Mr Toad’s Baltic Adventure

[Whitemarsh]

Looking good Pushka. :)

[Louise D]

There are red, pulsating, blotchy rashes coming up all over my computer monitor. I did not know that computers can catch the measles. ;)

[Pushka]

Looking good Pushka. :)

 

See and raise ya Whitey! :D

 

Don't worry LouiseD, it will settle by morning. Just don't scratch, you know how your PC gets all messy when you do that!

 

See what you've done Mr Toad - you called me out on my munchkins behaviour and it's just gone awry from there.

 

Do people really dislike those tables?

[Louise D]

See and raise ya Whitey! :D

 

Don't worry LouiseD, it will settle by morning. Just don't scratch, you know how your PC gets all messy when you do that!

See what you've done Mr Toad - you called me out on my munchkins behaviour and it's just gone awry from there.

 

Do people really dislike those tables?

 

I hope it does settle by morning, Pushka. Otherwise, I will have to put my computer into isolation (by order of the Health Department as measles is notifiable). How will I get any work done then?

[Whitemarsh]

Do people really dislike those tables?

 

I prefer it when they have them located outside of the shops as it doesn't detract from the on board atmosphere as much. But apart from that, I don't really care too much either way.

 

I think everyone knows it's Cunard's version of a garage sale.

 

I hope it does settle by morning, Pushka. Otherwise, I will have to put my computer into isolation (by order of the Health Department as measles is notifiable). How will I get any work done then?

 

I've changed my glitter gif from red to black for you. Hopefully this will prove to be the antidote to your computer being infected with measles. :)

[Louise D]

I prefer it when they have them located outside of the shops as it doesn't detract from the on board atmosphere as much. But apart from that, I don't really care too much either way.

 

I think everyone knows it's Cunard's version of a garage sale.

 

 

 

I've changed my glitter gif from red to black for you. Hopefully this will prove to be the antidote to your computer being infected with measles. :)

 

That's great and it has a very interplanetary feel to it.

[ToadOfToadHall]

I glad I've made some people laugh with my review/report - I enjoyed writing it !

 

Well spotted Pepperrn, I was "served" not "severed" almost instantly.

 

The menus were handed over, we did not ask for them. Last year, they did not offer them so we did not ask. The waiter had written "Hope you enjoyed our excellent service" on them; well, I'll be the judge of that !!

 

Also, they gave out the menus on the last but one night (which was the last formal night), so the final night's were missing (not that I'm bothered).

 

The Tat sales seem to have provided the most entertainment on here.

 

I can't say I saw any over-rouged munchkins (I keep thinking of Barbara Cartland) scurrying around the tat covered tables of wonderment, pawing at the shiny beads or staring open-mouthed at the $10 watches, eyes wide in anticipation as they thrust their cards forwards with simple minded delight !

 

One night there was a pincer like movement on deck 3 with the tables. Exiting the forward lift we were once again faced with the crowds of "bargain hunters". The left side (and shorter route) was very congested so we went to the right hand side, walked along to the end, and what did we find ? They had pulled the sneaky trick of blocking the exit with a table, so we had to turn round and were forced to go the other way. The police use this tactic when dealing with rioters - it's called kettling !!

[ToadOfToadHall]

The "gentleman" also commented on the Mein Schiff ship when we sailed passed it leaving Copenhagen "bloody Germans" which I'm sure they could hear over the ships whistles too. It was also comical to see Union Jack flags being waved at the ship too - not sure how the Germans took that one!

 

I thought that ship was called Mein Kampf !!!

 

As we looked out on our balcony we too saw two people below us with Union Jack flags - I wonder if they bought them with them in readiness ?

[Cats2010]

 

The "gentleman" also commented on the Mein Schiff ship when we sailed passed it leaving Copenhagen "bloody Germans" which I'm sure they could hear over the ships whistles too. It was also comical to see Union Jack flags being waved at the ship too - not sure how the Germans took that one!

 

 

Well, they probably took it as being something normal .... and that's what it is!

 

:)

[thriftycrafter]

A wonderful, very informative report.

We're about to book our first cruise and had almost decided on P&O, until we watched a You tube video!

Cunard sounds much more suitable for those wanting something other than Pontins-on-Sea.

[Cats2010]

I thought that ship was called Mein Kampf !!!

 

 

Is this remark supposed to be funny?

[ToadOfToadHall]

Is this remark supposed to be funny?

 

I take it you don't think so then ?

[solocanadian]

Queen Victoria – Baltics & St Petersburg September 2013

 

Mr and Mrs Toad were on almost the same cruise this time last year, and as we enjoyed that one very much indeed, and with those handy Getaway fares now available (which reward the late booker and abuse the loyal, early bookers) it was rude to leave it – so we took Cunard up on it; ending up with a slightly higher grade of Britannia balcony than last year, but for almost half the price.

 

Standards Of Dress

 

I saw no slippage in dress standards from last year, in fact, it may have been slightly better; in the MDR I did not see a single chap without a jacket, some wore ties, some did not. I had been concerned about this having read several comments about poorness of dress in the evenings, but, at least on this cruise, this was simply not the case.

 

Dinner

 

We asked for a table for 2 on the late (20:30) sitting and of course knew that booking a Getaway fare, you get what you are given; we were given a table for 2 on the late sitting.

 

Dinner in the MDR is pretty good, but they pull the stroke of putting the best options on the same evening, so some evening’s choices are good, others not.

 

Another stroke I noticed was that the choices have been reduced, but they cleverly disguise this by mixing them in with the less favourable options. For example, at first glance, there appears to be a choice of 6 starters and 6 mains. Look again – not so. For starters, there are indeed 6 choices, but 3 were always soups, so that only leaves 3 proper starters (soup is not food because you don’t need teeth to eat it). I’m sure that soup used to be listed as a separate course, but by listing the soups with the solid food items it makes the choices look bigger than they actually are.

 

For mains, the same slight of hand trick is employed; 6 options, but 3 are the vegetarian options, so again, only 3 proper choices. But, mix them together and, hey presto, you create the illusion of a bigger menu; clever eh ?

 

The quality is quite reasonable, but it is mass catering (but of course it has to be). Beef features very heavily as does smoked salmon for starters. We were given our menus by our waiters, so I’ve added them up;

 

14 nights; 10 nights had a beef dish, all 14 nights a fish dish, 3 nights a lamb dish and 4 a chicken dish and 5 nights a pork dish. Again, out of 14 nights, 8 night’s starters were some kind of smoked salmon affair.

 

But, as I say, the food is still good, some of my mains were not so brilliant (baby chicken, lamb cutlet with a soggy lamb spring roll being poor). But the fillet steak and prime rib were first rate. Also, quite surprising, the amount and variety of vegetables and potatoes had increased from last year, there are still not masses of them, but that’s good.

 

Lunch

 

We had lunch a few times in the MDR; the choices were limited, most of the starters were a bit lacking, so I often went from just a main course. Mrs Toad seemed happier than I with the lunch options. Again, quality was fine, options were mainly light.

 

Lido

 

I only ventured once into the Lido, and that was to get a glass of lemonade. It is, quite literally, a bun fight. People were milling about, not knowing which way to turn, so they often went round in circles, before finally breaking free and arriving, quite randomly, at an empty table.

 

Breakfast

 

Because of my view of the Lido, we always had breakfast in the MDR. It starts off okay, but as the days went on, I lost the will to eat. Breakfast in the MDR is staggering boring; it never changes. The cooked breakfast (i.e. “Full English”) options consist of Aldi’s finest quality beans, bacon and sausage and so on. It looks pitiful and that’s because it is. But they do do a good omelette, and I’m told the Eggs Benedict is good. But there’s only so many ham, cheese and mushroom omelettes you can eat, so in the end, as I said, I gave up.

 

Toast

 

What is going on there ? The white toast tastes of nothing, unless you count cardboard as a flavour – which I don’t. The brown toast is marginally better; it does have some taste, just.

 

Tea And Coffee

 

“I’ll have a cup of your finest warm water with some brown grit in it, Mrs Miggins, unless, by some miracle, your coffee shop has actually started to sell coffee”.

 

No matter the location or time of day, the coffee was appalling. It tastes of nothing at all. It’s brown water. Tea, which I’d only drink if I was dying of thirst in the desert, I was informed by more than one person, also tastes of almost nothing at all.

 

Afternoon Tea

 

I do like afternoon tea, and it pleasing to say it very good. Everything is fine (apart from the coffee of course). It’s rather good to sit in the Queens Room and be served your sandwiches, cakes and scones. It has changed a bit from last year; last year they just kept feeding you until you said “stop” or left. Now they tend to cease after 2 goes with the sandwiches and the same with the cakes.

 

Crisps and Canapés

 

A like crisps. But 14 nights of plain kettle crisps was just too much for me to stand. What about a hula-hoop ? Or some Monster Munch ? Or just some cheese and onion ? Anything other than plain. And the Canapés; 14 nights of the same sort of thing – it does get tedious.

 

Music

 

There’s plenty of live music around the ship; harpist, string quartet, various pianists, jazz band etc. It’s mainly classical, played with at afternoon tea or in the early or late evening. I like that – very civilised indeed.

 

Lectures

 

I went to almost all the lectures. There were 2 speakers, one was a diplomat and he spoke about the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The other speaker was a former navy officer and then pilot and he spoke on history (first world war and Captain Bligh). Both were really good, well presented and interesting. They each lasted 45 minutes, which was about the right length of time, but you could certainly have made more out of each one; especially the Olympics which could have been made into two lectures. But, I suppose there are only so many see days, so that’s the limiting factor.

 

Staff

 

Almost all the staff are excellent. The dining room staff are friendly and efficient, both our waiter, his assistant and the wine waiter. The bar staff were also all excellent in the Golden Lion, the Commodore and the Chart Room. How anyone can have any complaint is beyond me; the only exception are the staff in the Café Carinthia – they are next to useless, so much so that we walked out after failing to be served after 20 minutes. That never happened in any other part of the ship, where you were severed almost instantly.

 

Fellow Passengers (not Guests)

 

Firstly, Cunard, I’m a passenger, I’m not a guest. Do you charge guests ? No you don’t. So either I pay (and hence that makes me a passenger) or I don’t (in which case that makes me a guest).

 

We’re been on 4 Cunard cruises over the last 5 years, so we’re now five years older than the first time we went, so you’d think that would mean we were getting closer to the average age of our fellow passengers. Wrong. On this cruise there was a staggering number of people whom I’m amazed are still alive. Firstly, because of their age, but also because of their stupidity – I’m surprised some people have gotten to the age they have. Thousands of years ago, they would have been eaten by a lion at a young age because they did not have the mental capacity to run out of the way, but now, somehow, they manage to survive.

 

But others were great; we met some very interesting people.

 

If you were on the late sitting for dinner, then you may well have seen The Crown Prince of Sweden and his lady wife or the Arch Duke of Austria and his companion. Someone did suggest they were a plant, maybe from an amateur dramatics society. The gentlemen, on formal nights, wore a dinner jacket with what looked like medals on it, but actually were huge pieces of jewellery in the shape of Maltese Crosses. His lady wore a tiara and they walked, in step, together, with her holding onto his outstretched arm. I assumed they were announced when they entered the dining room, but as we followed on a few minutes each evening, I missed that bit.

 

Also, possibility because of the advancing years of the majority of the passengers, the public areas were kept at the temperature of an oven. The Golden Lion and the MDR was terrible; maybe air con costs more to run than the central heating ?

 

For Your Convenience a Nominal Charge Will Apply

 

Everything is for “your convenience” it seems. The daily charge of 11 dollars or so is “for your convenience”, the 15% service charge is “for your convenience”. No, it’s for “our convenience”, which does not really bother me that much, I just hate being taken for a gullible fool.

 

And, all charges are “nominal”. “A nominal $40” for the wine tasting, and “a nominal $80” for the champagne tasting. It would appear my definition of nominal and Cunard’s definition are at variance with each other; I prefer the accepted dictionary definition of the word “nominal”, whilst Cunard prefer an alternative one that no one else is aware of.

 

Ports Of Call

 

The highlight for most people is, of course, St Petersburg. We actually stayed on board for these two days as we’d been before as there are only so many palaces and museums you can look at.

 

Stockholm is very smart; very affluent and very clean. It was by far the best place we visited. Copenhagen is rather like London, only more expensive. Helsinki is okay, it even has Chuggers, just like we do – a real home from home.

 

Tallinn’s Old Town is a medieval theme park. It is quite simply a hideous place. It’s almost as if all the building were completed last week and then opened to the public

 

Warnemunde; now there’s an odd place. It’s a Germany Whitby. It even has bucket and spade and postcode shops. It’s actually not a bad place; at least it’s real, unlike Tallinn, which, as I say, was made last week.

 

Finally we visited Kristiansand; Again, it’s rather like Warnemunde, it’s a small town that’s only really there because cruise ships stop there. But both places have the plus that you can simply walk off the ship and you are there.

 

Another thing is that our ship docked is less favourable places than others; it’s like we could have parked the car in the town centre multi-story but instead we chose to use the out of town park-and-ride.

 

Casino

 

I’m amazed this place is still kept really. Surely the accountants have worked out that no one uses the place ? I saw the odd person playing the slot machines (which I’m sure have not changed in at least the last 5 years), and I did not see anyone playing on the tables. I can’t believe it will last much longer – it’s dead plant. But, not to miss a trick, you could buy a pack of used Cunard playing cards for $2, which is odd because I never once saw a card being dealt.

 

Incredible Shrinking Chocolate

 

For “my convenience” I’ve taken a picture (see attachment). Someone must have worked out that they give out 2000 chocolates a day, 365 days of the year, that’s 530,000 a year. So if they reduce the size by about 40% they can save countless pennies.

 

Tat Sales

 

Once again, Cunard came up trumps with the tat sales. China’s finest tat was available for all and it was snapped up. They even had a grand tat sale count-down. After St Petersburg, the 3 day count-down began, and the Captain opened the car-boot sale in the Queens Room on the stroke of 9 AM.

 

Assorted Cheapness

 

Two nights had a “theme”. One was Russia (fair enough), and the other was “James Bond”. Where did that come from I wonder ? What has James Bond got to do with anything ? But all these themes consisted of was the placing of a folded A4 laser printed sheet of paper on the tables in a vain attempt to flog you some cocktails.

 

In Conclusion

 

I know it looks like I’m pulling Cunard to bits; I’m not, I actually rather like it. I like the formality and I like the dress code and I love the Commodore Club in the evening when I feels I’ve been transported back to the 1930s and I keep expecting to hear Bertie Wooster shout “What-ho!” as he enters.

 

It’s just that they do let themselves down with the tat, the coffee cards, the tacky theme nights with laser printed drinks menus and so on. Why do they do that ?

 

Okay, Cunard is not an exclusive boutique, it's more like an upmarket department store (Lewis’s or Debenhams) but somehow they keep gravitating to Primark every so often.

 

The new ones on the Amsterdam look like the one on the left but did not have a HAL sleeve around it - just shiny gold foil. It truly was crappy chocolate.

[cunardaddict]

I take it you don't think so then ?

 

As far as I understood Obama and Cameron, they both can't afford to go to war right now. So this is better withdrawn.

[Pushka]

As far as I understood Obama and Cameron, they both can't afford to go to war right now. So this is better withdrawn.

 

Thank goodness for "poverty" then.