Colin_Cameron

Thanks. That's what I was looking for.

Haven't sailed on either of these ships yet, but have cruises booked on both. While looking at some YouTube videos over the weekend I realised that there doesn't appear to be a dancefloor in the Neptune Lounge as there is on Braemar and Balmoral. Is there an equivalent floor elsewhere? I see a mention of a floor in the Observatory, but I suspect this will be smaller?

1 Boundary Street L5 9UD. Which seems to be a timber and building supplies warehouse. We've just booked S2224 for 5th Sept which doesn't seem to be available to book on the CPS website so will have to call them on Monday.

It was raining here this afternoon but boy, do we need it. So it was time for a bit more family tree detective work. My latest head scratcher is a distant relative in Seattle for whom the phrase “the grass is always greener” would seem to have been written specially. There are lots of gaps still to be filled in but so far the story goes: 1954 marries husband #1 1958 marries husband #2 1963 marries husband #3 1964 marries husband #4 1968 marries husband #5 1969 divorced from husband #4 1971 marries husband #6 1974 divorced from husband #5 1977 marries husband #7 who turns out to be husband #2 again! I then loose her until her death in 2006 but things have obviously not gone smoothly in the meantime because husband #2/7 remarries in 1997. And that’s only what I’ve tracked down so far. Maybe @techteach could help me out a bit. Do you know if Seattle street names were changed slightly at some point and, eg. W 65th in the 1950s is really NW 65th today?

We were in 4010 a number of years ago. We never heard a sound from the theatre. Being so far forward, there is the potential for more movement but we never felt any and my wife is very susceptible. As Hattie has said, the balcony has a metal front to it but on the plus side these are about 18" to 24" deeper than on the other decks.

Not certain about QE, but most ships have a scale in the gym.

No. Currently they are NOT testing all passengers at the terminal. You have to do a test yourself and bring the results (or the test itself) with you. This was still the case as of our last contact with FO yesterday but could well have changed by the time we check-in in four hours time, never mind the 1st of August.

We are due to board tomorrow and have to do a LF test before arriving at the dock. Don’t remember the exact wording re: “within 24 hours”, or “ 1 day”, or “on the day”, but we’ll do ours tomorrow morning. They will accept you showing them a letter or text or email from the testing company, otherwise just take the test cassette with you (which is what we’ll do. Test kit £2 from Tesco)

Coincidentally, I’m due to board Fred Olsen’s Balmoral on Friday with another call there next week.

Not without a larger space / more seats for the same number of people. Whether it's the whole restaurant or half of it, the problem is the same. If you have 800 people to feed on one level of the restaurant, and 400 seats, you can do it easily in two 400-seat sittings. If you have open dining and only 200 turn up at 6pm (because early, is too early) half the seats sit empty for some time until most people (let's say another 400) turn up sometime in the middle of the evening (because early is too early, and late is too late) but they can't all be seated because some of the first to arrive are still eating. The only thing to do is to tell some of them to come back later. When they do, along with the last 200, there are still not enough seats because some of the 400 mid-evening arrivals are still dining. You can't really tell them to come back earlier. Because those seats sat empty at the beginning of the evening there will never be enough seats for everyone. The only solution is more seats (or fewer passengers), which could be designed into a newbuild but won't work on the existing ships, unless they can somehow squeeze more seats in or increase the size of the restaurant.

Agreed. I had actually written this but then deleted it.

Is it just me that thinks "open dining" doesn't mean dining when you want. It means dining when they have space for you?

Getting ready for a (non-Cunard) cruise this week. It’s an eight night cruise and there are forty hangers on the packing rail. Mrs C_C has just said, “Looking at this lot you’d think we were going on Cunard.”🤣

Or they go bust.

Ah! You must have fallen asleep (er, I mean blinked!! 😄) earlier. From memory, I think she’s there leaving Tunis and maybe somewhere else as well. Not just sparklers on the baked alaska but also candles on the tables on formal nights and at the midnight buffet! A couple of years later I asked the captain on QE2 how long it would be before she had a female captain, specifically mentioning Inger Olsen. This caused a great commotion causing others to be called over to join the discussion. It seems that even 20+ years ago what was standing in First Officer Olsen’s way was not her sex, but her nationality. I must have missed that thread. I don’t remember it at all. Odd to think now that a year or so before that, Cunard had eleven ships.

Been meaning to post this one for a while. Vistafjord to the Western Med 1997. A time when Cunard was down to only six ships!😄 Some eagle eyed viewers may spot a young First Officer Inger Olsen. This one has gone from Video8, to VHS, to DVD, and then YouTube and has suffered in the process.

It will be over when those with the disease (whether they know it or not) stop passing it on to those who don’t. And not before. No transmission = no mutations = no new variants.

There are numerous 3 & 4 berth cabins that no longer appear on the deck plans for both QE and QV although they are still fitted as such. We have been in a couple of them. @bluemarblehad a similar thought to me, maybe they’re thinking about two connecting two-berth cabins?

We've done that a couple of times (not bringing our own ingredients). On an around Britain cruise, with a table of English and Americans, I thought it would be a treat if haggis could be organised for one of our nights in Scotland. A quick word with the chef and it was all sorted. Enough haggis for our table and several others around us was ordered and delivered to the ship. On another occasion, on QM2 in Hawaii, again with a table full of Americans, the subject of haggis came up. The waiter had overheard the conversation and when I queried the possibility of arranging that for another night he rather embarrassedly explained that although they didn't have haggis onboard they could make it from scratch but that due to restrictions on some ingredients it would be "American haggis". When your Turkish waiter knows the difference you know you've got a good one😃.

One hope for a little bit of optimism is that QM2's Queen's Room floor is quite a bit larger than initially planned. I got the size of the planned floor from a contact on the design team early on in the process but the final result was quite a bit larger. The reason I was given was that having announced QM2 would have 'the largest dancefloor at sea', QE2's Queen's Room floor was slightly enlarged during a refurb. Back to the drawing board and QM2 got an even larger floor. A good result, even if it had nothing to do with the needs or wants of the paying passengers.

Congratulations on your booking. We’ve been thinking about another trip down under so we’ve booked the Cunard ferry from Auckland to Sydney for Feb ‘24 and we’ll build the rest of the trip around those dates.

It said that several times yesterday as well. Areas of the ship or decks would be 'sold out' one minute but become available the next. At least twice when I was trying to book the entire ship in all grades became 'sold out' for a few minutes. I also wonder if there was only a certain allocation available for WC bookings and more cabins will become available today. (probably the one we were trying to book, but wasn't available yesterday)

It seems a long tome to wait (590+ days), but then I realised that we had booked both QM2 and QV maidens more than 1000 days in advance. 📅😴

Is it too early to start the roll calls? 🤣

See you there!