Se1lad

My mistake - I have reversed engineered my on board statement and it is 15%!

I’m sure it was 18% - however I didn’t see a paper receipt all week. I presume this means that if I buy wine in the restaurant this is only going into the beverage staff pot, and the regular waiters would not get anything?

On the eastbound TA which finished 8th May, you could get off between 7 and 8am if you carried your own bags and pre booked. Queens grill disembarked at 8am. Main restaurants were open 6.30 - 8am for breakfast, and I think Kings Court was open until 9am.

Two quick questions on the service charges: 1. Where does the 18% service charge in the bars go? To the waiter who served me, or is it divided between all the staff in the specific bar? Alternatively is it split another way? 2. Where does the 18% service charge in the restaurant go, assuming all you purchase is wine? Is it just the sommelier, is it split between all staff in the restaurant, or is split another way?

I found the signal was strongest on the balcony on my recent trip. Will be interested to hear your feedback as these devices can be picked up cheaply. I see thst that they also can distribute a signal via a connection over Ethernet. Whilst on QM2 I noticed there was an Ethernet port in the cabin - does anyone one know if these are active and would provide a better route if connecting to the internet?

My experience on an eastbound TA was that you got exactly 24 hours of access. So if I purchased it at 10am, and the clocks went forward an hour at 12 noon, it ran until 11am the following morning. I would expect the reverse to happen on a westbound TA, e.g if I purchased at 10am, and the clocks went back overnight, the package would run until 9am the following morning.

I was travelling with another gold - we used one package at a time for our 2 devices - works fine provided you don’t use both devices at the same time. As we still had mobile data on Sunday night when we departed from New York we used a single 24 hours @ $20 from Monday lunchtime to Tuesday lunchtime, and another $20 from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning. We then switched to the other account and used the $45 (3 x $15) for the remainder of the trip. This resulted in no charge for internet access for our trip. All you need to do is register each cruise card separately to get the 2 free allowances.

On re reading the original post they only have a carry-on sized wheeled case, plus a folded hanging suit bag each. The suit bags would fit in the overhead storage, and the carry on sized cases between the seats, or failing that they could put them on a pair of seats- there should be some spare at the time they are travelling in first class,

I’d expect a car to cost around £200 if you have lots of large luggage. Booking advance train tickets in first class and a taxi at both ends should cost no more than £60. Waterloo station isn’t too hard to navigate - there are plenty of departure screens, the platforms are clearly signed, and as trains start from there you have plenty of time to board provided you arrive early. However if you have any mobility issues or would struggle moving all your luggage from the taxi to the train, then a car will be far less stressful, though much more expensive.

I was able to get the plan for $45 (i.e. the amount you get free as gold) from Thursday morning, and it worked until arrival in Southampton until Sunday morning.

I printed it out - I expect that showing it on an iPad would be fine as other people were doing this at the terminal. The certificates come through as a pdf attachment to the email, I would recommend installing Acrobat Reader on your iPad and making sure the files are downloaded to your iPad before getting to the terminal. Alternatively, your hotel reception will probably print them for free if you ask them nicely!

An observation from my recent TA - the discounted entire trip rate of $105 for 7 days, reduced proportionally each day. So if you waited until the morning after we departed the price came down to $90. Seeing as you get mobile phone connectivity for most of the first evening anyway this allows you to save a bit of money.

You can book advance train tickets for £9 standard class and £15 first class. Mid day first class should be pretty quiet so reasonably easy to get a seat, with plenty of spare seats to put luggage on if they are too big for the overhead racks. It might be easiest to get a taxi from your hotel to Waterloo, unless you mind carrying your luggage down a short staircase at Leicester Square - and back up a short staircase at Waterloo.

My experience from the recent 1st May eastbound TA may help you. Obviously requirements for Cunard are subject to change at short notice. I booked a Fit To Fly Antigen Test With Observation from Medicspot for £19.99. With a coupon code I found by searching the internet this came down to £16.50. Cunard were happy with the test being performed any time in the previous 2 days, so for a Sunday departure I was ok to do it anytime on Friday. If I recall, test appointments were available any time between 9am and 6pm UK time. Test was done over zoom, both myself and my travelling companion were able to do the test on the same zoom session - I did this on my iPad with no problem. They told me the certificate could take up to 2 hours, but it arrived within 5 minutes.