D&N

I did ensure that it was secured so it wouldn't blow overboard. Hung low and quite near the balcony door, with lots of mini pegs on each garment. Plus we only use it for light, quick drying fabrics of gym wear as soon as we return from our workouts. There's not enough to bother taking to laundrette and we wouldn't want to let it wait for other garments to accumulate. As soon as it stops dripping the cord including clothing moves to the shower. By then it's virtually dry. We only visit one port and last time I did leave the line out with clean dry items for a photo from the Staten Island Ferry. 🙂 And of course we're novice rather than seasoned, only having one round trip under our belts so far.

Someone will confirm specifically for Queen Anne, but as far as I know all reasonably modern cruise ships have magnetic walls and ceilings. We have a thin bungee cord washing line that we can stretch across the balcony (as far from the railing as possible), which might help if you get reasonable weather. The cord has hooks at each end and we find something to catch it on at each side. To secure garments to the line in the wind we use sewing pegs like in picture.

Sounds as if you need to change your agent! It's a shame you are not allowed to name agents here, as it would then let others know to avoid him. Not much point having an agent if they don't reply.

Do you have any contact with the local customs people? In France they wave anything through from China, Malaysia or India, but immediately jump on anything posted from the UK.

That was not my experience. I registered a Wise debit card, which had a USD balance in excess of our potential spend. As each transaction was registered the Wise app notified me of the update to the authorised amount and the available balance was updated immediately. The number of transactions was limited due to purchase of drinks package. There were two charges on the first day that should have been covered by the package. These were refunded a day or two later and I knew from the Wise app that they had been refunded before I checked the account on My Voyage. There were fifteen transactions in our two weeks. Early on the final morning the total was charged to the card and the remaining balance was instantly available. Wise recorded the final transaction as being the date of the first authorisation.

Might they have had any sand contamination? We had a weather episode for several days over the weekend. They tell us that the light clouds are carrying Saharan sand. The result is that all the cars parked outdoors and house windows become coated in small splodges of sand.

I don't quite understand what that has to do with Cunard, or any other supplier of goods or services. Is the problem not your bank's policy? In our case if real time exchange rates are likely to be favourable to us, we would use a credit card that charges no exchange fees and uses close to live money market rates. We have a debit card, which we can load with USD from GBP or EUR when the dollar is weak. That card removes any authorisation amounts instantly when the authorisation is either replaced by an actual charge or an authorisation for the same charge is made on a different card. I've watched this happen on the app related to the card on my phone screen both on QM2 and in a New York hotel belonging to the Accor Group. We can recoup the card's small FX fee when converting any remaining USD back to GBP or EUR by choosing to do so when the dollar is strong.

Le Benitier gets a decent rating on Google, and prices for beds are similar to a restaurant in a much less fashionable town near us. Food/drink prices aren't that inflated.

There's a big gap in her schedules May 2026 into June 2026. We would have booked for June 2026 but she doesn't have sailings that we would normally have chosen.

The review referenced in posts #21 to #23 covers the same voyage M412B that others have listed negative experiences on, and was the voyage taken by some YouTubers who seemed to have no end of problems in a sheltered balcony Britannia cabin. It shows that people can have very different experiences in the same grade on the same sailing.

I don't think they've been on QM2, at least I don't think they've any videos from there. If you see any dance where couples are not dancing round the floor there's no reason why you can't do your own thing at same time. Rhumba music would be more suited to a couple in close hold than individuals dancing. If we do ballroom in a disco and folk join us on the floor dancing disco we either dance round them or if that's not possible we change what we're doing since it's billed as their type of dancing. When party dancing is arranged for Queens Room, which is a much bigger floor, we and others should be able to dance ballroom on the perimeter while others dance in middle, but nobody else thinks about that. Sometimes we can thread between other dancers depending how they position themselves. And for Dancing in the Streets, we'd be doing foxtrot, cha-cha or a slow jive before we'd resort to dad dancing.

Tony Maria (dance), in bottom left of screen, are keen hobby dancers so that was probably an advertised dance session and may well have been 'called' as Swing or Ballroom Jive. As you often find on Strictly or Dancing With The Stars, playlists are often compiled using more contemporary music, perhaps with tempo slightly adjusted to suit the dance. There's nothing to stop anyone getting up and disco dancing to that, or any other dance where most of the steps are in one place. It becomes more of a problem to share the floor when it's a travelling ballroom dance and the bulk of dancers are moving around the floor, a stationary dancer/couple would cause a traffic jam. Edit to ask; Have you looked at the rest of their playlists? I think it's exclusively dancing, mostly on Cunard or Princess ships.

There were two morning classes and a 45 minute session at 7pm one evening each week/way on our crossings. We only made the last evening one due to my failure to fully analyse the daily programs. We're not big sequence fans, preferring freestyle, but there are a few we quite like.

8018 is one of the worst obstructed photos I've seen. We booked 8013 or 8014 at start of lifeboats, and 8045? over zodiacs but never got to travel in them but they are only slightly obstructed. I wouldn't consider 8017/8018 unless alternative was an inside at a higher price.

It seems that if popular opinion has it's way, I need to practice standing still and bending my knees now and again to the music and waving my arms about. Or perhaps adopting a gorilla stance and violently nodding my head forward in sort of time to the music. 🤣 And making sure of course that my wife and I always dance in a different manner.

I wouldn't get too hung up on that. Our ballroom dancing seems to be under attack from the disco police and their supporters! 🙂 If we decide to dance to music from a "pop" band we're aware there's no guarantee the tempo won't change part way through, so we don't expect too much from the Queens Room band.

@Va Gi I saw your previous post, but beach clubs/restaurants are not something we use much. We prefer walking in the sun and if we are swimming prefer rocky settings like Cap d'Antibes or Isle St Marguerite. I usually get the impression that most of the beach restaurant's food is overpriced for what they serve. Having said that, a quick look at Google Maps suggests you've already decided you want to be on The Croisette. There seem to be four nearer the port on Bd Jean Hibert. I can only suggest that you try to find websites or FB pages for some and look at content of their menus, drink lists and sun bed/parasol pricing, then pick on which seems most to your taste. Unless people spotting is high on your priorities I would think those attached to big luxury hotels will be worst value for money.

I'm wondering what sort of dancing you are supposed to do to a pop song. 🙂 Most music has three or four beats to the bar and depending on the tempo you can dance anything that fits that. We danced most ballroom and latin dances to the party band that was on most nights in G32. Their musicality was more inviting to dance to than the Queens Room band. And sometimes more challenging in avoiding the pillar and getting in and out of the odd corners. There were only one or two numbers we couldn't fit a dance we knew around and had to resort to disco. Never having had any disco tuition I do a mix of cha-cha, samba and jive steps to fit the music. If the floor fills in the disco or ballroom we modify our steps so we can continue dancing with other folk in close proximity.

This French site seems to give best info for Marseille: https://www.mumnet.fr/2024/06/04/mouvement-de-greves-au-port-de-marseille/ Most browsers should be able to translate to English. I've pasted a translated copy of the table below. It doesn't mention anything about how cruise calls might be affected. And of course things could change if any deals are done. Dates Repercussions on the port of Marseille Tuesday June 2 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Thursday June 6 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Friday June 7 Closure of the port of Marseille Monday June 10 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday June 12 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Thursday June 13 Closure of the port of Marseille Friday June 14 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday June 18 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Thursday June 20 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Friday June 21 Closure of the port of Marseille Monday June 24 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tuesday June 25 Closure of the port of Marseille Wednesday June 26 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Friday June 28 4-hour work stoppage over a time slot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

On our Westbound the majority of non English speakers were French, Eastbound, which was continuing to Hamburg that was German and it was clear there were a large number of Germans or expat Germans on board, with US citizens who were heading for European trips. The Westbound had been preceded by a round trip to Norway. Not many to Nice. In high season (Aug 8th) there are 2 to Liverpool and 1 to Manchester. On same day there are 19 to London, 14 of them are Heathrow or Gatwick, which have similar transfer times to Southampton. 7 of those are BA to Heathrow so if you need to change the time of a flight it's easily done. Note that Nice is 3rd busiest airport in France after the two Paris airports. The frequency difference is similar to many European capitals and hubs. On our crossings it was more like 45% UK, 35% US, 20% others with largest groups being French or German as mentioned above.

Have you seen these videos? 4193 from last year and the other somewhat older. 4193 https://youtu.be/vcuxGZpngqU?feature=shared 8179 https://youtu.be/ctfcgHR5KQE?feature=shared

We'd rather have Bocelli duetting with his daughter.

We'll just have to continue to enjoy our never ending holiday at home and do without the odd ocean crossing and dancing experience. While we're still alive of course! Probably better value overall to spend the cash on fine dining here, but difficult to find venues suitable for formal/gala wear or offering dance floors.

I hope they don't operate TAs to or from Liverpool while we still want to sail. It would probably be too much bother. We don't have many flights to Liverpool or Manchester, whereas we have at least five a day to and from Heathrow. Not sure what a taxi from Heathrow to Liverpool would cost, but it's got to be much more than Southampton.

Don't think so. But they were on a crossing departing Southampton on May 16th. There have been other reports about that sailing on here about long waits and issues with food. They do seem to have had some valid complaints. I find their comments on travelling Britannia and their general attitude to "dressing up" as they call it irritating. They don't seem to appreciate how odd their outfits look compared to most other passengers. On Gala Night one claims his jacket is too tight and trousers too loose. Why not buy a suit that fits?