Cunard Newbies

Hi All We are booked to sail on the QM2 out of NYC on January 3rd It's our first time on Cunard. We are staying at the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown at Lexington and 47th (unless anyone here has a reason we shouldn't.) Also first time NYC. We decided to book a car service - probably Dial 7 - from the hotel to the ship. We assumed that if we booked in advance the driver would know how to get to the Red Hook Terminal in Brooklin. I was just looking at our E-ticket from Cunard and it just states the embarkation port as New York! Is this usual? Will they update this to specify Red Hook at some point? I believe there is another cruise terminal in NYC so don't want to go the wrong one! TIA for your insights. :confused:

Hi All We are booked to sail on the QM2 out of NYC on January 3rd It's our first time on Cunard. We are staying at the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown at Lexington and 47th (unless anyone here has a reason we shouldn't.) Also first time NYC. We decided to book a car service - probably Dial 7 - from the hotel to the ship. We assumed that if we booked in advance the driver would know how to get to the Red Hook Terminal in Brooklin. I was just looking at our E-ticket from Cunard and it just states the embarkation port as New York! Is this usual? Will they update this to specify Red Hook at some point? I believe there is another cruise terminal in NYC so don't want to go the wrong one! TIA for your insights. :confused:

I'm not sure if Cunard ever updates the terminal information on e-tickets after they are issued, but I can tell you the last time we were on QM2 in 2016 (for a round trip from New York), our e-tickets were inconsistent. For the eastbound crossing, our embarkation port was spelled out as "Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, Pier 12, Brooklyn New York,11231,USA". But for the return westbound crossing, our disembarkation port was simply listed as "New York".

Plan on departing from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. QM2 only very rarely uses the Manhattan Cruise Terminal and would likely only do so for unusual circumstances such as a conflict with another ship using the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal the same day or a disaster such as Superstorm Sandy which put the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal out of commission for several months.

Here is a link to the New York cruise port schedule showing QM2 will be at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal for each of her calls to New York for the remainder of 2017 and all of 2018.

https://www.nycruise.com/schedule/

Regards, John

Brooklyn is in New York...

It's all considered the Port of New York, even the freighter terminals in New Jersey. Dial 7 is a great car service and they certainly know where the Brooklyn Terminal in Red Hook is. Just allow plenty of time as NY traffic is always horrible even in the middle of the day - I'm a native New Yorker. It's better to be fuming at the terminal being a little early than looking at your watch while stuck in traffic!

Thanks all. At least we have Cruise Critic to clarify these things. I’m wondering if those that don’t end up at the wrong place!

Check out time at our hotel is 12:00 and we have been assigned a 2:00 pm embarkation time so if we arrange a 12:00pm pick up we should be at Red Hook twiddling our thumbs for a while. Any guess how long it takes to drive from midtown to the dock in “normal” mid day traffic?

Your plan should be a good one. My guess is you will be boarding earlier than your listed time. Enjoy the crossing.

You won't be asked to wait until 2:00 but if you arrive around 12:30-1:00 you'll be arriving at peak check in load. Just be prepared for two or three queues in a row (queue to pass thru security, queue to check in, queue (seating available) waiting for your boarding group to be called) and take it all in stride. There isn't really any food or beverage service in the terminal (aside from the waiting area for Grills and World Club Platinum/Diamond) so carry a snack or a soda if you think you'll want something between the hotel & Kings Court.

The last couple of years boarding has been quick after check in but it might be fortunate timing on our part.

We have done a hotel in the heart of Manhattan to actually walking into the cabin on the QM2 within 1 hour!!! Never happened before or since, but it can happen. And this was midday, midweek. I guess we were just very very lucky. For some reason when we got to the dock there was virtually nobody there and we were simply ushered through almost as if they were waiting for us.

Extraordinary.

Babs that would be fun however unlikely. We are pretty seasoned travellers so waiting in queues etc is all part of the deal. Spent six/seven hours on the tarmac at Heathrow once - never got off the ground. After that most delays are a piece of cake, LOL

Appreciate everyone taking the time to read & respond. Looking forward to our TA on the QM2.

I never thought to check this!! I was so excited to port into Manhattan and take a cab home from my summer in Europe— I guess I still can; just a slightly more expensive one.

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This is exactly what happened when I saw the QM2 docking at Manhattan (the Royal Princess occupied the Brooklyn Pier). ...

Was that September 27, 2014? I believe that's the last time QM2 has docked in Manhattan (and that was because Royal Princess docked in Brooklyn that day).

Regards, John

Was that September 27, 2014? I believe that's the last time QM2 has docked in Manhattan (and that was because Royal Princess docked in Brooklyn that day).

 

Regards, John

I saw it docked there about 2 months ago.

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It's not too unusual in the fall when Princess does Canada/New England runs. Process uses Red Hook and QM2 bumps over to Manhattan maybe once or twice a year.

I saw it docked there about 2 months ago.

It's not too unusual in the fall when Princess does Canada/New England runs. Process uses Red Hook and QM2 bumps over to Manhattan maybe once or twice a year.

Interesting. I wonder if we can pin down that date when QM2 was in Manhattan a couple of months ago. According to this 2017 port schedule found on "nycruise.com", all of QM2's calls in 2017 were scheduled to be in Brooklyn.

https://www.nycruise.com/content/uploads/2016/11/NYCruise-2017-Schedule.pdf

Note: Light blue listings Indicates Brooklyn Terminal

Princess does indeed use Brooklyn as well, but none of the Princess ship calls to Brooklyn shown on this schedule overlap with QM2. Of course circumstances and schedules can change for any number of reasons. So assuming something like that happened earlier this year causing QM2 to dock in Manhattan, I'd be interested to learn about the details.

Regards, John

We have used Dial 7 on many occasions, but last time we had a terrible journey to Red Hook. The taxi driver got hopelessly lost he could barely speak English so communication was really difficult. It took around 4 hours for him to eventually find the dock. Just please make sure he knows where he is going.

I agree that there seems to be an awful lot of taxi drivers who don't know where Red Hook is!! We've always asked the hotel to book a cab for us as I would assume that they would know which firms to call.

We have used Dial 7 on many occasions, but last time we had a terrible journey to Red Hook. The taxi driver got hopelessly lost he could barely speak English so communication was really difficult. It took around 4 hours for him to eventually find the dock. Just please make sure he knows where he is going.

Thank goodness for this post, I was just about to post the same. I've a wealth of experience of local NYC taxi/cab rides to Brooklyn to catch the QM2.

Hardly any of the taxi/cab drivers have any idea where Red Hook cruise terminal is, let a lone what or who QM2 is. I suggest you take a printed copy (off line) of the directions to the Red Hook/Brooklyn cruise terminal and before your driver departs, make sure he understands exactly where he is going.;)

EEK! We are also NYC newbies and have no idea to how to get to Red Hook. One of the reasons we book a car service rather then hailing a cab is that we assume (oh, no. Not that word!) the company will insure the drivers know where we are going and how to get there.

Is there another, more reliable, car service that anyone can recommend? :confused::eek::(

EEK! We are also NYC newbies and have no idea to how to get to Red Hook. One of the reasons we book a car service rather then hailing a cab is that we assume (oh, no. Not that word!) the company will insure the drivers know where we are going and how to get there.

 

Is there another, more reliable, car service that anyone can recommend? :confused::eek::(

I use VIA, which is a service similar to UBER, but it may be shared. It’s very cheap and just branched into brooklyn. You request a ride from your location to wherever you want to go. I checked it from midtown Manhattan to red hook and it was about $12 for one person (additional people are a few dollars each). They guarantee the pickup and drop off to be within two blocks of your request.

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I've just used a yellow cab in NYC. If they don't know where they're going and don't have a smartphone GPS (my experience has been that they will) I'll direct them from the tunnel using my GPS.

Reviewing posts and saw this. Now I'm nervous! We were planning to use Uber from our hotel near Times Square to Red Hook. Hoping it goes well. I may look into car services now. The problem is the cost with 7 people. Two Ubers seems the most logical.