alanrow

The easiest way is to send a secure message to them with the Booking Number , Date , Ship name

and they will do the rest .   Do not forget it must be more than 3 weeks before departure .

On our Pacific crossing the mix of dinner suits was about 50/50 , no problem with just black if the

amount of luggage is a consideration .

I very much agree with you , we find the sound volume in the theatres to be much too high ; mentioning it to the

Cruise Director and continually putting it on the feedback questionnaire has had no effect . My wife takes ear plugs in with her but even then has walked out on occasions . Cunard must think we are all deaf , which most of us are not , but going to the shows will soon make us so !

We did the September trip form UK to Quebec and one of Cunard's offerings was a 3 stop

coach run to Central Park/Museums area , Rockefeller Centre area and the 9/11 Memorial area . We had 1 1/2 to 2 hours at each location to do what we wanted . It was not cheap but a good way of seeing New York for the first time for us .

In reply to Docker123 , the QM2 still offers proper dry cleaning at very good prices .

Deals for UK and US differ but , from the UK , we booked a late deal last year for early December for the Med. from Southampton and were lucky with the weather ( 68 degrees in Malaga ) .

A balcony ( CA grade or above ) allocated about 2 weeks before departure worked out at £60 ( $ 100 approx. ) per night .The total price rose by £100 nearer the departure date , I think we booked in September .

We booked this trip on the Victoria a couple of months ago and got a Cunard Fare with choice of balcony cabin and dinner sitting for about £ 80 per night

which we thought was good value .

As others have said , it is a gamble ; if you think the price and conditions are OK at any stage , go for it !

We have made a late booking twice and were allocated second sitting on the card in our cabin . If you can get on board before 1.30 pm , the daily programme usually mentions that you can go to the Britannia restaurant at that time and request a change of dining . This has been successful each time . Get there early if possible as people queue up before 1.30 and I think it closes at about 2.30 .

We wish to book a taxi to pick us up from the ship but unsure what sort of time to say. We will be going to Southampton airport and don't really need to be off until about 9.30 / 10.00 but wondered if everyone is off the ship by then. Can anyone advise please.

The ship usually unloads from the top decks down , apart from Diamond members who can disembark as soon as things are ready . You will be given a time 2 or 3 days before probably in the range of 9.00 to 10.00 . Cabins have to be vacated by 8.30 . If you are prepared to carry all your luggage yourselves , you can go earlier .

The terminal is therefore very busy until at least 10.00am .

Very acceptable , you will find yourself popular with some of the overseas passengers ,

particularly the Japanese .

We did a 2 day package with SPB Tours which was about 25% cheaper than Cunard . It was very good , they used minibuses so the groups had a maximum of 15 people . As an accredited company , you do not need a visa as they make the arrangements but need to know passport details etc 10 days in advance .

The tours start quite early and Cunard gave the impression in the daily paper that disembarkation priority would be given to their own tours . In practice this was not the case . We visited in September 2013 and were very lucky with the weather , St Petersburg looked wonderful - one of the best places we have ever visited .

We have used the dry cleaning service several times and even with the "standard" level ,

the item usually comes back early . The prices from a UK point of view are really good ,

eg a jacket for $6.60 .

The UK Voyage Personaliser has been up the creek for several days . Today , I get the US

Cunard site instead of the .co.uk one !

The black and white theme applies to both in our experience although just a few ladies

turn up in colourful dresses probably because of the difficulty of finding the guidance on Cunard's website !

You spotted my deliberate mistake ! It should have been Copenhagen in my

previous post .

We used SPB Tours in St Petersburg and found them to be very good . They do

need 10 days or so to arrange the immigration details . No visa required as such if you use an accredited company .

We did 5 weeks across the Pacific to Tokyo this year on the Queen Elizabeth and found that apart from the Masquerade night , very few people made any attempt to dress up for the themed balls . For example on the Elizabethan night , only two men had made the effort and a few more ladies had either a full or partial costume .

For Neptune , the numbers in costume were similar as they were for South Pacific night although a lot more ladies had flowers in their hair .

We do make the effort with simple home-made rigs and find that others appreciate it judging by the numbers who come up and take a photo . Cunard appear to have economised as they do not seem now to dish out a half bottle of their "special " bubbly to the best dressed attendees .

We did the Baltic last September and did St Petersburg with a local company which was very good . It required getting off the ship quite early and the port

info. provided on board a day or two before , inferred that priority for leaving would be given to Cunard tours . In practice , this was not the case as we were able to disembark without hindrance .

There were shuttle buses at Stockholm and Tallin . At the former , we took the hop on hop off boat round the harbour to do the Vasa Museum , the old town and palace etc . Tallin is easily walkable and very interesting .

For Stockholm , you could walk both ways to the city centre via the mermaid , waterfront ,palace etc . There was plenty of info. available at the dock and we took a local bus into the centre and walked our way back to the ship .