D&N

Your posting history suggests this is a Celebrity cruise. In which case you are looking for a transfer from the Port of Villefranche to Monaco, rather than Nice. It's a shame that trains are not an option. As a resident of the region I wouldn't consider using anything else between Villefranche and Monaco. I do argue that the local trains are not as reliable as they are in my native Scotland but I'd rather be on one of them on a hot summers day than crammed into a car in summer traffic.

Visit to Juan-les-Pins for lunch today. First try of the restaurant. Nice location on sea front with views around bay and of Île Sainte-Marguerite. Forgot to take pics of the Egg Parfait and Asparagus starters, but they were very nice. Don't think I'd bother with the egg again, I prefer them fried, scrambled, hard boiled or in an omelette.

As with most places in the world, if I decide that I'd like to see it in detail I'll watch a few YT videos. There's only one region I want to experience and we live there.

Absolutely nothing to do with one-upmanship. Yes we all know what folk are talking about, but you can't just ignore the wrong terminology being used without informing folk of what is correct. A practical example is that someone travels from US to UK on QM2 and has what they think is High Tea. They then spend some time in the UK and come across a restaurant serving High Tea and discover it's something completely different.

Valid point. They mainly address it as Afternoon Tea but use the term High Tea a couple of times. I note they offer their Afternoon tea up until 5pm on certain days. That wouldn't normally be the case in the UK. The Willowbank serve their High Tea meal between 5pm and 7pm, after that it would be dinner, which is priced by the course (a la carte).

But there are other differences between South East France and Scotland. I feel at home here, but very uncomfortable in Scotland, particularly since 2014.

And just about the only thing I might want to visit Scotland for, that's the dancing I mean, not the High Tea. Too bad I can't have French food and weather and Scottish/British dancing!

@QuestionEverything "High Tea" is an early evening main meal, normally served before dinner for folk that want to eat earlier. It is usually a reduced menu similar to a pre theatre menu. The attached menu from a venue that we used to frequent with friends because it offered Saturday night dancing, shows a choice of four mains, and the tea, toast, scones (no cream) and cakes were placed on the table as you ate the main course. As an aside; just to prove there are cutbacks everywhere, when we were there last there were at least double that number of choices on the main course.

We were in Sorrento independently a couple of years ago and planned to go to Capri. We didn't go as the forecast weather conditions were such that they could take us there but it was unlikely that they could bring us back until the next day. If the negative reviews haven't involved missing the ship and needing to catch up with it at the next port call I would be inclined to ignore them.

Of course it happens on flights as well. Apart from watching and listening to the demo, I keep an eye on those that are paying no attention. These are the folk I'll avoid on my way to the exit if there is an evacuation. Our last flights, on an aircraft type we've flown on many many times, the demo revealed a different life jacket from those I've seen before. Those that didn't watch might only inflate half the life jacket.

First tennis final I've seen where one player so obviously wanted to get finished quickly to watch a football match!

Reminds me of a study I read a report of. Some US university had concluded that tea was being made in the wrong way and people were wasting far too much water and power. They concluded that boiling a small amount of water in a kettle and pouring it on a tea bag in a cup would save valuable resources. They obviously hadn't a clue what tea should taste like, as no self respecting tea drinker would do anything other than pour their efforts down the sink. I'm not sure how they would produce a refill from their efforts either. I don't normally drink the stuff myself but if I tried giving that to my wife I'd expect her to spit it back at me.

Going by bluemarble's various works on this topic .... I think there is just one more, M422 from Southampton on July 21st arriving July 27th. If I was on M422 I wouldn't expect to arrive on time in New York, and if on M423 I'd expect to be boarding late on July 27th. Perhaps with experience from the last two, Cunard should warn passengers of that likelihood. If the other sailings affected by rescheduling, one is coming from Canada and should have sufficient time and in the last case they were able to advance the sailing from Southampton. I don't know if there are any in 2025. As you'll have read, those this year were caused by MSC getting regular access to the Red Hook berth. I'd hope they knew what dates they needed to avoid before the 2025 schedule was released.

Regardless of who is right, I'd just tell them the other couple aren't coming tonight. 🤣 Edit: Being more serious; if it's QG and you don't currently know who you might be sitting beside, how do you know what time they will appear for dinner? The only restriction is the opening hours of the restaurant. I think you can safely say that you'll get served when you choose to go to dinner.

I was preparing for a forecast of 35C early this evening, but in practice the temperature never actually breached 30C, so it's been quite a pleasant evening. AC wasn't needed until we closed all the windows. That was partly in preparation for the third firework display of the week at our local Hippodrome. On Monday and Wednesday they lasted 7 minutes, but tonight being Bastille Day's Eve it was almost 14 minutes. They're quite pretty but unlike the displays at Cannes and Monaco they aren't choreographed to music. That means they're just noise, which cats don't particularly like. Coco cuddled into her mum until they stopped and big brave Ursel was a bit concerned as well. But they've been for a feed since the noise stopped. I imagine it must be quite traumatic for dogs as well, and hope they have all the horses settled well before the fireworks start.

I'll also comment that we don't take anything we don't need. When it comes to toiletries we take enough for the 15 days we are away. I see folk on YouTube with full bottles of their favourite aftershave, and I recall a touring holiday with friends 28 years ago, where the man had what must have been at least a 200ml bottle of aftershave with dregs left in the bottom. We either buy in smaller containers or decant to smaller containers. If something comes into the category of I might need this, or might want to wear that, it doesn't go.

Thankfully we don't have such problems. My wife needs a few small pills because her GP back in the 90s thought it would be good to try her on a drug that she might have wanted to prescribe to her 20 years later. Of course she's never needed that because we deal with things like bone density through diet and exercise. That drug caused hypertension (she did warn the GP that it would), which she needs minimal drugs for, although the French have massively simplified medication in comparison to that prescribed by her old NHS GPs. And the French GP likes tests. So amongst many other things we've confirmed that bone density isn't likely to be an issue until she's well into her 90s.

Flying Nice to Heathrow is about the only sensible way for us to get to Southampton. We take much more than DRG-Mobile described in our carry on bags, slightly more than a third of the volume and close to half the weight goes in cabin with us. The combination of backpack, small bag in one hand and other hand guiding wheeled case allows us to move through Heathrow really fast. If the ground is too rough for wheels or there are stairs, I carry the two cases and my wife takes the two bags. As I've mentioned before, we're lucky to be fit enough to do that. If my wife was happy to mix and match we'd just take hand luggage and not waste time with bag drop and standing watching a carousel.

Think I'd be changing my travel agent.

They are by far my favourite threads. 🤣 One sometimes has to be careful when wording responses though. I've said before; we won't claim to be "sartorially better dressed" than anyone else. We just have a bundle of stuff that we rarely get to wear anywhere else, and venues like The Britannia Restaurant or Grand Lobby make far better backdrops for photos than our local restaurants.

I suppose another option if you only wanted one plate would be to ask for two portions of a starter served on the same plate, effectively as a main. Or a selection of starters like tapas. Another thing was that we wouldn't normally have two main meals per day so didn't take dessert at lunch but we did ask for oranges, as we normally have fruit with our meal at home. We'd have been happy to be given an orange each to peel but they came carefully peeled sliced and laid out on a plate. Probably creating far more food waste than if we'd peeled them but it did look nice.

White/ivory/cream are probably next most popular to black, very much a minority though. I saw a couple of German men in matching slate grey tux suits that looked really good. I've not seen a suitable version for sale anywhere. I don't think I saw any navy, but have on videos of formal evenings on other lines. I bought a suitable one in Rome recently. I wear my ivory as a change, but only after our last trip I became aware of the custom for only wearing in tropics or US Summer season. Next June should be fine but I may leave that one behind in September 2026. I've seen photos posted here of other colours, red/burgundy I think was one of them.

We mainly fly with hand luggage only. So, we take max sized backpacks plus under seat holdalls on our flights to Heathrow along with a much larger checked luggage allowance than we could use in 15 nights away. That lets me carry two tuxes on board and we pack some gowns and anything of my wife’s that is irreplaceable in the backpacks and all the photo and tech gear in a holdall. However, I’m very conscious that we are very lucky to be so fit and healthy that we can easily carry that volume of luggage. Many passengers have disabilities (sometimes not obvious), or don’t do the exercise or gym work we put in and might not be strong enough. I doubt that anyone would have any complaints about our outfits if we were to lose our checked bags, unless they object to folk dressing beyond the specified level on smart attire nights. But I don’t think we’d be very happy to be seated anywhere near someone that publicly expressed adverse opinions about those unlucky enough to lose their luggage, or about anyone else.

Th The sailings on August 4th and October 13th this year show a gala for the second night in bluemarble's "Dress Code and Theme Schedules for 2024" sticky at top of page. That isn't always the case. However they may be regarded as "optional" because some passengers will have put their main luggage out in the early evening ready for disembarkation in Hamburg.

@Jules. I knew I'd seen posts regarding this. I assume that all Britannia Balcony cabins have the same type of electrical equipment. I have several of these (old fashioned) UK 13 Amp block adaptors with three outlets.