First timer jumping in head first.

[Cranky64]

Hello, 

My wife and I just booked our ever sailing on any commercial line. I say that because we have had a few sailings on the USS L.Y. Spear back in the days ;-). We have booked a one way transatlantic on the QM2 for April 26, 2021. I'm hoping the covid crud will be more under control by then. We are booked in the Queen's Grills in a Q5 cabin. I figured we might as well go all in for a first time. 

 

I'm looking forward to learning from this forum. 

 

H Green

 

[puppycanducruise]

Hello and welcome to the Wonderful World of Cruising.

I think most of us hope that this COVID virus will be under control by next spring and cruising will resume safely.

If you have any questions, ask away.  Lots of good advice available (ok, some snarky comments occasionally, but most Cruise Critic members are great).

Hope you love your cruise.

[Host Kat]

4 hours ago, Cranky64 said:

Hello, 

My wife and I just booked our ever sailing on any commercial line. I say that because we have had a few sailings on the USS L.Y. Spear back in the days ;-). We have booked a one way transatlantic on the QM2 for April 26, 2021. I'm hoping the covid crud will be more under control by then. We are booked in the Queen's Grills in a Q5 cabin. I figured we might as well go all in for a first time. 

 

I'm looking forward to learning from this forum. 

 

H Green

 

 

@Cranky64

 

Howdy H Green and welcome to the Cruise Critic message boards!  

 

Cruise Critic is a great resource for new as well as experienced cruisers and we are so glad you found us!   Please feel free to browse the Cruise Critic Community Categories list. Read a few threads in the different forums to get a feel for what each forum is about. Make sure you read any pinned threads on the top of the first page of threads in a forum. You will find very important instructions or information there.

 

You will want to browse the Cunard Line forum. The majority of your fellow Cruise Critic members that have sailed on QM2 frequent the forum and provide feedback there. Browse through the thread titles on the forum looking for threads of interest. You will probably find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that will be of interest to you.

 

 

Please remember the following stated in the Guidelines we all agreed to follow when registering for our free memberships:

 

Browse Before You Post
Browse a topic first to see if your question has already been asked or answered by someone else. Also, many of the major cruise lines forums have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) topic that has been created by our members. Give that a try first. Browsing is your #1 best resource! Please post your messages in an appropriate topic so that you'll receive the best possible response. It is very time consuming to move misplaced messages that are in the wrong topics.

 

Anytime you need to start a new thread/topic on a forum, first make sure you are in the correct forum for your topic. Word your new thread title in a way to help the members know exactly the information you seek. This greatly helps the members browsing through the thread titles and if they know the information they will reply to you.

 

It is best to limit each inquiry to only one topic or concerning one cruise line, one ship, one port of call, etc. and of course, on the correct forum.   You will get more replies that way. Be sure to mention your cruise line, ship, port or sail date in your inquiry as that sort of information will help your fellow members to be alble to help you.

 

The Cruise Critic Roll Call thread for your line, ship and sail date is the place for you to get to know the other Cruise Critic members sailing with you BEFORE the cruise. Your fellow Roll Call thread members may have important information posted in your Roll Call thread, especially ones that have sailed your line, ship or itinerary before. Also, the Roll Call thread for your cruise is the ONLY place on Cruise Critic where you and your fellow Roll Call thread members are allowed to post personal ads about sharing private tours, excursions, transportation etc. with each other to 💲ave money. There is a "captive audience" since you are all sailing together!  You will receive a much better response to your share request if you take some time to read the entire Roll Call thread, post an introductory post about yourself, and continue on with more posts back and forth to get to know the other thread members and allow them to get to know YOU first before you post your share request. That is the spirit of our Roll Calls. 

 

To explain our Roll Calls and the finding of the the Roll Call thread for your cruise, please read What is a Roll Call? Everything you Need to Know and How To: Create A New Roll Call. For more information about our famous Roll Calls, please read the Roll Calls and Our Policy Regarding Facebook and Roll Calls sections in the Guidelines. If there is no Roll Call thread for your line, ship & sail date started yet, please feel free to start it!

 

I sincerely hope all this information will be helpful to someone  new to posting on our message boards. So sorry this is such a long post, but I just wanted to give you some of the highlights about being a member. So glad to have you aboard the Cruise Critic message boards! 

 

Happy sails,

 

Host Kat 

[rkacruiser]

H Green, I want to add my welcome to CC as well.  This is a Forum that offers much information and discussion on many topics related to cruising, ocean travel, maritime history, and personal cruise experiences.  I hope that you will find it as interesting and as friendly of a Forum as I have and do.  

[firefly333]

On 10/25/2020 at 11:10 AM, puppycanducruise said:

Hello and welcome to the Wonderful World of Cruising.

I think most of us hope that this COVID virus will be under control by next spring and cruising will resume safely.

If you have any questions, ask away.  Lots of good advice available (ok, some snarky comments occasionally, but most Cruise Critic members are great).

Hope you love your cruise.

Hi, cdc has come out with guidelines saying no cruises from the US more than 7 days and their order is in effect until nov 1st 2021 I believe, unless amended.

 

The cruiselines are still letting people book longer cruises so who knows, but I would be concerned. 

 

I hope you have a good cruise and find one that makes you love cruising.

[Traveling Mike]

Welcome to the world of cruising.  A little advice:

1. Don't believe everything you read.  Everyone has different opinions and things they like.  Read, research and evaluate.
2. Make sure you join the Roll Call for your cruise.  It will give you hours of enjoyment planning your cruise with other people going on your cruise.  I have as much fun planning and researching my cruise as going on it.
3. Every cruise line and ship is different.  When first starting to cruise try different ones.  You can eliminate some by price and target audience.  An example is Alaska, cruise in the middle of the summer and get lots of families and kids.  Cruise in May or September and get an older quiet crowd.  Or by pricing target Viking Cruise = High End  Carnival = Low End.
4. Last but not least... Do not expect to do everything, every day.  It is a vacation with lots of things to do or some of the time the best thing to do is nothing.

[bbwex]

I would echo much of what has been said before.  As for the Roll Call, I don't know how active they get for transatlantic crossings having never done one myself, but I always join the Roll Call.  Also look at the cruise line under the "Cruise Lines" headings and get a feel for what the line is like in general.  You can also post general questions about the line there rather than the Roll Call.

 

I agree also about not accepting every comment at face value.  There will always be someone who has a gripe, and many who feel that they have to tout the line.  Look at the general tenor of the comments to get a good understanding of how things are.