D&N

Since cruise ships have been banned from Venice that might be difficult! 🙂 Sorry.

If you decide to do that, I recommend that you take two leakproof sturdy carrier bags. Put one inside the other and get them filled with ice. Put the bottle in the ice and the glasses bowl down in the ice. You can carry it on deck like that. Your wine will taste much better served chilled.

Charlie obviously knows where it's sensible to be at this time of year!

I'm not sure that "clean" and "pristine" are the best words to use. I know they have previously been used by others regarding this subject. Probably originally by politicians and ecologists to drum up public support for their stance. What is a harmful bug to one ecosystem is probably native and perfectly acceptable to another. If they've got round to thinking about it, the authorities in Alaska might not want New Zealand's bugs invading their ecosystem. QE's itineraries for the past few years have effectively been lengthy world cruises, passing through both major canals and several oceans and seas. Helpfully to marine life that would like to cling on, she docks or drops anchor for ten hours at a time in various places giving them ample opportunity to get a good grip of her hull. It doesn't seem ideal to allow a ship following that sort of itinerary access to an area they want to protect. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before ships are restricted to operate within set regions to try and limit any cross contamination.

It's much the same on the Cote d'Azur. The local press (Nice Matin, Var Matin & Monaco Matin) have reported repeatedly over the last few years on a desire to limit mass tourism from cruise ships. Monaco are quite clear that they don't want mega cruise ships. They have stated that they only want ships carrying high net worth individuals that will spend a fortune in their boutiques. In Marseilles there have been incidents where flottillas of canoes have blocked cruise ships from moving. In Toulon there are complaints about pollution from cruise ships. Residents around the Port of Nice would even prefer that the Corsica Ferries are banned due to the soot they claim lands on their balconies. A phrase that has cropped up several times is that they want quality rather than mass tourism.

It's not something I follow closely. If I want to see New Zealand, I go to the dentist! They often have a National Geographic video of South Island playing on a big screen in the waiting room 🙂. I was under the impression there were cruise lines other than Cunard that had fallen foul of this. I'd be surprised if the companies providing the cleaning service operate on a "no clean, no fee basis", so I don't understand how Cunard's decision is in preference to spending copious funds. They appear to be spending those sums on a service that often can't deliver and they then end up disappointing and compensating passengers. If the authorities actually want cruise ships with clean hulls to visit these regions, I'd have thought it would be helpful for a facility to be provided, which cruise lines would pay for, in a sheltered harbour where there was a high chance that the cleaning could be successfully completed. It's possible that they would prefer them not to visit in the first place as that would result in less environmental risk. It might be better that visits to the region are restricted to ships that never leave the region and can't pick up contamination elsewhere. To me it makes good business sense to scrap the itineraries since despite planning for cleaning, they seem to repeatedly be disappointing passengers. In the absence of a reliable facility I don't understand how they are supposed to comply with the regulations.

We intend to have our agent book a 2026 trip on March 6th. But I'm not sure I like this change to release dates. If Cunard release 2027 itineraries at same time next year, by the time we sail on our next crossings in June 2025 we'll have 2026 and 2027 booked as well. When June sailings were released in September we would only ever have another one booked when sailing and if circumstances changed and we decided we were no longer interested there would only be one more to take. When booking between 27 and 30 months in advance it would certainly be a benefit if deposits were refundable for an initial period. It could cause insurance issues as well. As French residents, Holiday Extras won't cover us. The few companies who offer suitable insurance won't issue cover that far in advance. The deposit may be at our own risk until about a year before travel. That is of course already the case but the longer time increases the risk of changes in health etc. I can see from Carnival's point of view that they want to get as much cash in the bank as early as possible to speed up the reduction of the huge debt incurred during the pandemic.

We're all different. We know that we're unusual compared with friends and family. We've been joined at the hip for nearly 36 years and always been happy with that. I'm sure we must have argued about something over the years but I can't think what it was, probably something to do with relatives! Lockdown was easy for us because nothing really changed other than how much time we could spend outdoors and some restrictions where we could go. Just about the only thing I didn't have input to was my wife's wedding dress. She invariably asks my opinion on outfits knowing she'll get an honest and objective opinion. e.g. Dark colours or mixes rather than cream when going for a curry or if she's likely to feel too hot or cold in something. And when we were fat I'd tell her if one outfit made her look slimmer than another. She'll spot things on her phone then it's up to me to look for it on the big screen and check sizes, see if a discount can be obtained or find something similar of a better cut or fabric. For us a QM2 crossing is not a holiday. It's a dressing up and dancing ocean voyage experience. If we want a holiday we just stay right here, it's much more relaxing, we know the food, drink and climate suits us and we don't have the trauma of leaving our cats. It would be much cheaper as well! I'm sure you dress very elegantly, but Nora likes light colours and glitzy dresses and heels, as long as she can walk in them, and mainly keeps trousers for casual wear. As long as she's happy, I'm happy.

In addition to bluemarble's comments, you can probably make a reasonable guess at what they will eventually post by looking at voyages V428 and V431 on the schedule attached to this thread, which are quite similar to your cruise. Going by that you can probably expect three on sea days. I'd guess one on either 4th, 5th or 6th, and the others on 11th and 13th. You'll need to wait for them to confirm but they tend to follow a general pattern.

That didn't go down well. I suggested that for some future two week trip on QM2 we try reducing our clothing to a minimum and try and travel on hand baggage only (just to prove we could do it), while still dressing formally every night. I'd half the number of suits I took and use the cleaning services as required. Nora would go for mainly blue and brown separates on a mix and match basis. I'd rather NOT! was the response. However she did welcome the revelation that for €80 each way we could check another 23kg case. I'm now tasked with planning a future trip where she has specific outfits for breakfast and afternoon tea in addition to what we have had before and plan for 2025. 🤣

Four carry-ons! The backpacks are almost max cabin size, hold about 40 litres, are very light, and go in the overheads. We are also allowed two small bags that must go under the aircraft seat in front of our feet. The black one holds 15 litres, the Radley is smaller but we've since bought a bigger version. All bags, from 80 litre checked cases, to smallest carry-on can weigh 23kg. We make best use of the cabin bags by putting the heaviest stuff in them first. The small black bag takes all the camera gear, electricals, magnetic hooks, washing line, and anything with a battery. If there's space one or both pairs of my leather shoes go in as well. The Radley bag gets jewellery, non liquid make up, medications, anything else heavy and possibly a pair of Nora's heels. For the big backpacks; the heaviest garments are laid out on top of each other, most likely to crease at bottom to lace and knits at top. The bundles are then rolled and put in the backpack with most of remaining shoes and stuff to pad out the corners. That leaves all the lightweight stuff and any liquids to jam into the suitcases and should leave enough weight to spare in case we discover that Cunard are still having Grand Marnier supply problems, if so we can put a bottle in each case. We have bought one bigger case, but the trade off is that the extra 31 litres space we gain loses us 800g weight. Following the swimming luggage debacle, we'll pack anything hard to replace in the cabin bags. All the gowns are easy to replace online, but some stuff bought up to 25 years ago would need to be made from photos we have of them. You've probably seen the photo before. The setup is also really easy to manoeuvre through airports and on public transit if we need to, and all fits in the boot/trunk of an average saloon car.

Nora has always felt that black didn't suit her complexion. We manage to get her wearing a fair amount of black by really glitzing it up with diamante, silver, white etc. But she'll narrow the wardrobe down to 26 different outfits to cover 14 nights and 12 daytimes, as she did last time. There won't be many colours left out, and there will be suitable shoes for each. What puzzles us is the difficulty folk have in fitting it in to their luggage. We need to fly to and from the UK but we could take nearly double the weight we do.

If you do want masks SHEIN have a large range: https://fr.shein.com/pdsearch/Masque Bal/?ici=s1`SuggestionSearch`Masque Bal`_fb`d0`PageCollection&search_source=2&search_type=all&src_identifier=st%3D4`sc%3DMasque Bal`sr%3D0`ps%3D17&src_module=search&src_tab_page_id=page_collection1707567630168 We're in France so use their French site. Change the site settings to your country and currency We (my wife) has lots, but these silver and gold ones, his & hers, or plain black fabric ones, are probably the best suited: https://fr.shein.com/2pack-Plain-Costume-Eye-Shield-p-9710597.html https://fr.shein.com/2pack-Zorro-Lace-Costume-Eyewear-p-9624162.html You'd probably need to make it part of a bigger order to avoid shipping fees, in which case you might be cheaper with Amazon.

@Winifred 22 I've seen hacks to open bottles before but not tried any. If wine is fairly young and cork in good condition (rosé usually is), a relatively safe way is to get a blunt handled spoon and push the cork all the way in, then use the spoon to hold the cork clear of flow while you pour the wine. There's videos online demonstrating that.

I had to check back the thread for that. Anywhere we go where we're buying/taking our own wine, we take a small lightweight waiters corkscrew. I was referring to if you'd ordered a bottle from room service and were paying for it.

Six colours for walking about the ship and photos. Three colours of dance shoes with suede soles and slightly lower heels (they're featherlight). I just need a couple of blacks and trainers for gym.

We don't drink in cabin but wouldn't room service bring a corkscrew to open the bottle for you? Regarding the original question; Cunard and P&O were always known to be relaxed about passengers bringing alcohol aboard for in cabin consumption. I believe most others are quite strict.

The ports don't have tenders. There is a company operating along the Cote d'Azur called: Trans Côte d’Azur https://www.trans-cote-azur.co.uk/ They provide ferry services to islands and sightseeing services. They also provide services to some cruise lines. They have a large fleet of boats that are generally bigger and faster than cruise ship tenders and have local crews that know the local ports and currents well. They may also supply direct excursions from ships. Certain cruise lines seem to use them at Cannes and Villefranche. We use them now and again to visit l’île Sainte-Marguerite for a swim and picnic.

I usually just stick to the Cunard boards, but thought I'd have a quick look here. I have to say that I find most of you incredibly adventurous and optimistic! We live halfway between Cannes and Nice. We visited Monaco in January. Including a 20 minute walk to the station (similar to port to station in Cannes), and the train running 12 minutes late, it took 1h30 to get to Monaco. We visited a men's outfitters to see if they had dress shirts I'd bought before in their sale. My wife tried on a pair of shoes to check she could walk in them in another shop. We went for a coffee and pastry. 1h40 later we were back at the station. By the time we waited for a train it took 37 minutes to get to Nice. Checked another branch of the men's outfitter leaving empty handed again, visited a few other stores to look at leather handbags in sales and headed for tram after about an hour. Took a tram to outskirts of Nice and transferred to bus, as that drops us nearer house than the train. Got home just over an hour later. So 6 shops and a coffee in 2 cities took over 6 hours. And we didn't buy anything other than the coffee/pastries. The coffee/hot chocolate and pastries were lovely. Some things to note: Trains can be disrupted for all sorts of things. People fall on tracks, illegal immigrants try to travel on roof from Italy and get grilled to top of train, rock falls, lineside fires, and various other things under control of the train operators. Until a bit over 4 years ago you could get a bus from Cannes to Nice and then change to another from Nice to Monaco and Menton. Once the trams were fully operational they stopped allowing regional buses into Nice. You need to get a bus to an interchange west of Nice, then a tram, then find the bus stop for the bus heading to Monaco (the terminus for that is not where the tram stops). The coastal road between Antibes and Villeneuve Loubet is closed to traffic and handed over to cyclists and pedestrians on the 1st Sunday of every month. The coastal road at Juan-Les-Pins is often closed at the same time. The coastal road at Cagnes-Sur-Mer closes on a variety of Sunday mornings between April and November for triathlons, marathons, fun days etc. Then there's Ironman in Nice, all sorts of cycle races, taxi drivers, farmers and others carrying out snail operations on motorways and blocking tollbooths. Having said all that we wouldn't live anywhere else, but we walk almost everywhere. I wish you all the best of luck!

Not exactly a private excursion. We were staying in Sorrento in late September of 2022 along with some friends. We had planned to take a day trip to Capri. There are several companies with a variety of boat sizes that operate the ferry crossings. There were huge queues/lines at the harbour and folk were being warned that they shouldn't expect to return that day as a squall was getting up and most of the boats would not be operating in the afternoon. If I was on a cruise I would not take the risk unless it was offered by the cruise line with a guarantee of re-joining the ship.

As does ours. I was quoting from the pdf copy. @Cathygh That's a Britannia Club and a Queens Grill booking with the same Main dining room shown in My Cunard.

They always describe it as Main Dining because the restaurant associated with the booked cabin grade is the main dining for that grade. Britannia Club can't pay extra to dine in Princess or Queens Grill. So anyone booked in Princess Grill must dine in the Princess Grill Restaurant unless they choose to go to the buffet, pub or pay extra for a speciality restaurant. Just checked ours, booked via agent, shows restaurant name. But it's not an error.

I'd be inclined to start by phoning some of the numbers at foot of this link to get their advice: http://www.immigration.gov.lk/pages_e.php?id=13

Provided that you are capable of carrying your own luggage off the ship and that you had arranged with immigration in Sri Lanka, I'm not sure how they could stop you. Other folk will be leaving the ship for tours and shore visits, so there must be a gangway.

I knew that was the case for UK, but no idea about all the other nationalities that typically form the hotel and catering staff on cruise lines. That's interesting about your daughter. Was she on one of Colorline's big ships (Magic or Fantasy)? Someday we might get round to trying them to compare with the Silja sisters.