tacticalbanjo

It was a while ago but we were advised that it disappears into nothingness so we insisted that the FCD was given back to us for a future booking.

I'm not booked on that trip but one departing 16th June. I don't expect that we will be able to go but I really can't be bothered finding another trip to book amid all this uncertainty so I'm going to leave it until it gets cancelled.

In the UK, discrimination is allowed as long as it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Holiday companies are also permitted to offer trips to a particular age group - i.e. Club 18-30 holidays or in this case Saga for the over 50s. 

Saga could easily argue that discriminating against unvaccinated people reasonable means of keeping its ships as covid free as possible, keep outbreaks to a minimum and to ensure their medical facilities aren't overwhelmed since the vaccines seem to keep infected people from needing to be hospitalised.

Even if you are coming by car its hard to meet the required time.

It takes a little over an hour for me to get to Southampton by car but it could be much longer if there are roadworks or a car crash causing traffic on the M3. So I try and make sure I leave at least an hour and a half for contingency. So there's no chance I'm turning up at 3pm even if they put that as a check in time - if I hit any kind of traffic I'd be late and denied boarding. If I get there early, the cab isn't going to drive around Southampton for an hour. So I'm stuck at the port and may as well check in. The only way you would ever be able to aim to be at the port bang on time was if you were staying in a nearby hotel and even then you'd probably want to arrive half hour early for the later times so you didn't get mixed up with school pickups.

Cunard knows that it's almost impossible for most people to try and keep to any sort of time. People arriving by coach arrive when they arrive as does anyone arriving fresh from the airport and that helps spread things out a bit. 

7 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

  No slur intended whatsoever.

There was no offence taken 🙂 But it would be easy to dismiss these tales by pretending that it only happened to larger people so I thought it was worth drawing attention to the fact that weight is not always a factor. In fact, fit people often sweat more and sweat sooner than unfit people because the fitter you get, the better your body gets at using sweat to maintain core temperature. Not very convenient or attractive but I'm stuck with the sweaty so and so now!

16 hours ago, Victoria2 said:

Repeating a comment I have made many times, unless you happen to be on a ship at the time when the air conditioning is losing a battle with the heat in certain parts of the ship, you will not appreciate how hot it can get.

It happens occasionally. Not often, but it does happen and I have experienced such heat on all three ships. Some guests can't cope, either for medical reasons or maybe let's say, of a different build to my husband, who can cope and never takes his jacket off when dining onboard.

 

A guest upholding the jacket code but with beads of sweat on his face, or the same gentleman more comfortable but with his chair wearing the jacket? I know which guest I'd rather dine with.🙂

I've experienced this too. There seems to be pockets in the MDR where the aircon isn't very effective. Probably something to do with the way air flows in the room as thinking about it, we've only had this problem in the corners of the room. And obviously different people run at different temperatures. Men generally run hotter than women, younger people hotter than older people.

My husband is in his 30s and fit and is not, as you suggest, fat but I've seen him with sweat running down his face due to the heat in the MDR. ! He takes his jacket off if the heat is totally unbearable so that he doesn't leave a puddle of sweat on the floor and we always bring the temperature up with the maitre'd. We don't like when people don't conform to the dress code so he will leave his jacket on unless absolutely necessary.

I live not far from Heathrow and we're usually home by about 11am having been one of the last off. Saying that, traffic can be very bad on the route from Southampton and you aren't guaranteed to get into Southampton on time. Sometimes weather can delay things. I've never been delayed disembarking but have been emailed by Cunard the night before departure pushing back out embarkation time by an hour due to a late arriving ship.

You can probably make the 2pm flight but you'd spend the whole cruise worrying about arriving into Southampton on time, getting off the ship asap and not hitting traffic on the way.

26 minutes ago, Ray66 said:

Don't be silly no one knows where that is! 🤣🤣🤣

The issue with cruises to nowhere for me is that you are taking passengers from across the country and some places are affected quite badly right now. No one knows what transmission levels will be like in a particular place even in a few weeks time. How can you book a cruise if you don't know if you'll be allowed to mix with people inside by the time it rolls round? Depending on where you live you might not even be legally allowed to leave the county to get to the ship. I can't imagine you are going to find insurance to cover that.

No doubt that it is more of a beancounter issue. You have a tremendous amount of fixed costs running a ship - there is a certain amount of fuel you will burn, there will be minimum staffing levels - which means a minimum level of customers aboard to break even. If the beancounters don't think they can break even then they won't plan cruises.

My immediate thought was a ginger cosmo but it would probably be some kind of ale in the Golden Lion. We always try to have lunch in the Golden Lion on embarkation day if we can. I know that my mouth will be watering at the thought of the fish and chips to come as soon as I see the ship. Hopefully that will be the QM2 but none of us know what the future holds.

You'll have to run the numbers on what you personally drink. I couldn't make it work for me because many of the cocktails I like to drink are too expensive to be covered and I wouldn't drink enough on port days. I wouldn't want to drink more booze just to make a drinks package feel worthwhile.

I was going to hold off on booking until I knew that the things I loved were going to come back but somehow my husband has convinced me to book two trips. I'm coming around to the view that if you don't use it, you'll lose it and that there is much less chance of it coming back at all if the ships aren't profitable. Can any cruise line afford to have ships sitting there unused until there's a vaccine or the virus is at manageable levels? Back to normal could be years away.

So we are going to carry on sailing - and more importantly spending. When we do get on board we'll make sure we feed back about the bits of the experience we missed. I've already had a survey to fill in about what I'm most looking forward to so in effect I've already been able to give feedback as to what we see as essentials to a Cunard trip. I think I'll just be glad to be somewhere that isn't my house!

I've had both three weeks and six weeks. I think the assignment process is quite complicated. They have to balance the yield management with availability while not annoying anyone by giving an absolute bargain through too large an upgrade. There's a possibility that the ship might not be able to sail full if there are still heavy restrictions so that will also come into play.

I have an obstructed view balcony guarantee for a June 2021 TA but I don't expect to get an assignment until May. 

29 minutes ago, Cats2010 said:

 

 

On some ships one is shock frozen after boarding. I propose to dress/undress like an onion with seven skins. This helps to prevent catching a cold due to bad weather or too cold air conditions. 

Temperature is quite subjective though. I've been on a few trips on QE and QV where the dining room has been roasting hot and my husband has had sweat pouring down his face at dinner even though he's of a healthy weight and not wearing anything out of the ordinary. The warmer trips seem to be those with a higher age demographic but that might be a coincidence. 

16 hours ago, resistk said:

 

Southampton doesn't even have a first class hotel near the port - the old Harbour or DeVry whatever it is called now is pitiful;  the university and commercial port I think is far more important.

The cruise industry doesn't just generate jobs in the hospitality industry. Some of my family have jobs which are reliant on the cruise ship trade. Only one is in hospitality. The others work for a business which supply various specialised items to all kinds of ships. But a lot of their business is conducted with cruise ships so if the cruise ships can't sail there will have to be redundancies not just in that company but at their suppliers too. Each industry that can't recover from this will leave ripples across the economy.

3 hours ago, North West Newbie said:

 

Really?

Absolutely. This article mentions it. Companies don't want customers running to their credit card providers rather than trying to resolve the dispute between them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/clairetsosie/2017/03/16/when-you-should-and-shouldnt-dispute-a-credit-card-purchase/#7bfa48592e39

I've also read about EasyJet automatically blacklisting anyone who initiates a chargeback causing problems for people who have had their card details stolen and used to purchase flights. They rightly get fraudulent transactions reversed but EasyJet have put the poor person who has been defrauded on the blacklist not the thief refusing to change it until the press have got involved.

1 hour ago, usmprez said:

Cruising with  Carnival Corp brand again was, to be honest, the least of my concerns. In any event, and I don't wish to appear argumentative, but when this is all over I would be absolutely astounded if the Carnival that emerges on the other side were to turn down anybody's money!

Like you, I don't want to be argumentative and tone is hard online! I just wanted to highlight one of the risks so that everyone can make the right decision for them. That's going to be different for different people.

16 hours ago, usmprez said:

Interesting, although I'm not sure accurate. I am in the USA and waited the 30 days and then filed a credit card dispute and my money was back in my account within 24 hours. If the cruise line were to contest I have kept all of the detailed communications detailing how they cancelled the cruise and therefore did not provide the service for which I had paid. Using your feeling does Cunard now have the right to determine when I get a refund (one month, two months or maybe a lot more) for the service they cancelled and failed to provide. I would be very surprised were that the case. While I realise this was not Cunard's fault, neither was it mine and at no time did I agree to give Cunard an interest free loan over an extended period. For what it's worth I also had a Princess cruise to Europe booked and had my funds for that tied up with them.....same story!

Anyone wanting to do a chargeback should be aware that companies can and do blacklist customers for doing just that. It might be your legal right to do so but the company has the legal right not to do further business with you.

I would only ask for a chargeback if I was absolutely sure that I never wanted to cruise with a Carnival Corp brand again.

I had a survey last week from Cunard and one of the questions was specifically about Coronavirus. It asked whether I'd be more or less reassured by various statements/policies. 'Cancellation with no penalty' was one of the options as was 'pick an alternative cruise with no penalty' so Cunard are almost certainly thinking about allowing cancellations. 

Why is it that the fussy buggers who only eat plain food seem to think that everyone has a similar opinion? Just because a menu isn't to your taste doesn't mean others aren't enjoying the menu. No need to ask 'what are Cunard playing at?' in your review just because you won't try new things or because the buffet has too much fruit(!). 

I use sellotape to 'laminate', hole punch them then use a small zip tie to attach. It seems to work quite well. The zip ties don't take up much space in the bag unlike sellotape or a stapler.

We had a tag fall off once (a preprinted tag from the booklet) so we are paranoid about it happening again. Trying to track down the missing bag was not an enjoyable start to a cruise - it had most of our formal wear inside I was envisioning a week of buffet dinners and drinks in the Winter Garden instead of cocktails before heading to the main dining room.

Sitting on the balcony after dinner to enjoy the night sky. Hot canapes in the Commodore Club looking out at a gorgeous sunset. Sitting in the Golden Lion eating a fabulous lunch watch waves splash the windows. Breakfast on the balcony admiring the wonderful place we've woken up in. Reading a book on the promenade deck, seeing nothing but ocean in any direction. The feeling when I get on board for a new trip - I always feel like I've come home. 

I wish I hadn't thought about this now. I've got 100 days until my next trip and it seems so far away now!

12 hours ago, Cosmic Rays said:

 

What was the problem - we are due to sail in a fortnight, also to the Canaries.........

Bad weather mostly. This in turn caused rather rocky seas and a lot of sea sick people. Sea sickness pills were rationed because so many people were ill. High winds meant we left Lanzarote 14 hours late and had to skip Lisbon meaning 4 days at sea in which some people got a bit bored. The rocky seas culminated in a rather memorable dinner on the second to last night were everyone kept gripping the sides of the tables like we were on some sort of river rapids ride. Glasses and crockery were smashed. Wine bottles slid across the table. I heard about one lady who slept with her life jacket by her bed because she was so frightened.

My husband and I still had a good time even though we were looking forward to seeing Lisbon again. There were a few people who were quite disgruntled about not going to Lisbon and thought more could have been done to get there. I think missing a stop might have affected some of the entertainment but I don't tend to head to the theatre after dinner so I can't comment.

Hopefully you'll have better luck with the weather!

I really like the midships bar on QE (can't remember what's its called) and I have spent many happy evenings there. Having said that I usually head to the Commodore Club on QE before dinner as the view, the atmosphere and the drinks are great. The midships bar I tend to visit after dinner. 

If they've made this change to compete with Aida then they'll also be bearing Aida prices in mind when setting fares for German customers. I don't know where Aida fares sit compared to Cunard fares in Germany but most likely there will be a limit as to how far they can increase prices - a limit which might not cover the lost auto-grats.

I must say that I too was surprised at the price. My John Lewis own brand mattress cost 30% more. I doubt that Cunard (or any other cruise line) spends a fortune on mattresses though, they get replaced too often to make it worthwhile.