3rdGenCunarder

Yes, they always have a large arrangement in the atrium on QM2.

The closet usually has two pairs of the larger size, but you can ask for the smaller ones. Last winter, my steward couldn't find any of the smaller size. I can shuffle around the room in the larger ones, but I don't take them home because they're too big to be safe on stairs in my house.

A comment about the "ice white" gala night in Alaska. The first time I did an Alaska cruise on QE, I thought that was stupid. Glaciers are blue, not white. So in defiance (and because I already had the skirt), I wore a long turquoise skirt and bought a white top that had a little bling on it. So, like a glacier, snow on top, blue ice below. And then on board, the description was blue and/or white and/or silver. Plenty of people didn't dress in those colors anyway.

For port day dinners, I generally wear what @Victoria2 described. Dress trousers and some kind of dressy top. I have a lot of lightweight dressy jackets that I've accumulated over the years (there's a great thrift shop near me), so a silky tank top and a jacket works well. Dressier than required, but easy to pack. I love to dress up, and I'm going to shower after being out and about much of the day, anyway. So if I have to change, I change into something that looks worthy of an evening on a Cunard Queen.

I don't pack light, either. Alaska cruises have a reputation for being less dressy, and I did find that on HAL. But the level of dress I saw on my Cunard Alaska cruises was about the same as on other Cunard cruises. I would love to have all sea days formal/gala. If a sea day is not a gala night, I don't wear a long gown, but I dress up more than I do on port days, and even on port days I do a little better than Cunard's idea of "smart casual."

I don't think there were many details, just a mention of it. Interestingly, the only times I've seen service dogs have been on Cunard, not HAL. One was for a diabetic woman. Little thing, a bit overwhelmed by a large cocktail party--band playing, all those feet that might have stepped on it. She might have been better to have it in one of those chest packs, because it couldn't have been paying much attention in that situation. But other times I saw them, the dog was calm. The other one was with a woman who had posted here on a similar thread about 5-6 years ago. I recall some very strong anti-dog sentiment on that thread. I ended up behind her in the queue to change dining reservations. Lovely dog, very quiet, Because of some comments she had made about her travels, I figured it was her, and I was right. She said it's hard work to travel with a dog, in her case, a large lab. The owner has to supply all the food. And they brought along his bed. This was a 10 day cruise IIRC, and a large dog eats a lot in that time. Some people with a child came up and wanted to pet the dog, but she explained he was working. Then she said that he would have some free time that afternoon and said where they would be and that the child could meet him then.

Cunard does have a kennel on Queen Mary 2. I'm not sure about the other Cunard ships. The QM2 kennels are for transatlantics only. I believe it's just cats and dogs. That's all I've seen embarking or disembarking. The service is used mainly by people who are relocating between North America and the UK or Europe. If I had to relocate, I'd want to do that, rather than have a pet in a cage in the hold for such a long flight. The kennels are at the top, and there is an outside area for excercise. Owners may visit their pets, but the pets are not allowed out and about on the ship. And in answer to the question about abandoning ship, Cunard provides dog and cat life jackets.

This is how it should be. Seeing Eye is in Morristown NJ, and when I go there, I often see trainers walking dogs through the town, practicing navigating traffic lights (and traffic around the Green in Morristown takes a lot of navigating!), and learning to deal with distractions. Good for you for working with a training group. Properly trained service dogs are amazing.

It depends on the production company they're using and who owns the show design. If they've gone back to a previous contact, old shows might be used again.

I think you mean Billboard went from 2 pianos to one. Lincoln center never had two. They started out as a quintet. But within a year they were down to one violin, not two, so a quartet. The duos are good, but there isn't the variety of sounds/arrangements with two instead of 4 or 5.

Someone who trains service dogs posted several pages back. I wish he/she would come back and explain what the training entails. Obviously, it's to do whatever the service is. But, in addition, is the dog given basic obedience training? Another poster said that you can't be sure because maybe it's a service dog that wasn't well trained by its owner in basic behavior. I always thought the training for a service dog included basic behavior. Certainly, any service dogs I have met were well behaved. And of course, let's not forget that training a dog is about training the owner as much if not more than training the dog.

I've been thinking the same thing, especially about the second atrium picture. I'm sure Cunard didn't lower the ceilings for their Pinnacles, and that area off the atrium isn't like that on HAL. I don't think there is a dress circle. If you look at the deck plans, the seats toward the front are shown on deck 2 and the seats toward the back are shown on deck 3. That's because of where the entrances are--you enter the front from deck 2 and the back from deck 3 because of the slope of the floor. (That's how it works on K'dam) QE and QV are like that, too. Front seats accessed from deck 1 entry, back from deck 2. Plus they have the boxes, which are at deck 3 level.

Maybe we should go out early to stake out a good spot!

In a way that makes sense, two opportunities to get media attention for the line. But Cunard doesn't seem to be making much of a fuss about the maiden. I hope there will be a celebration at each maiden call, but it won't be the big deal that the naming is set to be.

I would be peeved, too. It does seem that the two cruises before the naming cruise are warm-ups when you'd expect them to be a big deal. I understand (and agree with) the choice of Liverpool, given its significance to Cunard, so why isn't the Around Britain cruise the maiden? Were they hedging their bets, scheduling cruises before this just in case things ran late and they had to cancel something?