Guest Speakers 2023

[exlondoner]

10 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

Celebrity speakers generally are well known outside of their own sphere.

I have not come across an Insight speaker labelled Celebrity, on our cruises who hasn't dine QG but then, we weren't on QM2  cruises.

We once had Henry Blofeld, who, I’m sure, is unknown outside cricketing circles.

[Victoria2]

2 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

We once had Henry Blofeld, who, I’m sure, is unknown outside cricketing circles.

 'Blowers' became a personality through his sheer exuberance for his craft, as did Murray Walker. Both have been Celebrity speakers.

 

[exlondoner]

3 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

 'Blowers' became a personality through his sheer exuberance for his craft, as did Murray Walker. Both have been Celebrity speakers.

 

I’m sure, but if I weren’t devoted to cricket, I shouldn’t consider him a celebrity. And to me, MW’s only interest is his admirable campaign for a speed limit in the New Forest.

 

[Victoria2]

Just now, exlondoner said:

I’m sure, but if I weren’t devoted to cricket, I shouldn’t consider him a celebrity. And to me, MW’s only interest is his admirable campaign for a speed limit in the New Forest.

 

I'm not a particular fan of cricket but I know about Blowers. Maybe his reputation is more widely known than you think.

I can take or leave motor racing too but MW is well known to me. His exuberance was also well known. Either way, Celebrities generally dine QG.

What designates a Celebrity Guest Speaker as opposed to Guest Speaker? Take it up with Cunard, not me. 🙂

[North West Newbie]

14 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

I'm not a particular fan of cricket but I know about Blowers. Maybe his reputation is more widely known than you think.

I can take or leave motor racing too but MW is well known to me. His exuberance was also well known. Either way, Celebrities generally dine QG.

What designates a Celebrity Guest Speaker as opposed to Guest Speaker? Take it up with Cunard, not me. 🙂

 

Just because a guest speaker dines in QG does not make them a Celebrity; it could simply be down to the deal they or their agent has negotiated with Cunard.

[Victoria2]

duplicate

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Victoria2

[Victoria2]

3 minutes ago, North West Newbie said:

 

Just because a guest speaker dines in QG does not make them a Celebrity; it could simply be down to the deal they or their agent has negotiated with Cunard.

You are quite correct. Other speakers may well dine in QG too but I'm not sure why you quoted me as added to Wagtail's comment with our own experiences based on many cruises. I haven't mentioned the dining customs of non designated Celebrity Insight lecturers.

[Down-Unders]

On 4/2/2023 at 3:19 AM, RJChatsworth said:

Ok, but I’m sure you are correct that for security reasons some speakers wouldn’t wish to be named in advance.

Security reasons ??

[TouchstoneFeste]

1 hour ago, Down-Unders said:

Security reasons ??

 

Might not want it advertised publicly that their house will be empty for the next week or so.

[Victoria2]

9 hours ago, Down-Unders said:

Security reasons ??

Not in the same league [oops 🙂] I know but a few famous sporting 'stars' have regretted posting photos of their wonderful holidays when coming home to a ransacked house. Why inform the world, however small that particular world might be, you're not going to be home for a few days?

[Craigrlewis]

Helen Doe and Daniel Verscharen will 2 of the guest speakers on board Queen Victoria V323, the 3rd guest speaker is still to be confirmed.

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

On 4/16/2023 at 7:54 PM, TouchstoneFeste said:

 

Might not want it advertised publicly that their house will be empty for the next week or so.

Yes. We will never be widely known, but I post absolutely nothing online about our absences.

[Victoria2]

This might be of interest.

 

 

https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/the-cunard-experience/guestspeakers.guestSpeakers?category@*&sort=&start=0&rows=12

[techteach]

@Victoria2 That page makes me crazy. I want to sort by date or by cruise number. Instead I have to click on each speaker just to find out they are not on my cruise. They could also have a link to the proper speaker from within “Manage my cruise.” Public speakers are used to having the date and place they are speaking publicly posted. Speaking on a cruise is no different from speaking at a conference, except the food is better.

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, Victoria2 said:

This might be of interest.

 

 

https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/the-cunard-experience/guestspeakers.guestSpeakers?category@*&sort=&start=0&rows=12

 

This is Cunard's page which I previously described as follows.

 

"About all Cunard publishes on their website is a "Guest speakers on board" page which provides only a very limited list of speakers. That list is mostly the speakers for special event cruises such as the Literature Festival at Sea and some of the QE Alaska voyages."

 

I took on the task of documenting which voyages are represented on that "Guest speakers on board" page. Here is the master list of the 17 voyages for the 29 speakers currently listed on that page, sorted by voyage number (here you are @techteach).

 

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Yvonne Battle-Felton

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Antony Beevor

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Luigi Bonomi

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Clare Chambers

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Alex Clark

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Artemis Cooper

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Daniel Finkelstein

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Alan Johnson

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Clare Mackintosh

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Val McDermid

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Greg Mosse

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Kate Mosse

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Andrew Hunter Murray

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Jamie Susskind

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Alan Titchmarsh

M335 - Literature Festival at Sea - Lynda La Plante CBE

Q313 - Singapore-Tokyo (Sailed) - Sally Gunnell OBE

Q315 - Beatles and Beyond (Sailed) - The Bootleg Beatles

Q320 - Alaska - Joseph Frey

Q321 - Alaska - Jill Heinerth

Q322 - Alaska - John Geiger

Q323 - Alaska - Philip Gray

Q323 - Alaska - George Kourounis

Q324 - Alaska - Philip Gray

Q325 - Alaska - Lynn Moorman

Q326B - Alaska - Mensun Bound

Q329 - Eastbound Transatlantic Crossing - Philip Gray

Q331 - Western Mediterranean  Sherree - Valentine-Daines

V310 - Southampton-Hamburg - Sally Gunnell OBE

V312 - Canary Islands - Yuvi

V318 - Iceland and British Isles - Sherree Valentine-Daines

V324 - Western Mediterranean - Pip McGarry

V327 - Central Mediterranean - John Waterhouse

 

Now 17 voyages (two of which have recently sailed) represents about 10% of the remaining 177 voyages for 2023. And with only one speaker listed for most of these voyages, that makes this list even more incomplete. I wonder if this list is limited to the designated "celebrity" speakers for these voyages.

 

Anyway, while better than nothing, I think you'll agree this list falls well short of the master lists of guest speakers Cunard used to provide.

Edited April 20, 2023 by bluemarble

[Victoria2]

3 minutes ago, techteach said:

@Victoria2 That page makes me crazy. I want to sort by date or by cruise number. Instead I have to click on each speaker just to find out they are not on my cruise. They could also have a link to the proper speaker from within “Manage my cruise.” Public speakers are used to having the date and place they are speaking publicly posted. Speaking on a cruise is no different from speaking at a conference, except the food is better.

I know. I thought twice about posting the link as it's convoluted, but it's better than nothing. I suppose! 🙂

 

 

[Victoria2]

bluemarble you are a diamond  amongst gems! 👍

[TheOldBear]

I remember last year there was a similar appearing speaker's list page - but when you clicked on the 'view voyages' link it took you to a listing of every scheduled voyage.

I guess this is an improvement, but still a regression from the way the site used to work.

[techteach]

@bluemarble You are wonderful, but you shouldn’t have to do it. 

[bluemarble]

23 minutes ago, TheOldBear said:

I remember last year there was a similar appearing speaker's list page - but when you clicked on the 'view voyages' link it took you to a listing of every scheduled voyage.

I guess this is an improvement, but still a regression from the way the site used to work.

 

Yeah, that happens when the 'view voyages' link provides an invalid or already-sailed voyage number. That happens now for Sally Gunnell OBE where the 'view voyages' link supplies voyage number Q313. I'm not sure that was ever a valid voyage number, but it it was, it would have referred to some portion of the recently completed Singapore-Yokohama voyage. Last year's page was riddled with links like that providing voyage numbers that were invalid or had already sailed.

[bluemarble]

4 minutes ago, techteach said:

@bluemarble You are wonderful, but you shouldn’t have to do it. 

 

My pleasure. This is the kind of project I enjoy doing, both for my own curiosity and to help contribute to discussions such as this. I had started this project once before but apparently got distracted the first time around. I had almost completed that list of speakers this time when I saw your reply, so I added that timely reference to you just before submitting my reply.

[alibabacruisers]

You are great at this bluemarble and I appreciate all the hard work you do!

[bluemarble]

FYI, I'm not sure how I managed to list Sally Gunnell OBE for voyage V310 (Southampton-Hamburg). I'm not finding any speakers for voyage V310 now. She is only mentioned for the no-longer-valid/already-sailed voyage Q313.

 

I now figure the current list on the "Guest speakers on board page" represents 16 different voyages (of which two have already sailed).

 

By the way, I figured there are 177 remaining voyages for 2023 by adding the 163 voyages which appear on the voyage search results plus 14 additional voyages that appear when I request "sold out" voyages. I realize now that's an over-estimate for our purposes here since it counts some voyages more than once. For example, that counts both segments of a round trip crossing as well as the round trip crossing itself.

 

So, I should probably retract my statement concerning what percentage of the remaining 2023 voyages are represented on that speakers list. That percentage will be higher if I were to come up with a more accurate count of the number of remaining 2023 voyages for our purpose here. But then if I were to remove the two already-sailed voyages, which is a reasonable thing to do, that reduces the list of voyages with speakers mentioned to 14. That in turn reduces the percentage of remaining 2023 voyages with speakers mentioned.

 

OK, once again I've well and truly over-analyzed this situation. 🤣

[Drysil]

FWIW, I just rang Cunard here in the states and asked the representative I was shuttled to what the guest speakers were for our 4th of July cruise (M318).  She was more than happy to tell me, and had the information readily accessible (there was still one TBA).  If that's true fleet-wide at ~70 days out, it seems like some group action would get us a reasonable compilation of speakers.  I'll post in the roll call for now!

[BklynBoy8]

1 hour ago, Drysil said:

FWIW, I just rang Cunard here in the states and asked the representative I was shuttled to what the guest speakers were for our 4th of July cruise (M318).  She was more than happy to tell me, and had the information readily accessible (there was still one TBA).  If that's true fleet-wide at ~70 days out, it seems like some group action would get us a reasonable compilation of speakers.  I'll post in the roll call for now!

 

We do have 2 posted on the Roll Call already.