D&N

My first post on this thread.... You and others are quite right; A technical failure of something that could have been subject to regular inspection can't be the responsibility of anyone other than the operator and can't really be considered to be outside their control. So Cunard must be at fault. I have no mechanical or engineering qualifications but remarkably spent 5 years of my career holding ultimate responsibility for a decent sized engineering operation. Luckily I had a very good Engineering Manager reporting to me and quickly understood that making and acting on regular checks was key to maintaining a safe operation, and would never have approved the use of an asset that could have posed risk of injury to people or damage to it or other property. However sometimes in corporate cultures things slip through the net and problems arise that could have been foreseen but nobody thought of. That's often why you have plane or train crashes, and hopefully something is always learned from such incidents. In this case it's possible something wasn't being checked regularly, and that might tie in with a modification being made in 2016 and not being included in the regular inspection program??? If so, it's hard to say it could not have been predicted. Having said all that, Cunard are not the only company that ever makes mistakes. I don't see the point of folk coming on this forum and moaning how awful Cunard are. Their effort would be better employed putting a claim for any losses together.

The OP's original question was "What do you make of this?" to a change in wording on websites. I don't remember every single post, but I don't recall anyone demanding that all must follow certain standards. My impression has been that most posts were intended to be light hearted. I only became aware of the existence of any "white tux rules" when a friend commented on them after seeing photos from our sailings last year. In practice I'm unlikely to pay much attention to them.

Further to my post #142 on the subject; I just re-read an article in Gentleman's Gazette, which reminded me that many consider the start of the "Summer Season" as Memorial Day. Taking that into account it appears I haven't broken any "rules" in past, and can happily plan to wear an off-white jacket on future June crossings.

@4-2-N-8, @NE John Remember to wave to the folk on the nearby hillsides at port calls as well! This was taken at x21 zoom of x40, could have gone a bit closer.

Have you seen the "sticky" post with photos from each of the obstructed view cabins? If I recall rightly 8013 will be mirror of 8014 etc...

It's probably best that anyone who is not satisfied with their outcome takes advice from a contract law expert.

Is this the text wording you couldn't copy? Found on https://www.cunard.com/en-us/advice-and-policies/passage-contract using a US VPN. 8. RIGHT TO DEVIATE FROM SCHEDULED ROUTE, CHANGE PORT OF EMBARK ATION/ DISEMBARKATION, SUBSTITUTE TRANSPORTATION, CANCEL VOYAGE AND ACTIVITIES, AND CHANGE OR OMIT PORTS OF CALL; SUBSTITUTION. Except as otherwise provided, Carrier may, for any reason, without prior notice, cancel the Voyage; deviate from the scheduled ports of call, route and timetable; call or omit to call at any port or place or cancel or modify any activity on or off the vessel; comply with all governmental laws and orders given by governmental authorities; render assistance to preserve life and property; or change the date or time of sailing or arrival, change the port of embarkation or disembarkation, shorten the Voyage or substitute vessels, aircraft or other transportation or lodging. Accordingly, You should not make any important arrangements or meetings based on the scheduled Voyage, which may change without liability to Carrier. Furthermore, the Captain of the vessel as well as the operator of any other means of transportation may, in his/her sole discretion, take any action deemed necessary for the safety, security, comfort, or well-being of any person or to prevent damage to or loss of the vessel. In the case of mechanical failures that cause the scheduled Voyage to be cancelled, You are entitled to a full refund of the Cruise Fare and the Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses; or for mechanical failures that cause a cruise to be terminated early, a partial refund of the Cruise Fare and any unused Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses, travel expense to transport You to the scheduled port of disembarkation or Your home city at Carrier’s discretion, and overnight lodging if an unscheduled stopover is required.

I'm afraid that we are likely to be crossing just before the Summer Season and unless a serious diversion is required, will be North of The Mason-Dixon line. However I only plan to wear an Ivory Tuxedo on evenings that are not officially "Gala" and only where it enhances the outfit that my wife is wearing. Hopefully I can be absolved.

No. I had great respect for his ability to make a living from the character, but I never found him remotely funny.

I found a slightly more extensive P&O drinks list, and a few more direct comparisons. On average Cunard are probably about 70% more expensive on exact same bottles. But like others have questioned; is that a reason not to book? You could just drink the cheaper wines, which are generally light and quaffable. If you drink 6 to 8 150ml glasses a day, the drinks package would probably save money as well. Most of the wines by glass are in the $34-$40/bottle group.

@jeanlyon I believe prices on P&O are cheaper. I note you frequently contribute on their forums. The only direct comparison I've found at an initial glance is a Romanian Pinot Grigio. On P&O it seems to sell at £19.95, on Cunard it is $28 + 15%. Today I would get $1.24 to the pound using my usual foreign exchange site, so about £26. I don't know if P&O have a bar service charge. Cunard are obviously more expensive than P&O. I wouldn't be sailing on P&O since they don't have an ocean liner or regularly do Transatlantic, but the choice of wine on P&O seems very restrictive. I'd consider drinking less than a third of the wines on the 2 page menu I found, and there is nothing I would drink with a decent red meat dish.

We also have a problem with the frequency of the dress code. 4 Gala Nights in 14 is far too few. I had planned to take 2 x Dinner Suits and 2 x dark lounge suits on our next crossings but decided last night to take 3 x DJs and 1 lounge suit. I will probably dress formally every night. Our first night outfits would travel in our hand baggage anyway, along with everything we would need for a westbound crossing. Likewise there's plenty of space for the last night's outfits in our back packs as well. Besides we'd be self disembarking so it wouldn't really matter.

Got my first chance of the season to photograph a cruise ship passing our window heading to Villefranche from Barcelona. Nieuw Statendam sailed by just before 10 am. The light wasn't best with a thin layer of cloud veiling the sun. I've cropped the original and applied some colour effects to bring out more detail on the superstructure. When QM2 visits in August she should arrive a bit earlier and hopefully air will be clearer. I'll also take a walk down to one of the sea front breakwaters, which will give me a full view of the whole bay without trees and let me get shots from about a mile closer

@esrs As @lissie has pointed out; Royal Caribbean, Anthem of the Seas, departs Bayonne, NJ May 1, 2023 arriving Southampton May 12, 2023 via Ponta Delgada, Cherbourg & Le Havre. If they would permit you to disembark at Cherbourg there is an overnight ferry to Poole arriving 07:00 on May 11 if saving a day was important. https://www.brittany-ferries.fr/booking/choose-crossing/outbound That's a site I've used for research before as well. Never booked anything with them though.

@Jack E Dawson Our table companions did Forest Sky Walk in January 2006. We're still in touch on FB and for Christmas Cards. If you don't get feedback by nearer the time I could ask them what they remember of it.

Look what arrived this morning. Need a good enough wine to justify using it now!

@Hflors You are best just doing what you feel is right. A previous objective analysis suggested auto-gratuities might be about right by British standards and perhaps slightly low by US standards. We would pay the standard and only give anything else if we felt it was particularly deserved. Threads such as this often end up being locked due to the wide variation of opinions! 😂

On a Sunday last June we self disembarked and were outside Mayflower Terminal at 7:18 am. Taxi was booked for 8:30 am but when phoned managed to come a bit earlier. We departed at 8:09 am and the journey to Heathrow Terminal 5 took 1 hour 8 minutes. I'll book the taxi earlier next time. It's probably not possible to do the trip as quickly on most other days of the week. We were booked on a 14:25 flight and would have been happy to sit about Terminal 5 for 5 hours but were luckily able to change to a flight at 11:25.

We preferred Chart Room on QM2. Any alcoholic drinks we consume would normally be available in any of the venues. We visited Commodore Club one night at about 10:45 pm. It was fairly quiet. It was ok and the seats were comfortable enough but we felt the seating and carpet colour scheme not as easy on the eye as those in Chart Room. The shape of it made sections of it feel isolated, we couldn't see what folk at the other end of the room were up to. The sloping wall made it feel a bit closed in as well. Chart Room was our regular for teas/coffees, aperitifs and nightcaps. We liked the shape, layout, colour scheme and atmosphere. It was also close to Britannia Restaurants, Queens Room and G32 where we would spend the rest of each evening. We found the waiting staff very pleasant too. I'm sure they're nice in Commodore as well but we had little experience of that. The OP doesn't ask; but we don't normally go to pubs, so never ate or drank in Golden Lion. We did try Carinthia for afternoon tea/coffee twice and one evening for aperitifs at start of our trip. The staff we encountered didn't seem quite as friendly and service seemed slower even though it wasn't busy. And there was something about the ambiance we didn't feel comfortable with. Possibly explained by it being one of the venues where gala dress code doesn't apply.

I've just spent 4 days travelling to, from and in Scotland via London airports. Other than wearing a dinner suit to a wedding I wore a blazer (is that a sport-coat in the US?), long sleeved collared shirts and trousers (slacks) throughout. I didn't feel overdressed in any situation we were in. I could just as easily have worn a dark suit rather than jacket and trousers. My point is that all I would have needed to add to my luggage was a tie to comply with Cunard's gala night dress codes. I had several bow ties with me, one to wear with my wedding outfit and spares in case any relatives had forgotten theirs or we decided on a colour change at last minute. Ladies would only need lightweight dresses or separates that could be worn at any time in UK. I don't quite understand why travelling light should stop anyone enjoying meals in any venue on the ship on gala evenings.

Nice to have an opportunity to dress properly. At a niece's wedding near Falkirk.

Nice day for a white wedding. Sunshine over Lock 11, Falkirk.

I finally got round to scanning the daily programs from last year. Most of the pages are quite clear. Each day has 6 pages including the shopping/advert insert. The sequence is the main 4 pages followed by the 2 pages of the insert. QM2 Daily Programs May 29 to June 11 2022.pdf

That's interesting. It's priced at $94 on the most recent list, which is less than the minimum value reported in a blog I read recently. That suggested they used it on wines at $250 and above. They have the small extra cost of the gas used by the unit.

Since we were on a package I've never had one of those receipts, but you were being charged the 15% automatically on your bill. If you chose to give a discretionary gratuity that would have been on top of the 15%.