sfred

Wow - was I surprised this morning. Doing MyCunard checkin for our upcoming QM2 voyage. MyCunard prepopulated and accepted our passport details, no worries. MyCunard accepted our payment card, no worries. MyCunard accepted our uploaded photographs, no worries. Downloaded and printed our boarding passes, no worries. Downloaded and printed our luggage tags, no worries and no formatting issues. What was I doing so wrong to have this happen??? 😀

Nice photo @sogne, particularly with the colour of the sky reflected in the water. But the single lit habitation on the shoreline isn't enough for me to guess the location.

Thanks @sogne. This is the Helles Memorial in Gallipoli Turkey overlooking the Dardanelles Straight. Anzac day, on 25 April each year, is a very important day here in Australia, honoring the members of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps from WW1, and all service men and women. Mrs sfred and I go to the dawn service each year if we're in Australia on the day. What is the history of your photo? Was it taken on a Cunard voyage?

QG (and PG) coffee is definitely good by my taste, but as @exlondonerindicated there are many different preferences. Your waiters will definitely try their best to accommodate different requests, although the number of different combinations I sometimes hear at US Starbucks and similar venues will likely overwhelm them. They do a very good job with my coffee favourite, double espresso. Or what we call here in Australia a double short black.

Well spotted and good thinking, @bluemarble. I wasn't getting close with my research. I tried several google searches for "electricity pylon near ocean" and variations thereof. The closest match that came up for the pylon shape in @sogne's photo was in China, but I knew that was way off given the remainder of the photo clues. Now that you've identified it, I do recall seeing this location during our QV trip from Civitavecchia to Venice in 2016.

My numbers are much more modest. 42 total countries, 39 of which are on our seen list (the difference being Austria, Switzerland, and Czech Republic where Cunard is unlikely to visit). However, only 20 of the 39 have been by Cunard ship. That number will become 21 next month with the addition of Norway to the Cunard total, but I clearly have a long way to go -- time, funds, and border closure regulations permitting!

Apologies, there was an error in my formula that calculated the number of unique seen countries. The correct number is more impressive - 133 countries. Considering that there are only approximately 195 countries in total in the world, that means that we've "seen" approximately 68 percent of the world's countries here in this topic. Cunard's current and former ships, and her passengers here on Cruise Critic, certainly are well-traveled.

Another (potentially) interesting statistic is that the Cunard seen ports and cruise-bys list consists of 75 unique countries. The top 10 countries represent only 50.7% of the 588 total ports. Cunard certainly gets around in the world.

Concur with your port count @bluemarble. With the addition of Isle of Islay the UK is now at the milestone of 50 Cunard ports and cruise-bys, the second highest of any country and narrowly behind the US at 55 (21 of which are in Alaska).

Photo number two looks like Cape Wrath Scotland?

Very cute. Does the reindeer have a name (either Cunard named or @photosg named)? We'll look for one on our QM2 Norway voyage next month.

I have to admit I had a bit of an unfair advantage too. I've not been to Valencia in person, but I spent a good amount of time there in August on google maps, researching @bluemarble's contributed webcam image of the Valencia promenade at Patacona Beach. I recognised the marina and the pier configuration.

Thanks @Host Hattie and @carlmm. This is Valencia Spain at the Muelle Cruceros pier, adjacent to the Trans Base Soler container terminal. Looks like it was a very pleasant sunny day.

Oops - you are correct, @Colin_Cameron. The port (Port Chalmers) is listed in the "seen" list under the nearby city of Dunedin, New Zealand. I must have neglected to remove it from my unseen list. Sorry all, my mistake. I was there on a driving trip of the South Island many years ago.

Looking through the "unseen" ports list, I've realised that there is one remaining port that I've been to before, although by car and not by ship. Don't know how I missed this one. Lacking a photo of my own, here is a public domain photo. I managed to find a photo that includes cargo cranes! 🙂 Although this public photo dates from 2011, the 2019 google street view confirms that the various visible landmarks are still the same.

Excellent! Thanks for letting us know, and glad to hear that the process worked well. Hopefully the local Australia Carnival/Cunard institutional memory will be retained. Best wishes for your voyage in February!

Best wishes for your voyage @photosg! We're on the QM2 version of Norway in a few weeks from now in November, so will be eager to hear of your experiences. I see that your itinerary includes a cruise-by to Romsdalsfjord, which QM2's does not. If you have a chance, and would like to contribute to the "Where in the World" port game, please share a photo. Romsdalsfjord is an unseen cruise-by in the game. Thanks!

Correct! It was a very scenic dawn in Auckland harbour, and we had a great room at the Hilton to observe QE's arrival. I had posted a similar photo in the daily sunrise thread. That voyage was our first on QE, stopping the next day in the Bay of Islands and then across the Tasman to Sydney. @bluemarble posted the original Auckland photo back in September 2020, a capture from QE's bridgecam of the city. @exlondoner quickly identified the port.

PS - I was not the one who submitted the original port photo, nor was I the port identifier. Another game participant was faster.

From the Cunard Australia web site, as at 5 October: https://www.cunard.com/en-au/the-cunard-experience/sailing-with-confidence/preparing-to-sail/before-you-board 24 hours for RAT, 48 for PCR. "May" be asked to show proof. Also, Australia still has the prorated FCC in the event of testing positive while onboard.

Here is a different view of an already-seen port in our game. The previous photo posted here was of the city from the Cunard ship. Here is the ship from the city. The time of day may make it a challenge to identify. Mrs sfred and I were staying at a nearby hotel prior to embarking later that day.

While not a cocktail, Mrs. sfred and I both like a nice port in QM2's Carinthia port bar in the evenings. A few years back, we were on a TA that featured RADA, and several evenings they did a "bedtime story" reading. Accompanied by port, it was a most pleasant way to finish the day.

From reports here on Cruise Critic, the sb@cunard.com email works great for people in the US. But my emails to that address seemed to go into a black hole, with no response either of a delivered message or a failed one.. Perhaps my emails, originating from an Australia ISP, were getting filtered out by Cunard IT.

Just in case anyone is interested in the outcome of my CCL shareholder credit queries. I was finally successful, ironically with the one department that initially replied and said they didn't process Cunard credits. I called the Carnival UK shareholder credit phone number that @LittleFish1976 kindly provided and spoke to several different people on three different calls. One person said the Carnival shareholder credit no longer applied for Cunard. Another said the credit applied only for UK residents. A third said that the Carnival UK department didn't support Australia shareholders and I needed to call and deal with Carnival Australia, despite the Cunard Australia website clearly stating to contact Carnival UK. At that point I was nearly ready to throw in the towel and give up. But I tried one further time with the Cunard Australia email cunard.aspac@carnivalaustralia.com. They very helpfully pursued my query with shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com. (This was the department that had answered my original email and said they didn't handle Cunard and I needed to write to sb@cunard.com in the US, which never replied). Anyway, a week or so after cunard.aspac@carnivalaustralia.com got involved, I finally have my shareholder credit and updated booking confirmation. So as best I can tell from this experience, for CCL shareholders in Australia: Don't try to go through Carnival UK, despite the direction from the Cunard Australia website. Don't email sb@cunard.com in the US. They don't seem to ever answer. shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com seems to be the correct email. Although you might need cunard.aspac@carnivalaustralia.com to assist. Good luck!

Ah - yes, of course! I was looking in the wrong places. What I thought was an ITS sign on one of the petroleum tanks is actually FFS Refiners. And what I thought was Clarion hotels is actually the City Lodge Hotel V&A Waterfront. These two errors sent me to the wrong places. It was a good challenge for me, thanks @Starboardhome. But we all have to be sharp on our game to take on @bluemarble. Look forward to some more photos from your files.