Fairgarth

1 hour ago, laurieb said:

I too run Firefox so that could have been my issue.  I didn't clear cookies but everything is now working normally

I had the same problem with Safari on my Macbook.  It used to work OK.  So I tried Firefox and it worked fine.  I suspect a new bug somewhere in Cruise Critic.

On 9/5/2021 at 9:56 AM, chengkp75 said:

Many twin screw ships with have a "synchronizer" to adjust not only the slight difference in rpm the shafts may be turning, but also the relative position of the propeller blades to the other propeller, so that blades from both screws are not passing the hull at the same time.  It will slightly offset the two propellers, and make adjustments to keep them this way, and that can actually double the blade passage frequency, taking is completely out of harmony with the hull.  Okay, sorry for that.

 

 

Many thanks, chengpk75, for that splendid explanation.  Enquiring minds want to know:  do twin screw ships have contra-rotating props?  How about azipods?

If you wanted to fly into Vancouver a few days earlier, schedules for next July show non-stop flights from Gatwick to Vancouver on WestJet, Heathrow to Vancouver on BA and two on Air Canada.  So that's four non-stops per day.  I would expect Air Transat to also offer a non-stop, probably Gatwick.  Do you have to book through Cunard? I prefer to deal direct with the chosen airline.   I'm thinking its far too soon to book flights.  Airline schedules are in flux until the pandemic is ancient history so whatever you book today ain't gonna happen.  I would certainly wait until the new year.  With four non-stops per day, you will have no problem getting what you want on the day that you want even three or four months prior.  Fares will have settled down too.  Currently, they are outrageous.  Nobody pays that.  Be patient!

I did westbound out of Hamburg with Anthony Inglis and the National Symphony Orchestra.  If you are at all musical, this is it!  The folks in Hamburg love the QM2.   We had 400 German passengers on board and a great fireworks display on departure.  I joined the passenger choir so we had 100 singers jammed into the back of the stage for 'Last Night of the Cunard Proms'.  We looked out on a sea of waving union jacks.  I had a German guy on either side of me.  Charming guys who loved to sing and they belted out "Rule Britannia' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' with the best of them.  The orchestra played 'The Dambusters March' and it was on the tip of  my tongue to turn to them and say "Ooops, sorry 'bout that"  but I refrained.  They may not have recognized it.  The whole thing was most enjoyable, very memorable.

2 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

 

I was unaware of this.

Thanks to both of you for your informative posts.  

Air Canada's was a Boeing 767, Air Transat's was an Airbus A330.  If you wanted to investigate further, there is a book all about the Gimli Glider:  "Freefall"  by William Hoffer

20 hours ago, iancal said:

There was also an AC plane, nicknamed the 'Gimli Glider' that had to land in Gimli, Manitoba for the same reason. 

 

The positive side of the Transat flight was that the pilot was a pro.   He glided in for a safe landing.  At the time it was lauded by their (pilot and co-pilot) peers as quite an accomplishment.

The Gimli glider also had a couple of pro pilots.  One was a glider pilot and the other had served with the Air Force out of Gimli and knew the airport.  They were hoping to make Winnipeg but didn't have enough height for that. 

Two different reasons.  As best I can recall, the Gimli glider was a fuel loading issue caused by Trudeau Pere's decree that Canada would go metric.  The Transat one was a maintenance issue where the wrong part had been fitted which allowed fuel to escape.

...and feed them.  Just make sure the guides tell you exactly how.  You will be standing on sand, waist deep, and they swim around you.  Frightening, at first, but when they brush up against your leg they are as soft as a kitten.

On 6/22/2021 at 11:31 AM, njguy_south said:

 I looked at (and booked) the Royalton, as it is all-inclusive and not terribly far from the cruise port.

The Royalton would not be my first choice.  Or second or third.  It's quite isolated and there is nothing else within walking distance.  It used to have  a terrible reputation but since a fairly recent change of ownership it now has ...ummm.... a mixed reputation.  Bear in mind that the whole island is only 10 x 10mi so nothing is very far from anything else.

7 hours ago, loman said:

I always take a direct flight from Toronto the day of the cruise .

Your faith in the airlines is touching and totally misplaced.  Nine times out of ten you will make it.  What will you be thinking on the tenth?  What if you make it and your baggage doesn't?

We took the westbound HAM - SOU - NYC in October 2018.  The folks in Hamburg love the QM2 and we had quite the send off.  I joined the choir along with 200 others so the group was split in two.  The orchestra does two shows in one evening so we had 100 in each.  Cunard hands out small flags so from the stage we faced a sea of union jacks being waved, great atmosphere.  The choir sat quietly at the back of the stage while the orchestra played until it was our turn to sing.  There were 400 Germans on board and many of them love to sing.   I had one on either side of me, charming guys, fluent English.  They were singing 'Rule Britannia' with gusto.  The orchestra played the 'Dam Busters March' and it was on the tip of my tongue to say to them "Gee, sorry 'bout that" but I bit my tongue instead.  It's possible they didn't recognize it.  Capt. Christopher Wells demonstrated that he has no future as a symphonic conductor, better stick to steering the ship but full marks and a jolly good sport for trying.  For me, it was one of our most memorable sailings.  Don't know if I still have the daily programs, I would have to do some digging.

On 5/16/2021 at 3:41 PM, em-sk said:

 

Actually Air Canada, United and Lufthansa has a profit sharing agreement in place for travel between North America and Europe. 

Profit sharing?  Really?  Are you sure?  They are all members of Star Alliance but I didn't realize they were sharing profits.  Would that be legal for United?

On 5/10/2021 at 9:09 AM, crewsweeper said:

But you're right.  St. Johns is the cruise port.

But you're not wrong.  There are indeed cruise ships that anchor in the English Harbor area but the great majority do use St. John's.

3 hours ago, crewsweeper said:

You'll get a nice tour of the island just driving to Dickenson or St. John.

Ummm... not quite.  The ship docks right in the middle of St. John's so you are already there.  Dickensen is not far so you won't see much of the island on the way.  You might want to pick just one activity rather than tour the whole island.  Choose from swim with the stingrays, ziplining, circumnav on a catamaran, Nelson's Dockyard or laze on a beach.  I'm partial to Turner's, one of the biggest, nicest and least crowded.

Game for anything.  On a crossing with Anthony Inglis and the National Symphony Orchestra, Capt. Wells took the baton.  He has no future as an orchestra conductor.  Better stick to steering the ship.  Splendid chap!

On 4/3/2021 at 1:15 PM, FlyerTalker said:

As for the EC and the merger:  Wanna fly into the EU?  Gotta abide by the rules of the EU.

What's sauce for the goose....

My guess is that the great majority of passengers on Air Canada and Air Transat are Canadian so this does very little to protect European consumers.

Lufthansa owns Swiss, Austrian and Brussels, all four of which fly into Canada.  So under Europe's own rules, maybe they should pick one?  Or perhaps Europe's rules don't apply to Europeans?  Or maybe we need to invent Canadian rules to combat this nonsense?

We have been thinking of a trans-At in the fall but it will be a while before we are prepared to commit and pay out some cash.  We need to see how Covid fades away and we are comfortable with any potential risk.   We could jump on something at the last minute.  Or maybe not.  Just checked 'Rhapsody of the Seas', Barcelona to Tampa 30th November.  Balconies are sold out already.  Which tells me that there is a pent up demand for cruises, trans-Atlantics will be full and there will be no bargains.  Ah well, some other time.....

Now this is just bleedin' ridiculous.  The takeover was approved by the Canadian Government.  How can Europeans block it?  Did Canada stop BA taking over British Midland?  Lufthansa taking over Swiss?  Air France and KLM cudding up? etc etc.  I fear Air Transat is finished.  There is a long list of Canadian airlines that have gone bust and ceased operations.  None of them suffered a pandemic, a 90% drop in travel or grounding their entire fleet for several weeks but they went bust anyway.  Unlike many others, the Canadian Government has offered zero financial help to its airline industry in this pandemic.  Personally, I would be reluctant to book Air Transat until I can see it will survive for sure.  If it goes bust, your money is down the drain.

17 hours ago, Oceangoer2 said:

I never knew there was a 'special foreigner tax' in Canada....and going national??  

I believe it is very specific.  In B.C. there is a tax of 20% on real estate purchases when the title transfer is registered if the buyer is non-Canadian.  As far as I know, foreigners pay the same rate as citizens for all other taxes e.g. income tax, GST, gas tax, alcohol, tobacco, city real estate, airport departure, import duties, capital gains, dividends etc. etc.......

12 hours ago, Twickenham said:

Those flights from Asia likely have a high amount of cargo on board. Mexico/Caribbean flights are almost exclusively for discretionary leisure travel. That's the difference.

Good point.  I don't know how many passengers there would be on these flights.  It's also possible, I suppose, that there is a plane-load of people waiting to fly out when the aircraft turns around here.

So, the airlines have cancelled all flights to Mexico and the Caribbean as requested by the Canadian government.  I checked for arrivals at Vancouver airport yesterday.  We have flights coming in from Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Delhi, Manila, Taiwan.   Really?  Am I missing something?  Does any of this make sense?

Let's look on the bright side - and I think there is a bright side.

By taking it private, senior executives will no longer be obsessed with quarterly results, Wall Street and their own obscene bonuses in stock options.  Which would mean that Sycamore intends to build it up as a going concern and then sell it off a few years from now as a successful, profitable business.

If I was Sycamore, I would be losing sleep over IT support.  Seems to me they have three options but I'm happy if anybody else can shed light:

1  RCL will have to host them in the short term.  That could continue indefinitely with minimum disruption, on payment of monthly fees.

2  In the airline industry, you can buy what you need, hosted by companies like Sabre or Amadeus who already have the systems up and running with other customers.  It would take a few months analyzing and testing to reach cutover.  I don't know if such facilities exist in the cruise industry - can somebody else chip in?

3   Sit down and write code from scratch.  OMG are you serious?  How many years, how many millions?  For three small ships?  And if you have any sense, go into hiding the week before cutover.  Thing is, whether you have three small ships or twenty big ships, the customer experience has to be very similar and your one-time investment won't be that different.

5 hours ago, IB2 said:

Jet lag is invariably worse flying eastbound 

Interesting.  I'm the opposite.  Flying eastbound, I go to bed for a couple of hours after lunch, get up late afternoon and from that point on I'm on local time, no problem.  Westbound, when I get home I'm wide awake at 3 or 4 in the morning and that goes on for at least a week until I finally adjust to local time. 

5 hours ago, Victoria2 said:

The main advantage of an eastbound crossing can be summed up in four words.

 

Lack of jet lag!

Eh?  Short of doing a round trip, there are four possible combinations:  a U.S. resident sailing east or west, a British resident sailing east or west.  All have to fly out or fly home.  Which one, pray, avoids jetlag?

Another possible advantage of westbound is that storms tend to be eastbound.  So if you are unlucky enough to go through one, it is better to be going in the opposite direction and you'll be rid of it sooner rather than ride along with the storm.

As you say, westbound gives you 25 hour days.  I find eastbound is irritating because they change the clocks at noon.  Just when you think of going for lunch at noon, all of a sudden it's one o'clock, you haven't had lunch and afternoon tea and dinner are looming.

If you do sail into Southampton, there is a Cunard bus direct to Heathrow, for example.  Can't imagine taking the train for the same trip, no matter how much I love trains.

You could do the reverse:  fly into Paris or Amsterdam, take the Eurostar to London, spend a couple of days then train it down to Southampton.  By which time, you will be over the jetlag and ready to enjoy QM2 to the full.