D&N

It's not something I've investigated, but are the places involved with the hull cleanliness issue not cruise by rather than calls? Not sure what NZ gain from that other than loss of tourist trade in actual ports. Thinking from a practical point of view those areas where there is concern for the marine environment are better served by a ship that remains in the area all year round. QE will be bringing all sorts of marine life from it's 9 months(ish) trip around the Pacific, crossing Atlantic, through the Med, Red Sea, Indian Ocean etc. You can maybe understand their wish to keep all that stuff out.

I wonder if the aircon issues mentioned are a Vista thing? Our one trip on P&O Arcadia (a Vista) was an Acapulco to Barbados transit in Jan 2006. The ship had only been in service about 8 months. We were late sitting for dinner and the lounges were fairly full beforehand when all the late diners were having pre dinner drinks. Most nights it felt very warm in the lounges, but at other times the temperature was fine or even a bit cool. Regarding biofouling; I thought that the manner reported here of the implementation of that policy was unreasonable. A company can't really plan to offer an itinerary on the basis of; we plan to take you to see this place, but we don't really know if we can because even if we think that the hull is clean the inspection team a week or so beforehand might not agree. And if they don't issue clearance we might have the option of paying a third party to dive under the ship and clean the hull. But that depends on weather and sea conditions allowing that activity to be carried out and even then the inspection team might still consider that the hull is not clean enough. Then we might need to inform clients that we can't take them to see this place and probably give them some commercial gesture as compensation. Given that set of criteria, I wouldn't plan to sell cruises that sail into that sort of area. If the NZ authorities actually want the ships to visit, they could offer some facility that guarantees to clean the hull to standard at a known cost. But it probably suits them better to do without the ships.

Ursel isn't a great jumper and prefers to climb. That mainly restricts her to things she can grip. Carmel was partially sighted, could jump but restricted herself to targets she was confident of reaching. Hazel was good at jumping and we installed a plate glass screen to left of our kitchen hotplates to deter her from landing on very hot surfaces. We called it an Anti Hazel Screen. I don't think she was ever silly enough to jump from in front of the hobs. Coco can jump ........................................

Sorry for questioning your arithmetic. I can see it without the price. It seems to be member only and sold as a: "Pick N Mix 6 Wines" deal. It's on their UK site at £21.39. At your price it seems very cheap considering the shipping distance. And of course if you were expecting Veuve Clicquot or Laurent Perrier I could understand the disappointment. They also do a version made in USA. I thought that might be what they were selling. Apparently some parts of California are permitted to use the Méthode Champenoise description:

The link Hattie posted is in USA, therefore priced in USD. A few minutes ago $20 would equate to £16.17. Around £13? In France I'd generally buy one of the "Cremants" as a better value option to Champagne. Our local hypermarket's own brand Cremant de Limoux Brut is one of our favourites. "Méthode Traditionnelle" is the term used outside the Champagne region for the same process known as "Méthode Champenoise" for wines produced within. In past run ups to Christmas we've had deals where cumulative discounts give us decent champagne normally costing around €30 for around €7. It's also worth remembering that in blind taste tests, cheap supermarket champagnes often beat the big brand names.

Is this not Barbie's year?

With my wife away, my prime task has been to integrate Coco-Canel and Ursel without sustaining scars on their noses. Still the odd hiss but they're getting on very well. When not resting they madly chase each other around, which should be good for Ursel, who's tummy is probably a few inches bigger than she'd like after 3½ months with Carmel who wasn't fit to play. On Coco's ears and tail; the photos of her alone make her seem larger than reality. I suspect the tail may fill out rather than get any longer, and likewise her ears may not grow at same rate as body, which is tiny considering she weighs more than Ursel did when a month older. Ursel is Thai, more old style Siamese, her limbs aren't as long and slender as Coco's.

Introducing Coco-Canel, a Chocolate Oriental. Arrived from Bordeaux last night. She has her own room but as Ursel was taking her mid morning nap in the sun, I closed the windows to balcony and let Coco have a sniff around. She hasn't met her new Mummy yet as she left for her cold experience yesterday morning. Canel is an old French spelling of Cannelle (cinnamon) and coco fits her colouring as well. It continues our "el" ending theme, and the hyphenated name ties in with her supermodel status.

BA did their best to lower expectations with a series of alarmist emails prior to my wife making her annual trip to see friends and family in Scotland. In the event both flights involved were bang on schedule.

For 1920s think Great Gatsby rather than Peaky Blinders. I've not seen either of these films/tv series but I can imagine both based on the trailers that were shown for them. Mr Google gives clear images too. In The States you probably weren't subjected to the trailers so try an internet search. Ideally ladies glam up for a gala night and gents wear tux etc as in gala guidelines. If you want to be one of the 10% that follows the theme wear a beaded dress of anything between above knee to floor sweeping length and make sure men wear a tux suitable shirt and black or white tie. My wife wore a heavily beaded dark blue mother of the bride ankle length dress last time, with a craft headdress from a specialist on eBay. She now has a green and a red below knee fringed and a cerise almost floor length to choose from as well and a black elastic head piece that will go with any of them. But if she was keen to wear something else that night the theme wouldn't stop her. But; please, please!!! No guns; No Trilby hats! 🤣

We wouldn't buy jewellery anywhere other than Hatton Garden. I imagine there may be similar places to be found around the world, but not generally where you find lots of tourists. Sorry I mean real jewellery. We do buy really cheap stuff online.

I installed an app called "Photo Compressor" on Android. I think it's in the App Store as well. I used it to batch reduce photo sizes to post here and other social media from QM2. With Starlink that might not be necessary, although my current camera sometimes takes jpg snaps up to 18MB! It also offers crop and rotate functions in batch. I think there are some ads in it but I didn't find that intrusive.

In that case I suggest he hires or buys the cheapest he can. Or wear a dark suit, white shirt and bow tie. Longer term a better option is to "un-shrink" the tux, but it's unlikely that could be achieved in a sustainable manner in the time you have before sailing. It might offer all sorts of other benefits.

We would regard following Gala Wear guidelines much more important than themes. We do follow the themes but more from a colour and dress style point of view. Although one night last time we intentionally dressed for Masquerade theme (our profile pic, sans masks) on a Roaring 20s night, which Cunard decided to have two of. We didn't want to waste our 1€ SHEIN Masquerade Masks! Probably a Scottish thing. Probably the main thing to remember is that even though Cunard don't make this clear; On the Masquerade theme the intention is that folk might wear elegant venetian ball style masks, not funny halloween masks. For Roaring 20s flapper style dresses are fine for ladies. Gents are best to follow the standard gala guidelines. Most "gentlemen" attending a ball in the 1920s would not have been wearing a trilby or carrying a fake (or real) handgun.

Re eBay, Bought an Ivory Tux at £60 and Black for £30. Both new with labels. Plus £50 total between them in delivery and import shipping from UK to France. Black was perfect for immediate use. Ivory was dusty as if it had been in a stock room. I unpacked on QM2 and left the Ivory out with a note for stewardess for it to be cleaned. Returned clean the following evening, fee $7. Pockets were still a bit damp but I didn't plan to wear it that night and it had plenty of time to air. Both of those adverts are still on eBay.co.uk in different sizes. I also bought made to measure from "Hockerty.com". It's nice but I prefer the two from eBay. I had perfectly good M&S dinner suits, but as my wife lost more than 30% of her weight and many dress sizes I followed same regime with larger portion sizes and couldn't help dropping from 42" chest to 38". I tried shrinking the old ivory tux but while partly successful it still looked too big. I spent a bit more time on the new Ivory. It came with cream plastic buttons. I transferred all the satin covered buttons from the old tux to make it look a bit more upmarket.

Relatives took a holiday there last year. They didn't think it was a very interesting place.

Many ports are trying to reduce cruise ship calls. Local news sites here often have articles on the subject. Marseille are concerned about pollution. Monaco don't want big mass market ships. They want to target ships carrying fewer passengers of high net worth that will spend fortunes in their high end boutiques. The article was very clear that they didn't want thousands of folk arriving and only buying a few pizzas and ice cream. Cannes is a tender port but again there are moans about thousands of folk coming ashore and not spending enough. Nice can only accommodate smaller ships but the residents of the port area are regularly complaining about the soot on their balconies from the ferries that call there serving the Corsica routes. They only dock for about half an hour. We're quite happy where we are, but if I had an apartment at the port in Nice I'd regard all the ship calls as a big attraction to living there.

There was a thread with a discussion about markings on QM2's spare propeller blades on this forum. I searched a bit at the time and found several articles on blade corrosion due to seawater bubbles forming on the blades in use. I didn't find any direct link between those articles and the markings but it appears that propeller blades may need replacement at fairly unpredictable times depending on various factors. The corrosion may result in excess vibration.

Thanks for all those comments. I wouldn't want anyone to think we are without feelings. Carmel was the 10th cat we've lost since early 1991. I got the first two as kittens in 1976. My wife first met them in 1986. We buried them and another six (2 we had as kittens and 4 adult rescues) before we left Scotland. Our apartment here has shared gardens so the vet needs to arrange cremation. We miss every one of them and their individual characters. But we're realistic enough to appreciate that they have a limited lifespan. We would never be without cats, my family always had them when I was growing up. Hazel's heart clot last year was the only one that took us by surprise. For the others including Carmel, we knew it was coming and it was a case of deciding when was the best time in terms of balancing quality of life with possible pain and discomfort. Moving forward; we have found a new companion for Ursel. The challenge is how and when we can organise transport from nearly 500 miles away! I think Ursel will appreciate her. She seemed to like her "Auntie" Carmel but would have preferred that she would have rolled about the floor with her. Carmel hadn't been fit for that sort of activity for a while. At present it looks like we need to wait nearly three weeks until I can bring her back on a flight. For now Ursel insists that we play fetch and retrieve with her (like a dog, a first for any cat we've had) and provide a lap to sleep on as required.

They mainly use Ligier electric vehicles here for post. I haven't seen the 4 wheelers around here for a while. it's mostly these trikes. La Poste's parcel folk usually have electric Renault Kangoos.

Sadly we had Carmel euthanised yesterday morning. She'd suffered various respiratory problems from end of July on top of her long term treatment for heart and kidney condition. She stopped eating last week and her vet thinks her kidneys failed. Her last photo taken Friday evening. She seemed reasonably happy for Ursel to have most of her bed.

On June 5th 2022 we were in a starboard cabin. QM2 turns round before berthing. I took my first photo of the statue at 3:55am in darkness. The one taken at 6am was somewhat better. I've since realised that the sensors in both the phone and zoom camera I had with me are too small to get decent images in low light. There was also quite a bit of vibration with the bow thrusters being used to manoeuvre.

Hardly ever separated.

With embedded photos!! I should add that I'm looking for a suitable wardrobe/outfit planning app. Haven't found one that is better than Excel or Outlook Calendar yet.

I have to admit to being ill mannered from time to time. I have very little hair and for much of the year I need to protect my bald head from sunburn. We often walk to the shops and I need both hands to deal with the trolley and scanning items. It's more practical to keep my hat on.