Where in the world ?

[bluemarble]

We're starting a new browser page after 2000 total posts on this thread! So here's a summary of where we are on our Christmas port name word game.

 

Elf (1) = Belfast, Northern Ireland

Fun (1) = Funchal, Madeira

Pie (1) = Napier, New Zealand

Cook (1) = Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Dine (1)

Drum (1) = Bodrum, Turkey

Sale (1) = Salerno, Italy

Altar (1) = Gibraltar

Angel (1) = Los Angeles, California

Carol (1) = Charleston, South Carolina

Green (1) = Greenock, Scotland

Christ (1) = Christchurch, New Zealand

Eve (2)
Tag (2)

Mass (2) = Limassol, Cyprus; Boston, Massachusetts

Sing (2) = Singapore; Helsingor, Denmark

Hen (3) = Athens, Greece; Gothenburg, Sweden; Chennai, India

Aria (3)

Rang (3) = Tauranga, New Zealand; Nha Trang, Vietnam; Geiranger, Norway

Santa (4) = Santarém, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santa Margherita

 

Pick one of these words per day and tell me all the Cunard ports for the current fleet that contain that word somewhere within their complete port names.

 

Here are some hints for where the four words that haven't been solved yet can be found.

Dine (1) = an island name

Eve (2) = an island name and a port name

Tag (2) = two similar port city names

Aria (3) = two island names and one country name

[Host Hattie]

St Vincent and the Grenadines

[sfred]

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena, Spain

 

These two ports kicked off a good discussion awhile back about different Cunard ports with the same names.

 

Another candidate for "tag" is Chittagong Bangladesh.  I don't think Cunard has been there, and I hope it never does.  The port has a large and growing business doing ship breakups.

 

[sfred]

On 12/29/2020 at 12:20 AM, Host Hattie said:

St Vincent and the Grenadines

 

Congratulations @Host Hattie!  I looked at google maps for a long time without seeing a "dine" port.

 

I always thought that port sounded a bit like a 1950s rock and roll band...

 

Bill Haley and the Comets

Buddy Holly and the Crickets

St Vincent and the Grenadines

[sfred]

Cleveland, Ohio

Shreveport, Louisiana

 

(just kidding...)

 

Port Everglades, Florida

Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, sfred said:

Congratulations @Host Hattie!  I looked at google maps for a long time without seeing a "dine" port.

 

I always thought that port sounded a bit like a 1950s rock and roll band...

 

Bill Haley and the Comets

Buddy Holly and the Crickets

St Vincent and the Grenadines

 

Little did I know there is a rock group from Denmark called The Grenadines. They have a website, a facebook page, and music available on various streaming services. Unfortunately none of the band members are named Vincent (Saint or otherwise).

Edited December 29, 2020 by bluemarble

[bluemarble]

To wrap up the year and our latest Cunard port name word game, here are some additional hints about the three port names yet to be identified for the one remaining word: Aria (3).

 

One "aria" port is a popular Atlantic island port of call. It has been mentioned previously in this thread.

 

Another is a European port not visited very often. The "aria" appears in the name of this port's country.

 

Another is a Pacific island where I think the current Cunard fleet has only called once (a call by QV). I've been reading that a subsequent scheduled call there by QM2 was canceled because of bad weather. The "aria" appears in the name of the island group to which this port belongs.

[sfred]

I was holding off on guessing "aria" because I was uncertain about the Pacific island.  I remember QM2's March 2012 call there being cancelled due to weather, and I couldn't find any references to other ships.  But if QV has been there, then "aria" would be:

 

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Varna Bulgaria 

Saipan Mariana Islands     

 

An honorable mention might go to another Pacific island, Santa Maria in Vanuatu, which could have been both a santa port and an aria port.  Unfortunately the place where ships call, Port Vila, is on the island of Efate rather than the nearby Santa Maria.

 

Thanks for this Christmas port challenge, @bluemarble.  I thought it was good fun and well suited to the season.

[Colin_Cameron]

I had Nessebur Bulgaria (as well as Gran Canaria). I don't suppose that counts as a fourth answer as they're both Bulgaria.

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, sfred said:

I was holding off on guessing "aria" because I was uncertain about the Pacific island.  I remember QM2's March 2012 call there being cancelled due to weather, and I couldn't find any references to other ships.  But if QV has been there, then "aria" would be:

 

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Varna Bulgaria 

Saipan Mariana Islands     

 

An honorable mention might go to another Pacific island, Santa Maria in Vanuatu, which could have been both a santa port and an aria port.  Unfortunately the place where ships call, Port Vila, is on the island of Efate rather than the nearby Santa Maria.

 

Thanks for this Christmas port challenge, @bluemarble.  I thought it was good fun and well suited to the season.

 

10 minutes ago, Colin_Cameron said:

I had Nessebur Bulgaria (as well as Gran Canaria). I don't suppose that counts as a fourth answer as they're both Bulgaria.

 

@sfred, you have correctly identified Saipan, Mariana Islands as the most difficult of the three "aria" ports. Well done. I have QV calling there successfully in March 2009.

 

I'm not seeing a Cunard call to Varna, Bulgaria. Do you have a date for that call to possibly update my itineraries? I do see an online travel agent advertising that QV will be calling at Varna in September 2022, but that appears to be a mistake. The itinerary for that voyage on the Cunard website has QV in Hvar, Croatia on that date.

 

@Colin_Cameron, Nessebar, Bulgaria is the port in Bulgaria that I have on my Cunard itineraries. I'm seeing two calls there by QE and one by QV.

[bluemarble]

I'm finding historical records indicating Vistafjord, Cunard Princess and the 1960's Caronia called at Varna, Bulgaria. Not yet finding calls there by the current Cunard fleet.

[sfred]

Oops sorry.  Looking again, it was the Vistafjord call that I found.  The reference I found mentioned Cunard and I leapt to the wrong conclusion.  My bad.

Edited December 31, 2020 by sfred

[bluemarble]

Now that we’ve begun a new year, how about a Cunard port name word game having to do with the calendar?

 

Consider the three-character abbreviations for the months of the year in English: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec.

 

Similar to our last game, find port names for the current Cunard fleet that contain the three-character month abbreviations somewhere within their names. The month abbreviations must occur as consecutive characters in the same order within the port names but upper/lower case doesn’t matter.

 

Not all of them work. So far I’ve only been able to find port names that contain eight of the twelve abbreviations for the names of the months. Maybe with your help we can find more.

 

Most of the month abbreviations can be found using just the name of a port’s city/town/village so let’s stick to that as much as possible. Only use a port’s state, province, county, island or country to find the month abbreviation if it can't otherwise be found in any port's city/town/village name. You may use either the English or local language spellings of the port names.

 

Pick one of the month abbreviations per day and list any port name(s) you can find that contain that abbreviation, subject to the above limitation on how much of the complete port name to use.

 

There’s no requirement this time for you to list all the ports that qualify for any given month, but go ahead and list more than one port if you’d like. Or add another port to a month already answered if you have another one to contribute.

[Underwatr]

Juneau, Alaska.

[sfred]

Rio de Janiero, Brazil

[North West Newbie]

Marseille, France

[Host Hattie]

Sept-Îles, Canada

[Yaldi]

Chan May, Vietnam

[bluemarble]

Very good. We've found five of the month abbreviations so far. It does get a bit harder from here to find the remaining three months that work (or more if you can find more). And there is an additional port I've found for two of the months that have been answered so far. Just one minor niggle on the spelling of one of the ports. The port in Brazil is "Rio de Janeiro". But of course identifying that it contains "Jan" is the important point here.

[bluemarble]

I should clarify that finding one of the month abbreviations requires the use of what I think is technically the name of the port where the ship docks, not the name of its city/town/village. I should have phrased the question to allow the use of the name of the port in addition to the name of the city/town/village served by the port.

[sfred]

8 hours ago, bluemarble said:

The port in Brazil is "Rio de Janeiro".

 

Thanks.  I forgot my elementary school lesson:  "i before e except after c, or when sounded as a as in neighbour or weigh, or Janeiro".  🙂

 

11 hours ago, North West Newbie said:

Marseille, France

 

To add some additional secondary ports for "Mar", there is Copenhagen, Denmark and Fort de France, Martinique.  There is also Timaru, New Zealand, a port a few hundred kilometers south of Christchurch, but I don't think any of the Cunard ships have called there.

[bluemarble]

41 minutes ago, sfred said:

To add some additional secondary ports for "Mar", there is Copenhagen, Denmark and Fort de France, Martinique.  There is also Timaru, New Zealand, a port a few hundred kilometers south of Christchurch, but I don't think any of the Cunard ships have called there.

 

Oh yes, for "Mar" we could add all the ports in Denmark (Aarhus, Copenhagen, Helsingor and Skagen) as well as Martinique and the Mariana Islands if we look at more than just the port/city/town/village name. To keep things concise for this game, that was my motivation in requesting we not consider the port's state, province, county, island or country name unless the month abbreviation can only be found that way.

 

Timaru is a good try for another "Mar" port, but as you surmised, it's not a port where any of the current Cunard ships have called according to the itineraries I have.

Edited January 2, 2021 by bluemarble

[Yaldi]

A further example of “May”
 

Costa Maya, Mexico

[bluemarble]

Here's the status of our game to find month abbreviations within Cunard port names.

 

Jan = Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Mar = Marseille, France
May = Chan May, Vietnam & Costa Maya, Mexico
Jun = Juneau, Alaska
Sep = Sept-Îles, Quebec

 

Here are some hints to help find others.

 

There is one more "Mar" port that's been mentioned several times in this thread.

 

I have been able find one port each for "Apr", "Aug" and "Nov".

 

Of those three, the "Aug" port is probably the easiest to identify although I don't think that port has been mentioned yet on this thread. I count five visits to that port by the current Cunard fleet.

 

"Nov" can be found within Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia. But I requested we not use province names unless necessary. There is a city name that qualifies if you take advantage of one the rules for this game that hasn't been needed yet to identify the other ports.

 

I expect "Apr" is going to be the hardest one to find. Capri, Italy almost works as an "Apr" port. It has a destination page on the Cunard website. But Capri is an excursion destination from the port of Naples so I'm not counting Capri. To find the "Apr" port you will need to know the specific name of the port, not just the general destination name listed in the Cunard itineraries.

[sfred]

Haugesund, Norway?