM2 got underway about 15 minutes ago (approximately 2:20am local time). She's still reporting Walvis Bay as her destinations via AIS, so hopefully the call to Walvis Bay is still in the cards.