D&N

I've heard that. We only used P&O Ferries from Portsmouth and once with Stena in the brief period that they operated Southampton-Cherbourg. I think their ferry leaves quite late at night, so might be too late for dinner.

My thoughts entirely @bluemarble. I was only out of bed briefly as the cats were demanding attention, hence the brief response. @sfred, you certainly had found the island, and deserve the credit. The list of not seen ports has "Porquerolles, France". And further googling reveals that is probably the official name of the island. Here news articles tend to mention "Les Porquerolles" but the group is actually Îles d'Hyères. The original photo will be focused on us, last summer on our first visit to The Esterel, making the islands look much closer than they should be. Porquerolles is 48 miles from the spot where the photo was taken. That was at Pic de l'Ours, shown in 2nd photo with it's TV transmitter mast. I thought posting the full photo would just be too obvious. I'm not sure whether this allows you to move the port to the "seen" file, it's not exactly a close view of it.

Close. It's the furthest away island, which is listed as a not seen port. Confusingly it is known by two names. The less official, which I thought was the group, is listed.

I'm intrigued as to whether they actually sold M229A to anyone. A different experience from Brittany Ferries!

Is it remotely installing some sort of corporate "standard image"? If so, I hope you have a fast connection!

My wife often nags me to do things without really knowing what the deadlines are for them. The online printer that I use for our Christmas Cards usually offers substantial discount offers until nearer the festive season, when I imagine they see an increase in business. So I spent Saturday afternoon working on the photo-artwork for this year's card and placing the order, which arrived this morning. On checking previous orders I see that it was 8 days later last year and mid September the year before. If we keep this up, I'll eventually be making the next year's card on Boxing Day! At least I have a few months to write the addresses on the envelopes. We can look at the sample that I've placed in a cabinet, to psychologically cool us down when it is warm. The subjects are sporting very nice fur coats.

The answer came quite quickly from: Shin SHIBATA (living in Japan). I have tried emailing: portvillefranchedarse@departement06.fr as well, having taken a screenshot from that camera, but no response so far.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that when viewing MarineTraffic (without subscription) after a ship has departed from a tendering port, it often appears that some of the tenders have been left behind? I find the thought that they might have forgotten about them mildly amusing. 😂

With kind permission of shinshu-a.com, I can post an image of Queen Elizabeth shortly before departure from Villefranche-sur-Mer this evening.

I think you're more than entitled to allow yourselves some latitude. A 'dark suit' (probably sans bow tie), and a longish dress that travels well could probably be re-cycled for one or more dinners in Germany. Although it will be early autumn the evenings should be cool enough at that time of year.

I went back to bed and missed that! It's high over the trees now.

I didn't know this was a Cunard port of call. I've not been there but did take the photo. It's cropped from a wide angle photo. The angle and centre of focus may have distorted perspective as I find it hard to believe it's in shot, but can't be anywhere else.

Not the best photo. I don't have a camera that deals very well with low light at a distance. The low cloud on the horizon doesn't help either. Dawn breaking on the Cote d'Azur at 06:08 this morning as Queen Elizabeth heads into Villefranche-sur-Mer

I'd agree with Copenhagen. There is a 'dreamstime' watermarked photo online that shows the terminal building. Google satellite view and many other photos are older and don't show it.

Is it cheating to use a reverse search? Cropping in to this distinctive section gives me: Bird sanctuary Einevarden? I assume the port would be Måløy. Beaten! Taking too long to verify the port!

@bluemarble Update; Possibility we can work in Sept 21st. We'll have a visitor and plan a lunch at Geppetto https://www.facebook.com/geppettoalex/ in Nice one of the days. If we get on the move early enough we could visit Villefranche and get bus back to Nice, breaking journey at viewpoint. Let you know nearer time.

Sorry, don't think we'll manage back to Villefranche. We combined that with a picnic in Monaco that we sometimes do in summer. We might be able to get something at Cannes on one of the visits. We were planning to have a beach picnic at Île Sainte-Marguerite today, but I took one of our cats to the vets as she's not been eating well. We'll probably wait a few days to monitor her progress, which could mean that our trip could coincide with a Cannes visit. Although we swim and picnic on the south of the island, the ferry should pass QE in both directions and we'd get opportunities from the jetty on the island and from the port at Cannes.

Our two 80 litre cases fitted under one side with plenty of room to spare. They are 43.0 x 66.0 x 29.0 cm. In hindsight we might have been better to have 1 x 80 litre plus 1 x 119 litre at 50.0 x 77.0 x 31.0 cm. The smaller would have fitted inside the larger for storage. And saved storage space at home. As you'll see in the photo of the 29 cm cases, the 31 cm would have fitted under the bed easily.

We were disembarking on Sunday June 12th a Southampton. In the daily program of Thursday June 9th in a section headed "Preparing for your onward journey" requests were invited for "Fast Track disembarkation" and to phone the Pursers Office to arrange that. The slots were apparently 07:00 & 07:15, we were allocated the latter. Just before 07:00 we observed folk queuing to disembark as we returned from breakfast. By the time we got back down to deck 2 just before 07:15 that queue had dispersed and we walked straight off other than having our cards scanned. We were outside the terminal before 07:30. My sympathies are with you travelling by bus for that distance! It wouldn't be me. I would be on the 10:15 train changing at Birmingham.

Could it be Sitka?

On a Panama Transit at New Year 2005/6 from Acapulco to Barbados on P&O's Arcadia generally things were very good. I couldn't fault the service. Apart from Carnival's inability to make Kir Royale to my liking, the wine and drinks were good and reasonably priced. The sommelier jumped whenever we suddenly decided that a desert wine or liqueur was required with a particular desert. There was dancing in The Globe most nights. The shows were to a fairly high standard although I'd rather be dancing. The food was all well presented and cooked correctly. However for us the food was incredibly bland. It was as if they were catering exclusively for "British" tastes. Every single dinner was offered with potatoes and two vegetables, including curries and pasta dishes. When I asked for rice with a particular fish dish they were unable to provide any, even though they had an Asian/fusion restaurant on board. I suppose it was to be expected as the passengers were almost exclusively British, all having been flown out from various UK locations on charter flights to Acapulco and returned in same manner from Barbados. We had expected to find some local Caribbean produce but apparently everything is shipped from UK to a base in Barbados. We resolved not to travel with P&O again unless the itinerary offered was something we had to do and no one else was offering it. Since they don't offer day trips around The Baie des Anges on the Cote d'Azur or North Atlantic Crossings using an ocean liner that is never going to happen! In comparison Cunard's food offering is much more international and can closely match our regular diet.

I don't recall it looking quite so luxurious as the photo posted by @WestonOne in the other thread, but about 60 years ago my mother sometimes served baked eggs, which I think was a relatively cheap way of making a protein rich meal for 6 people with eggs and milk when meat, poultry and fish were expensive. It was placed in a pyrex oven dish and yolks were left intact. I recall it as being quite tasty.

No problem. They can go in the bin now that I have digital copies!

I've just got round to scanning and posting the menus we brought home, here:

I only asked for copies of menus in 2nd week of our crossings, having wrongly assumed they would automatically be presented on final night of trip as we had experienced on other lines. I've scanned the following as PDFs: QM2 Platinum Jubilee Gala Dinner Menu June 3 2022 QM2 Britannia & Club Dinner Menus June 6 to 11 2022 QM2 Britannia & Club Lunch Menus June 6 to 11 2022 I think they are in the order served. Red & Gold has that colour of border. We didn't get a copy of Britannia Club A la Carte, but had Duck, Lamb & Sole once each and Flambé Du Jour a few times (Suzette, Cherries, Pineapple). QM2 Platinum Jubilee Gala Dinner Menu June 3 2022.pdf QM2 Britannia & Club Dinner Menus June 6 to 11 2022.pdf QM2 Britannia & Club Lunch Menus June 6 to 11 2022.pdf