Underwatr

7 minutes ago, Zeg said:

Doesn’t the ‘service’, we all receive (or otherwise) come from the cruise line itself? Surely the Agent is merely acting as a go between and in doing so taking a cut, which incidentally is fair enough. 

Some agents may claim to provide better service such as periodically looking for fare reductions and proactively alerting you or rebooking for the savings.
If you need to make any adjustments to your booking and have use an agent that agent must be the one to contact the line. Possibly a travel agent acting on your behalf may be easier for you to contact than a reservation person with the cruise line.

As a US resident* I've found a low-cost travel agent (not really an agent I'd go to for advice about a line) who discounts a Cunard fare via a rebate of a portion of their commission. On my most recent booking his fare was several hundred dollars below the list fare (about 9% of the all-in fare with fees and taxes).
I may be a little unique in that, particularly for Cunard I don't need much help from a TA (although he's also helped out greatly when things have gone wrong) so the savings has been worth it.

55 minutes ago, rj1227 said:

Is it necessary to sign a statement after every drink?

I had the full range on my recent Caribbean voyage, from not being given a statement, to being given one and not being required to sign, to being reminded to please sign the copy (I think the last was a more junior waiter).

I was on QM2 this November for the first time since late 2019. The "smart" dress exhibited by many passengers has relaxed considerably in the interim but I don't remember seeing any denim in the evenings.
I generally don't pack denim for cruises, primarily due to its weight.

1 hour ago, Pushpit said:

Lots of depressing leaflets about disembarkation at Brooklyn have arrived, I will publish them after I've disembarked, and I'll keep a note of timings.

I predict it will be its customary zoo, with passports scrutinized and scanned (and whatever other poking and prodding C&BP does to foreign visitors these days). It's only on the return from the Caribbean in two weeks that the agents will breathe easier.

I'm pretty sure you can do it in the online My Voyage webpage once you're onboard. 

On 12/16/2023 at 5:20 PM, Bedruthen said:

We also contracted Covid, as did a lot of others and given the amount of coughing onboard before we caught it, it would seem that not everyone is testing and reporting.

Just a reminder that not all coughs are COVID. I picked up "something" on QM2 (I disembarked the day you embarked - sore throat, cough, congestion in sequence over 4 or 5 days beginning just after disembarkation) and tested negative numerous times.
The "Cunard Crud" appeared to be thriving also. No reports of COVID or Norovirus in the Captain's daily messages.

I prefer the time changes to occur overnight but every trip someone reads the next day's Daily Programme before going to bed, sees the notice about "Time change tomorrow morning" and dutifully changes their clock immediately.

For those going on to the Caribbean - if Midge Ure will still be aboard that segment (I seem to recall a mention of it from Cunard some months ago), his performance in 2018 was the best show I've ever seen at sea.

On 12/17/2023 at 12:45 PM, Pushpit said:

 

There was some poor weather expected this afternoon as mentioned by @NE John but it went over us sooner than forecast and during the middle of the night.

I believe you may be in for another one, which passed up the US coast today (Monday). Lots of wind and a fair amount of rain and minor flooding.

I don't know anything about current issues on QV but when I sailed between Los Angeles and Hawaii some years ago on her it would slam and bang in somewhat heavy seas. I prefer a forward stateroom and shoe would porpoise somewhat - we could feel ourselves rise and fall in the bed for the first couple of days out from California. She rode smoother when the weather and seas quieted down.

There's a seasonality to passport demand. According to the State department, from late winter into summer, demand for passports is generally higher than other periods of the year. Since many people do their big vacation travel over the summer, passport demand (both first issue and renewal) is high from about March through August.
Plus as we know the pandemic reduced demand for all travel, including international travel, significantly so we're seeing an overall increase in demand as people are willing to get on an airplane of cruise ship for an extended period.

But I predict that we'll see turnaround times increase again in 4 or 5 months as the summer travel rush ramps up.

The majority of cruises out of US ports (which don't permanently disembark passengers at a foreign port such as Vancouver or Southampton) are closed loop, because the PVSA requires that non-US registered ships transporting passengers from one US port to another US port must call on a distant foreign port en route. A distant foreign port is defined as outside the Bahamas, Bermuda, Central America, North America and West Indies. The port of Bonaire, Curacao and the Netherland Antilles are, however, considered as distant foreign ports.
Currently, an exception is applied to Puerto Rico - passengers can be transported from a US mainland port to Puerto Rico without visiting a distant foreign port.
 

2 hours ago, NE John said:

One will rarely see such a cruise. The trouble with this scenario is the archaic Jones Act requiring non-US flagged or “bottomed” ships to call on a foreign port before coming back to US. That’s why you see the New England/Independence cruise stop at Halifax, for example. 
The Jones Act goal was to encourage US ship production and punish foreign made ships. It hasn’t worked in 100 years…

Perhaps you misunderstand what I meant.

You can visit foreign ports on a closed loop cruise (in fact cabotage laws require it), but you can't disembark ("check out") in a foreign port, or else by definition it's not closed loop.

The recent NYC-NYC Caribbean voyage is closed loop since all passengers boarded at or before New York and disembarked at or after its return to New York. Thus, everyone arriving in New York from the Caribbean (aside from entertainers and perhaps a few crew members) will have cleared US Immigration prior to leaving New York on the ship. Clearing them back into New York after the voyage is much simpler than, say, a westbound transatlantic or a Quebec-New York voyage, where it can't be assumed that every passenger getting off the ship was legally present in the US at embarkation of that closed loop. It's also the reason why they don't make everyone get off the ship on Dec 8 like they do after a transatlantic arrival in New York, and is why Immigration only needed to glance at passengers' passports on Dec 8.

Nit pick - the Jones Act covers cargo, the PSVA covers passenger vessels. https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-23?language=en_US

20 hours ago, NE John said:

I’ve recently learned the difference between a closed loop trip vs non-closed loop.  From what I understand, you don’t have to debark the ship in Brooklyn if you’re on a closed loop cruise so I would ask Cunard how they classify your Crossing/New England cruise.

You can stay aboard only if your arriving voyage segment is closed loop - for example, if you do the NYC-NYC Caribbean route and then continue on to Southampton the NYC-NYC is the closed loop anmd you aren't required to leave the ship on that NYC visit. It's because you're deemed to have already been cleared into the US at the start of that closed loop - whether it was upon QM2's arrival before heading down to the Caribbean or some other US arrival that you had made. 
Since there's ordinarily no embarkation point between leaving New York and arriving back in New York (unless you're an entertainer or perhaps a crew member - both of which are few enough to be managed as an exception) all passengers arriving in New York will have left via New York just under 2 weeks ago.
Arriving via a crossing isn't closed loop even if you originally boarded in New York because a significant number of new passengers will have boarded in Southampton. The same is true for the current arrivals from Quebec City (when I visited in Quebec in 2010 is was a since 9 day itinerary out of New York).
If you do a New England closed loop followed by an eastbound transatlantic I assume you'll be allowed to remain onboard but of course the Immigration staff has final say.

We had a Veranda dinner as one of our booking perks on QM2 last week. We could have also had lunch as my Diamond perk (I could have, anyway, she was a novice) but we just never got around to it.

That may be the model that's in King's Court, actually.

7 hours ago, rog747 said:

Back OT:
How is everyone's opinion on their cruises on the newly refitted ship this past 3 weeks from SOU-NYC-to the Caribbean and back to NYC?

I mentioned my issues with it in another thread but the ventilation systems in by room/cabin/stateroom seemed incapable of switching between heating and cooling on its own. After a couple of nights in which the room temperature climbed as high as 82 F a technician did some adjusting of the valves outside the room in the hallway and the temperature dropped to the low 70s for the rest of the trip. The issue arose again on our trip north when I disovered that it was no longer possible to get the system to provide warmed air to the stateroom. Since we were only a couple of days away from New York at the time and I could get comfortable under the duvet (slept like a baby, even overslept one morning) I chose not to visit the purser's desk again. I figure it's due to systems onboard going on to 20 years old and maybe it's optimistic for everything to work like new.
 

Not sure I've mentioned it here but the planetarium has new seats! The ones that recline, anyway. Firm upholstery and a different reclining mechanism that maybe won't break as easily (press an indented area under the left armrest rather than slide a protruding lever). I can confirm that it's as easy to nod off during the shows as it ever was. Two possible downsides - the new seats no longer have the little table that swings up from under the right armrest (still present on the old gold-upholstered seats that don't recline), and - not sure whether this is a new issue, a worse issue, or just the way it's always been - twice when people in the row ahead of me reclined their seats they came down on my knee in a way that sort of trapped my lower leg (came down on top of my knee, forcing my heel down on the floor). I wonder whether the new seatbacks are thicker than the old ones since I don't remember getting caught like that before.

The WiFi is fast and ubiquitous (in the rooms as well as public spaces).  I bought the faster package since I thought my GF would want to make a video call or two to her kids but she didn't do that. No issue streaming videos in the room. I miss the old days when (a) your CWC benefit could fully pay for a package that you could nurse over the length of the voyage, which also meant that you'd choose one or two times during the day to grab your email and be offline the rest of the time. My phone can share its WiFi connection via a hotspot so we were able to connect both of our devices simultaneously as long as we were fairly close to each other.

Also mentioned in another thread here, and not a product of the refurbishment, but the evening entertainment schedule seems no longer to mesh well with the fixed dining times. I last cruised in late 2019 and at that time the shows were at 8:45 and 10:30. Now the showtimes are 8:00 and 10:15. I'd have no problems going from dinner to a show, perhaps stopping for a drink in the Golden Lion on the way (Note - historically I've eaten at 6:00 first seating and we were at 8:30 second seating this time). On this trip (large table, like I always enjoy) we always seemed to run out of time and had to choose between skipping or rushing dessert or missing the Royal Court show. We've opted for first seating and a smaller table for a 2014 Mediterranean cruise on QV but I suspect we'd best be able to make the schedule by switching to anytime dining assuming we could also dine at a table for two. The problem with a large table is that if others decide to have appetizer, salad, soup, mains and dessert you're there for the duration of a five-course dinner as well. It didn't ever seem to be a problem before though.

One final plus - I understand that these are new coffee machines. The ones in Kings Court are to dispense either coffee of hot water (and were frequently out of order, btw), but the machine down outside of Connexions on Deck 2 could also dispense lattes (with real milk) and cappuccinos, either with regular or decaf coffee. I didn't discover it until the trip back north to New York but after that I'd find a reason to walk past that area mid-morning.
   

23 minutes ago, NE John said:

I hope that trend continues. 

It won't on the transatlantics or the Quebec-NYC one-way trips because passengers won't be disembarking from a closed loop itinerary.

Make sure you're not trying to book a "Black Friday" fare. They're capacity controlled and may not be available on all voyages.

Yesterday was the easiest Brooklyn disembarkation I've ever experienced.

The Caribbean voyage operates as a closed loop so every disembarking passenger (with very few exceptions for crew and entertainers) either boarded in New York or was processed into New York when QM2 entered prior to the voyage. This enables C&BP to run a streamlined entry. An agent looked at my passport photo to verify that it appeared to be me and that was all there was to it.

As another note, passengers continuing on to Southampton who didn't desire to go off into New York for the day had the option of staying on - there was no forced "clearing" of the ship reqiring all passengers to pass through immigration.

The only simpler disembarkation I've ever done on a cruise was leaving a closed-loop Alaska cruise in Seattle in 2017 on HAL. They didn't even look at IDs that time.

12 hours ago, BlueRiband said:

However today neither the escaltor nor the elevator was working at the Brooklyn terminal!   Everyone had to decend the stairs but Cunard sent crew members over to carry our bags down the staircase for us.  I don't know what they did about the mobility impaired passengers.

When we got off, around 9:15-9:30, both the escalator and elevator(s) were working.

On 12/3/2023 at 8:20 PM, HappyTexan44 said:

Just wondering this.  For someone renewing and a tight schedule, couldn't they send in their BC as their citizenship proof?   So, instead of using the BC to sail, and sending in the passport before the cruise, send a BC in for the passport renewal.    Not saying this would work, but maybe you guys know why it wouldn't.   
 

It won't work. You can only have one valid passport at a time (I think there are certain exceptions but not for everyone) so when they issue your new passport they drill a hole in the old one to invalidate it before then it back.

On 12/3/2023 at 1:04 PM, bluemarble said:

I've highlighted the rescheduled 2024 dates for QM2 which originally were a day or two later on dates that have been reassigned to MSC Meraviglia

Ahh, that explains why QM2 is doing 6-day crossings followed by 8-day crossings on a couple of occasions. I couldn't figure out why they were bothering to show the speed only to go slowly on the return.

Those 2024 dates are the 9-15 June Westbound (6 days) followed by the 15-23 June eastbound (8), then the 23-29 June westbound (6) and the 6-14 July eastbound (8), and then 21-27 July (W) and 27 Jul-4 Aug (E).

The 21 Dec date isn't just a faster crossing since the preceding Westbound leaves Southampton on 14 Dec (it typically leaves on 15 Dec for the Caribbean holiday voyage).

Perhaps on QV. I'm finishing 12 nights on QM2 on Friday and the announced time is 8:30.

I don't have any issue with 2 hours for dinner but the ship schedule doesn't support it. 

We've requested early dining for our QV voyage.

Sorry, I got excited and didn't see BlueMarble's citation of the same document I referred to