tacticalbanjo

On 9/16/2024 at 9:19 AM, buchanan101 said:

Can't book mine just yet...I assume you are on an earlier Alaska cruise. 355 days not there yet. And with later flight can go for a later disembarkation time. As PG can pick and chose a bit.

 

Day hotel... didn't know that they were a thing. May ask the hotel that we are using before the cruise to hold our bags for a few hours when we get back and we can have a wander round Seattle? Given I'm Hilton Gold they may be fairly conducive to this 

Yes, I'm on a June sailing. I believe its the first Cunard Alaska trip out of Seattle.

I don’t know but I can tell you that I’ve booked the later flight just in case. Absolutely hate rushing. I can always get a day hotel if I need to. 

10 hours ago, CPs4591 said:

Wow, this is scaring me a bit about my first voyage with Cunard.  The QM2 transatlantic has always been on my bucket list ever since I was a child, but never on DH’s.  We have travelled the world, but now getting a bit up there as most Boomers. So I am taking my niece next Fall.  Thankfully I am because dressing nice will be a bit easier for two women.  Had I read the dress code before booking it would’ve been an even harder NO for DH.  I have wanted to take this voyage all my life for the voyage itself!  But reading through these threads it seems like a lot of people take the trip not so much for the voyage but just so they can dress to the nines.  And that’s fine, but gosh it’s a bit scary feeling like if I wear a nice pantsuit or woman’s tux on a Gala night I will be shamed beyond measure.  Due to some health issues I cannot wear heels anymore.  Thus my plan to focus more on the nicest pantsuits I can, maybe a cocktail dress that can be worn with doctor recommended flats (not trainers but not fancy either).  Is there not a place in the dining room for people like me who are traveling for the voyage itself ?  My niece and I are booked in Brittania Club.  

A nice pantsuit and a women’s tuxedo on Gala night IS following the dress code. I don’t wear heels on Cunard post lock down. No one has ever said anything. Again the dress code doesn’t mandate heels. I wear ballet flats but if a doctor has told me to wear a specific style of shoe then I would be wearing them without hesitation. 

9 hours ago, majortom10 said:

I have never understood the many who say that after 2-3 days the staff knew my drink and served me as I sat down giving the impression of good service. That to me is not good service because even though I might go the same bar regularly during the cruise what I drink varies nearly every night. So I am afraid that would be to me poor service and would be refused.

They do learn this too. Husband always has a beer of some sort and I have a different drink every night. So when we come in at our usual time they know it’s a beer for him and the drinks menu for me and maybe a suggestion depending on what I’ve enjoyed so far. Very personalised to your habits. Or at least that’s how it used to happen. I couldn't say if it still does but I suspect not now that the bar waiters seem to cover more tables and don’t have as much time to talk to you as they used to. 

I was disappointed in the service I experienced in Britannia on QM2 in June. It was very slow if cheerful. I have to say that my stateroom steward was excellent and our stateroom was always immaculate. Bar waiters were good everywhere. I had a great time on the QA maiden even if there were the inevitable hiccups in service you expect on a maiden. And sure, I wish the menus would get a refresh because they are a bit tired.

Would it put me off booking again? Absolutely not. I have 3 Cunard trips coming up and I'm very much looking forward to them. Just 24 days until I'm on QV but who's counting?

I don't drink a lot these days so I'm happy that there are more options than there used to be. The non-alcoholic cocktails with pretend spirits are a lot better than mocktails which are really just fruit juice mixes. However, have increased in price dramatically since last year which is a bit disappointing.

I did get a comment from one of the bar waiters when I sailed while expecting. He'd remembered me from two previous trips where I did drink a fair bit (and spent a lot of time propping up the Midships Bar!) and after a few days of serving me non-alcoholic cocktails asked why I wasn't drinking alcohol. I didn't really mind since I had a happy reason for not drinking but I suppose it might have caused embarrassment to some guests.

How interesting since all of the overlapping itineraries will allow you to book a child and there are cabins available. There are three berths available on that two night segment.

4 hours ago, Victoria2 said:

In reply to 'impaired eyesight', if lobby B lifts are the elevators in point, we too are of the 'impaired eyesight' brigade and have been for years now even before the wheelchair.

Lifts with space can be rare animals at certain times of the day and if getting to deck 10/11 means going down to go up, then we do it.

 

Bad luck if it annoys but we will continue to do it whatever the ship and I know we won't be alone doing so.

I too will happily ride the elevator in the opposite direction to the one I want to go if I'm struggling to get in one particularly if I have pushchair with me or we are going too many flights for the toddler to manage. My husband will tend to walk and meet me at our destination. 

The reality is that if you are spending a great deal of time with a bunch of strangers you increase the likelihood of catching something purely from being around people carrying different strains of illness from the ones that are circulating locally to you. How many threads have we had about the Cunard Cough over the years?

I know when I head off for a work conference that I'll be heading home with some sort of bug to recover from. It has always happened and will likely continue to happen, the only difference now is that people are testing for a specific bug rather than just grumbling about picking up a cold or flu.

Booking direct doesn't give you any guarantee of the level of customer service as I found out earlier this year. All the call centre want to do is fob you off and I had to refuse to hang up for over an hour before a supervisor would even speak to me.

The reality is that customer service often isn't what it used to be. It doesn't actively bring in money so it's just a cost on the balance sheet to most businesses and gets cut at every opportunity.

I'm pretty happy with my current cruise TA and will probably book everything through them in future.

Thanks for bringing us along with you. I've really enjoyed all your wonderful photos. The one downside is that you've made my own Alaska trip seem forever away!

Wishing you a safe and speedy journey back home.

6 hours ago, exlondoner said:

Is it still allowed into those fjords?

The restrictions which were due to come in 2026 have been pushed back to 2032.

Thanks for posting all these lovely photos. I have Alaska on QE booked for next year and have just 34 days before I'm on Queen Victoria so you're really getting my anticipation up for both trips.

@cruiseny4life The Steakhouse at Verandah is a speciality dining restaurant that has a cover charge then you pay an upcharge for some of the items. Bamboo is one of the alternative pop-up restaurants that take over half of the buffet and have a much lower cover charge than the steakhouse. The pop-ups rotate between Coriander (Indian food), Bamboo (pan-Asian food), La Piazza (Italian food) and Frontier which is an Alaskan themed menu. In other areas of the world you might find Nordlys or Riveria which are Norwegian and Mediterranean themed respectively. We've had great meals at both the steakhouse and the buffet pop-ups.

18 hours ago, NowVoyager2 said:

One note about the drinks onboard - The POURS on drinks was pathetic - I'm a light drinker - usually scotch - I ended up ordering doubles neat w ice on the side.  also like everywhere else - a bottle of wine would have four glasses in  it - now CUNARD & every other business has figured out how to get 5 almost 6 glasses out of a bottle  - the pours were that poor!!

I think this might be the result of a US/UK culture clash. In the UK alcohol must be served in measures as defined by law. Beer and cider is served by the pint, the half pint or one third of a pint. Wine is served in glasses of 125ml, 175ml or multiples there of and the smaller glass size must be available. Ports and sherrys are served in 50ml or 70ml multiples. Spirits are served either in multiples of 25ml or multiples of 35ml depending on the individual premises. No deviation from these fixed sizes is allowed.

So for British passengers, what is being served is entirely normal. Going back a few years the drinks were served in ounces which being around 30ml was a little more than a standard UK single and it is a shame to see that Cunard have increased prices while reducing measures but everything has gone that way.

I'm also a younger person and prefer proper table linens rather than feeling like I'm eating at a glorified greasy spoon. Certainly the experience shouldn't be lesser than what you get in the MDR if you are paying for a premium experience.

I noticed a few spots of worn carpet here and there when I was on in November 2023 but nothing that puts me off getting back on her. In fact, I'm on in 41 days time and can't wait.

@mking8288 Cunard has Starlink and plenty more access points and the wifi is far better than what we had a few years ago. When I was on QM2 in Dec 2022, we couldn't even get a wifi signal in our room which was rather irritating. On complaining we were told that we could just use the internet in a public room. Very helpful when I wanted to browse social media at 3am while trying to resettle my little back to bed!

I've always taken the basic package so don't know exactly what sort of performance you'd get from the top package. It's quite possible that there are fewer passengers using the internet on Cunard so the total available bandwidth goes a bit further and you get a better experience than Starlink on a ship where every man and his dog is on TikTok or Facetime or streaming movies 24/7.

I find it far to easy to get turned around in Kings Court and get lost making my way back to where I was sitting. And having to explore two different areas depending on what you fancy. Also people don't tend to stick to a consistent queueing direction. Much prefer the Lido on the Vista where there is a clear flow. Artisan's Foodhall was ok but I haven't made my mind up about the merits of being served (takes ages and I don't get exactly the portion I wanted) vs self service (grotters can touch things).

And yes, the buffet food could use a bit of improvement. The food in the Sky Princess buffet when I was on last year was incredible and made the Cunard food look rather shabby by comparison. Happily a few weeks later I was on P&O where the buffet food was worse than Cunard and set me up nicely for our next Cunard trip!

10 hours ago, david,Mississauga said:

We rarely attend the “big shows” in any ship’s theatre. I would prefer to endure root canal than suffer through singers shrieking into hand-held microphones and dancers jumping up and down and rolling about the stage to loud pop music.

A man after my own heart! I also avoid the shows like the plague. However, I did enjoy Bright Lights Society on QA.

20 hours ago, NE John said:

2) There’s more than just a decent tea selection. The speciality coffees and hot chocolate at Cafe Carinthia, Commodore Club, etc are outstanding and blow away Starbucks. Especially in Alaska, try the Viennese coffee at Carinthia. . A++.

I wanted to highlight this suggestion because the Viennese coffee is indeed excellent.

As others have mentioned you can write things on the room service breakfast card (within reason obviously) and they'll try their best to get it to you. I like to add corned beef hash to my breakfast and it's always appeared. The room service staff probably just get some from the buffet or the MDR galleys.

I'm in my 30s so if you want to ask any 'young people' questions I'll try to remember what I see other people my age doing!

Like 2BACRUISER I'm not on QE until June 2025 but looking forward to hearing a Cunard take from someone who isn't a Cunard regular. 

9 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

Very good estimates. This guy who has the itineraries for the current Cunard fleet stored in a spreadsheet has calculated the number of port days per year over the life of each ship including future published itineraries. I've counted cruise-by calls/canal transits as sea days and excluded all the days during the shutdown in operations as well as days spent in dry dock. These figures are rounded to the nearest whole day.

 

QM2: 139 port days per year

QV: 208 port days per year

QE: 206 port days per year

QA: 192 port days per year

And for QM2 a greater proportion of those port days are also turnaround days which will limit how much maintenance work can be done.

I was also on QM2 in June and I don't recall the scones looking anything less than fresh. The clotted cream looked and tasted as I would expect. Annoyingly the one photo I don't have from our afternoon tea is of the scone but I definitely didn't notice anything amiss.

I did make the Cunard recipe once and it came out wonderfully.

It's hard to get concrete numbers since there are only a few, very serious, crimes that cruise ships are required to report to authorities. And it's only the US that insists on it. The most reported serious crime on cruise ships is unfortunately sexual assault. Not all of the allegations are against passengers.

Reports made to the DOT can be found here: https://www.transportation.gov/mission/safety/cruise-line-incident-reports

It's important to recognise how few crimes happen per 1000 passengers but cruising, like anything else is not a risk free activity. Women in particular are advised to be wary of their personal security and dollars to donuts, if you did get attacked some smart alec would be questioning you as to why you entered a room that had been open for an unknown amount of time.

Just now, Victoria2 said:

I realise that but bookings can be consolidated by an agent with the add ons of flights and/or hotels and it then becomes becomes a 'self-made' package under one booking reference.

 

We have done that in the past although to be fair, it was flight, land and hotel, cruise then flight, all under one Cunard booking reference and it became 'a package'.

I don't see any difference when adding a couple of cruises rather than just one.

Cunard say on their Queen to Queen page a number of times that voyages have to be booked separately and will be under two booking numbers. It's probably some IT related thing where the system just assumes one booking number=one cruise plus a number of optional things like flights, hotels and transfers. We don't want to make their one computer bought in 1995 to fall over attempting new things now, do we?