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Upcoming Speakers?

jeno

By jeno,
in Cunard Line

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bluemarble

bluemarble

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Scorer9 said:

The QM2 listing is way out from who has been speaking on our cruise for the last 11 days.

 

That's unfortunate. We've occasionally had one or two substitutions from the previously-announced lists of speakers and it's typical to see speakers added to what was previously announced, but not wholesale changes as appears to have happened here. Hopefully you have found the speakers on your voyage as enlightening as those on the published list would have been.

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bluemarble

bluemarble

Posted
Posted

By the way, there is one voyage showing a list of speakers at the bottom of its voyage details page on the new Cunard website. That's voyage Q915, Japan and Alaska, 27 Nights, Queen Elizabeth, May 5 - May 31, 2019, Yokohama-Vancouver. Here are the links to that voyage's details page.

 

US: https://www.cunard.com/en-us/find-a-cruise/Q915/Q915

UK: https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/find-a-cruise/Q915/Q915

 

And though they are few and far between, some voyages also show the heading "Guest speakers on this voyage." at the bottom of their voyage details pages, but with no speakers actually listed.

 

Perhaps this is a sign that Cunard is intending to show the guest speakers on the voyage details pages as they used to do on the old website (although that became spotty on the old website starting about a year or two ago). One can hope anyway.

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sogne

sogne

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, bluemarble said:

I can't find the speaker lists on the new website. That's one of the items I mentioned that seem to be missing in the "New Cunard Website" thread. Here are the latest speaker lists including most of 2019 downloaded from the old website.

 

QM2insights.pdf

QE-insights-2018-v2.pdf

QVinsights.pdf

  these are 2018 speakers cant find anything for 2019 

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jeno

jeno

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Posted
1 hour ago, Host Hattie said:

There are 2019 dates on these lists, are you looking for any particular cruise ?

The Queen Victoria leaving today! I was also trying to help a friend with a couple of upcoming cruises.  All were on here. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Bigmike911

Bigmike911

Posted
Posted

The PDF has not been updated since last summer. The information is now not complete nor accurate. Considering the level of competence with the new website, I guess we should not be disappointed. As a point of personal interest, I usually book for the cruise, and the speakers are usually a bonus. But having said that, they have been on average excellent. 

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roscoe39 Great Review Rare

roscoe39

Posted
Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, Bigmike911 said:

The PDF has not been updated since last summer. The information is now not complete nor accurate. Considering the level of competence with the new website, I guess we should not be disappointed. As a point of personal interest, I usually book for the cruise, and the speakers are usually a bonus. But having said that, they have been on average excellent. 

insights covering late 2018 and  2019 for the QV wc covered here, I also have the QM and QE if anyone wants them

QVinsights.pdf

Edited by roscoe39
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bluemarble

bluemarble

Posted
Posted

Updated lists of 2019 insight guest lecturers are now available. Here are the links to the individual pdf documents.

 

QE: https://book.princess.com/pdf/onesource/cu/CU_QEinsights.pdf

QM2: https://book.princess.com/pdf/onesource/cu/CU_QM2insights.pdf

QV: https://book.princess.com/pdf/onesource/cu/CU_QVinsights.pdf

 

But don't get too excited. Aside from removing the 2018 speakers, there are only a few updates in these latest documents that I am seeing.

 

In the QV document, two wine experts have been added to the list of speakers for the "Voyage du Vin" sailing (V922 - Sep 6-20, 2019).

 

In the QM2 document, the "Literature Festive at Sea" crossing (M936 - Nov 10-17, 2019) has been added with a list of 14 speakers. On the other hand, the "Event Cruises" page for that voyage on the Cunard web site lists 16 guest speakers.

 

In the QM2 document, the Aug 11-18, 2019 crossing (M924) is now designated as "Dance the Atlantic" rather than "English National Ballet".

 

And finally, also in the QM2 document, the 9-night Sept 15-24, 2019 crossing to Hamburg (M929) is now designated as the "National Symphony Orchestra" crossing, whereas it had no special designation shown in the previous document. I believe it is actually just the 7-night Sept 15-22, 2019 crossing to Southampton (M929A) which is the "National Symphony Orchestra" crossing, but these documents only ever include voyages without letter suffixes.

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Reuben's 3rd

Reuben's 3rd

Posted
Posted

Thank you, Blue Marble.  I emailed Cunard two weeks ago to find out where this info was.  So far, not even an acknowledgement of my email, much less an answer.  I phoned last week, and got an ever so sympathetic young woman on the phone.  She gave me the two names shown on your list for my Apr 28 QM2.  I find it hard to believe that with slightly less than 3 months to go, they have only confirmed 2 speakers for a 7 day transatlantic.  It's a good thing that the service on the ship is infinitely better than Cunard's apparent corporate abilities!  The ship is delightful, and for us, one of the primary delights is the lectures. 

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AzureGreen23

AzureGreen23

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, Reuben's 3rd said:

...She gave me the two names shown on your list for my Apr 28 QM2.  I find it hard to believe that with slightly less than 3 months to go, they have only confirmed 2 speakers for a 7 day transatlantic. 

I've been watching this list, for this cruise, for a few months...

I've seen the TWO speakers change back and forth a few times. I agree, it seems a bit odd that "our" speakers are somewhat unknown, and that while other crossings have a multitude of speakers, ours remain either a mystery, or just plain meager.

Good thing that I enjoy surprises.

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  • 1 month later...
Reuben's 3rd

Reuben's 3rd

Posted
Posted

Just an (irritated) update; yesterday, I once again tried to find out who the speakers were.  I once again tried Cunard's "contact Cunard" number.  A very pleasant young man, Lou, gave me the two names which appeared months ago.  When I insisted that there must be more for a 7 day transatlantic, he checked with his supervisor, who confirmed that there were only two.  Having been reassured on board last year, when I made this booking, that the lectures were staying, I protested.  The young man tried to transfer me to customer relations; after 23 minutes on hold, I was disconnected.  To his credit, Lou called me back, apologized, and asked if I wanted to try customer relations again, but there really didn't seem to be much point.

I then tried to use the "contact Cunard" email provided.  I chose "Complaint" , entered my issue, and attempted to send it off.  It insisted that I choose a type of complaint from their dropdown menu; the menu was blank! I chose the blank; it would not accept my email!

In this or the other similar post, Blue Marble,  Roscoe 39 and MCC Retired have tried to provide links, but the first two's states "the attached is not available..." and MCC's leads to the speakers for 2016-17.

I cannot believe that this is anything but misinformation.  I shall be one unhappy camper if I board the QM2 on Apr 28 and there are only two speakers!  We love the program, and plan our days around the schedule.  QM2; love the ship and her staff, wonder how the Corporate powers that be manage to tie their shoelaces.

Oh, I still haven't had a response to my January query to Cunard. 

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bluemarble

bluemarble

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, njguy_south said:

Odd, when I open those links, they are for 2016-2017.  Maybe my computer does not work the way it should?  lol

 

I've been seeing the same behavior recently and we've discussed it a bit on this other "Guest lecturers" thread.

Apparently some people are still able to get the current 2019 speaker lists using the links above and others (including you and me) are getting old 2016-2017 lists using those same links. Here's some additional info I can provide after doing some further experimenting.

 

On my PC here in the US, I'm finding "book.princess.com" resolves to IP address 23.54.35.230. And that always leads me to the old 2016-2017 speaker lists.

 

However, if I open a vpn connection to another country such as the UK, then "book.princess.com" resolves to a different IP address. I'm finding most of the time that still leads to the old 2016-2017 lists. But occassionally, it leads to the 2019 lists. For example, if I open a vpn connection that happens to resolve "book.princess.com" to IP address 23.43.65.132, then that gets me to the 2019 speaker lists (after I have cleared "cached images and files" from my browser).

 

Not sure what to make of this. It's not strictly a US vs. UK thing. But off hand, it seems like it might be some kind of data synchronization issue where different servers yield different copies of those files.

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bluemarble

bluemarble

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, Bigmike911 said:

These have not been updated since last summer. Surely there must be something newer. What is going on at Cunard/Carnival?

 

Just for the record, the speaker lists were last updated for January and posted sometime in late January/early February (see post #14 whose links may now send you to 2016-2017 speaker lists). But you are correct in that not much has been added since the previous versions of the files from last August/September that I attached in post #2.

 

Again for the record, here are the latest speaker lists that I am able to find (still the versions from January). I'm attaching them here for reference since the links in earlier posts now appear to go to old 2016-2017 speaker lists for many/most people (including me most of the time).

 

CU_QEinsights.pdf CU_QM2insights.pdf CU_QVinsights.pdf

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