D&N

Perhaps Cunard could introduce knife throwing classes as a daytime activity. Then visitors to The Verandah could select their knife on the basis of it's balance and suitability for throwing.

If the flights from Paris are suitable then I can't really see much difference between Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle. In the UK/EU flight prices should include all applicable taxes so it should be easy to compare fares. I spent at least a week per year in London when I was a child, and many more as an adult. Our first visit to Paris was ten days. And we went back many times for shorter stays. To me three nights in either city is simply a shopping trip. Both need several weeks to experience properly. I realise that many visitors have limited time available but a few days might just give you a hint of the atmosphere in a few parts of these cities.

🍸 would Cocktail Glass be any use?

We wouldn't eat or want more than three meals a day, and the gym was very effective in counteracting the effects of them. But we only use lifts when we have baggage, unless with folk that can't or won't walk. From memory it's 99 stairs from deck 12 to deck 7, and about the same again to deck 2. Climbing 10 decks five or more times per day if you are fit to do so is also helpful. I've read that the jarring effect of descending the stairs is very good for some of the leg muscles.

There's a drop down at AVAILABILITY. Selecting one of the other options suggests it doesn't work very well in some areas that have satellite coverage. I don't know anything about how that all works. There are other sites such as SatMagazine that try to explain some of what's behind it all. But I assume that initially the target will have been to cover inhabited land areas since that's where they are most likely to make money and any sea coverage will have resulted from that. Some articles mention being able to switch off coverage, an example given was ocean areas without regular shipping lanes.

I disposed of my 1997 tuxes. They had stretched several sizes.

I'm not sure how well access points are located on QE and QV just now. I read the reports of upgrades during QM2's drydocking in November. But Starlink still doesn't offer cover worldwide, so service will be variable depending on where ships are. Here's a link to a coverage map. https://www.starlink.com/map

Could you elaborate on your plans? I think most are assuming you are boarding at Southampton due to your post about transport from Red Hook. How long will you be in Southampton before boarding? Are you spending time in London before travelling to Southampton? Knowing that we can advise options for ordering/trying/buying pre boarding.

I tend to agree with you. Perhaps a more appropriate wording would have been that you are not supposed to do so according to the terms and conditions. But if lot's of folk did so, Cunard might start clamping down and stop treating their passengers like adults.

We're not tempted by the QM2 Steakhouse at the Verandah menu. Our meat consumption on our Mediterranean diet is probably far lower than most non vegetarians. We only eat fillet or Wagyu steaks (only twice so far) and would never have more than 5 oz each as part of a balanced plate. We eat seafood but my wife isn't that keen on vast quantities and the platter sounds far too big. We rarely found that the Britannia menu didn't have something we wanted to taste and on the odd night that we felt all the options were a bit boring, we had the Britannia Club à la carte menu to fall back on. There wasn't a night I would have preferred the Verandah menu to Britannia Club. To be honest we don't really sail to eat well. We cook almost everything from scratch here, or batch cook it and freeze it. Our food always tastes good but isn't presented as in a restaurant. Our four legged waiters are more likely to try and steal our food rather than serve it. If we want a gourmet experience we'll go to one of the many top restaurants along this coastline. So in conclusion, after that lengthy explanation, from our point of view Cunard would probably be wasting their time coming up with anything different as we're unlikely to be tempted.

We'll settle for 95%. 90 minutes before sunset. On our balcony, no travel required.

"Roads get awfully clogged when trying to position on land making any type of independent excursion risky." We were in the path of one on August 11th 1999. We'd intended to drive from Freiburg to Baden Baden that morning and possibly be in the Caracalla Therme's outside pool, which in normal circumstances would have been quite easily achieved. The traffic on the autobahn that morning was awful. We ended up in a Lidl supermarket car park in a town several miles south. It wasn't even very nice weather. I think we only really got a break in the cloud for a short time around the eclipse. Plus the camera we had at the time wasn't very good.

Were the chairs on the dance floor? I'd have thought the friction on the carpets would have kept them steady, or if really bad they would tip over.

On the subject of the sling. We saw a lady who wasn't disabled but like the OP couldn't manage the ladders. They were advised that they needed to have someone with them to operate the hoist, which she had. A member of staff came to instruct them but would not operate it for them, possibly an insurance issue. It seemed quite straightforward.

I gave an answer to that question recently in this thread:

I don't suffer from motion sickness and like cabins high and forward. Some of my favourite ferry cabins have been forward facing over the bow. We choose deck 12 near staircase B as we like the location and it suits us as a starting point to get to all the bits of the ship we use. On 14 nights Transatlantic in early June 2022 it was mainly smooth. We did experience some movement. A couple of times in the gym on the cross trainer I felt an odd movement, which wasn't a problem because you have both hands and feet securely placed on the holds provided. My wife on the forward facing treadmills sometimes found the slight pitch making her feet catch the board in front of the belt. A couple of nights in The Queens Room and G32 we were put off balance a bit while dancing, not enough to fall. Otherwise we didn't notice movement. I did wake one night during a force 9 gale but although there was a bit of creaking from the hull we didn't really have any motion and my wife didn't wake at all. My wife has been known to suffer. We took many ferry crossings in North Sea, English Channel and Biscay. She has felt a bit off colour on one or two of the roughest ones, including a first evening from Portsmouth down The Channel towards Biscay, which was then smooth. She has never felt anything on cruise ships. The only time she was actually sick was an overnight North Sea Crossing in a force 10 on the Ro-Ro freight ferry in the photo. It had been converted by welding passenger accommodation above it's car decks. I've marked the area where the cabins were. The bunk bed cabins were the width of a narrow single bunk plus about 18". The ventilation was a gap at foot of door and it was extremely warm. Every few minutes there would be motion a bit like a roller coaster where we would rise up before the bow would crash down into a trough. Neither of us got any sleep that night. For those that are interested the ship was at that time named Baltic Ferry. One of it's many sisters that had also been converted was Nordic Ferry. We used them a few times between 1989 and early 1990s.

You'll see waistcoats and cummerbunds. I prefer neither, just a well fitting trouser waistband to white shirt. I didn't carry out a survey so I've no idea what the percentage of each was.

We haven't tried them but they have a section of Kings Court or Lido buffets where they set up speciality restaurants. I think Italian and Indian themes amongst others where you are served at the table and there is a cover charge.

Is that not for the pop-ups? US fares often have visit(s) to them included.

They weren't usually dreary. It was a big church without a P.A. system. While not quite fire and brimstone, my Dad's delivery from the pulpit was very forceful. There were times it was reported that an old lady in the congregation was upset because she thought he was shouting at her. 🙂 I was getting near the stage of deciding to just stay at home on Sunday mornings so it was all a bit long for me.

When aged about eleven I would sit on the balcony with a chocolate bar unwrapped and broken in pieces so I wouldn't make any noise. I'd start a countdown when the sermon went over twenty minutes.

Toulon is a fairly big station and unlike many around the region these days should have a manned ticket counter and several machines. However these days many tickets are bought online and displayed in an app. It might save time at the station if you buy on the app. If you buy on the app you obviously can't use the machines. Here's a link to the site associated with the app: https://www.sncf-connect.com/ This doesn't apply in the South Region (PACA) at present, but due to the reduction in paper ticket use SNCF have started removing the yellow machines. This article (in French) tells you about it. You may need to translate in a browser if you don't read French. https://www.quechoisir.org/actualite-sncf-ce-qui-change-avec-la-disparition-des-bornes-de-compostage-n105698/

There is a painting on QM2 that resembles a spilt tin of baked beans. Not sure how retro that is or how it relates to historic ships. Personally although I quite like some of the paintings, they don't really have a functional use and I'd be happy without any of them. We'd dress to the nines every night no matter what ship we sailed on, just as we would any time we go out to dinner. But on QM2 we can dance all of every evening. But the most important thing is waking up at 3:30 am in a force 9 and sensing the QM2's keel flexing under the immense pressures of the ocean while feeling virtually no roll and hardly any pitch. No element of fantasy about it. If the ship had an ultra modern theme we'd still be happy to sail on it.

These aren't the best of photos, but I think they make the situation clear... Coco-Canel is now about nine months old and is very good at jumping and climbing. We'd prefer that she didn't go on top of our main aircon/heating unit. We've now been gathering the curtains to hang a few feet to the right. Unusual for someone sign up to CC and make a first post to wish HH a Happy Birthday. I wondered if it was a wind up, but I see it was this time last year. Ursel and Coco join us in wishing you a Happy Birthday!

If you need or want to find a good travel agent, I would suggest that you contact a few. Start by phoning them and having a discussion about your future needs rather than something you want to book at that time. Make sure that you are always going to be dealing with the same person, although it might be reassuring to know that they have some sort of backup if they were to take ill or not be available for some other reason. Decide from initial calls if you like them, at least from the point of being comfortable talking to them. If you don't like them look elsewhere. Ideally you want to know that if you send them an email, SMS, WhatsApp or Messenger message that it is answered within a few hours. If you call and get an answering machine, that might not be a bad sign. It could mean they have plenty of business, which you would expect from a good agent. Leave a message and then judge them on how quickly they respond to your message. By coincidence I'd left a message for our agent having found their site online and was talking to a frequent cruising friend in Scotland when they called back, just as the friend was recommending that agent as the best they'd ever encountered. But I doubt you'll find one by making online bookings through an agent then hoping they'll be proactive if anything goes wrong or needs changed. If you're not going to do some work to identify a good agent you are as well sticking to direct bookings.