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We’ve not yet cruised on Costa, but we’ve heard that their ships have a nice dance floors and good old fashioned couple dancing music. Is that still true or is it only on some of the ships? Appreciate any information on which ships still have great dance floors and music, (something other than a discotheque…) thanks in advance.

Oh wow. Thanks for catching. I’m getting old and clearly not reading everything as well as I should. . Yes we are B2Bing. Now I need to revisit my emails and make sure I have it correct. DH would kill me if we showed up without the correct docs…or I might commit HariKari if I couldn’t board after all the packing.😬

I seem to remember Queen Mary having a luggage scale, but maybe I’m confusing myself here. Since we’re going to be flying on a European airline when we get off in Barcelona, I want to make sure the suitcases are within the right weight range. And I hate to carry one of those little Luggage scales with me if I don’t have to. Does Queen Elizabeth have a luggage scale somewhere? Thanks.

In response to the requests, I received the email on July 21. Here’s the excerpt. “we’re letting you know that we’ve updated our pre-sailing testing requirements. These will apply to your voyage, Q226A, departing on 08/22/2022.For your embarkation port, all guests aged five years and over must still take a Covid‑19 antigen test and receive a negative result within two days of departure. You will no longer need to provide a test certificate, however, you will be asked to confirm the test has been taken, with a negative result, for you and each member of your party as part of your pre‑boarding health declaration at the cruise terminal. Adequate tests include over the counter tests, providing they fall within our list of accepted Covid-19 antigen tests. “ It’s my belief that Cunard is dealing with every cruise on a case by case basis. I had called Cunard to ask a couple questions about a week before this email came, and the agent told me that how many ports a particular voyage goes to can make a difference in the requirements. And yes, I’m not sure that the website even matches what came in my email…

Just commenting…..We are Americans departing from Fort Lauderdale on QE on Aug 9. We received an email about a week ago, telling us the same, that we must test ourselves but not a monitored test, prior to boarding. Americans have been a given the opportunity to get free self-tests for the past couple months. So it’s great for us, since the monitored tests may or may not be covered, depending on one’s insurance. Glad to hear this change in requirement is becoming more common, especially since they require vaccination in order to sail. Looking forward to putting Covid behind us all!

I must say to the people who can pack the day before— I am so impressed. I always start packing about two weeks before any trip. I have packing lists and I leisurely do things so it’s not all on me to do it at the last minute. However for Cunard, I actually have to pack the formalwear earlier because I ship them to the port, we don’t carry them. We typically have 2 carry-ons, 1 26 inch suitcase for our every day clothes, and 2 more 26 inch cases for our eveningwear. We have one carry-on that’s full of medical supplies, unfortunately that’s part of our aging reality. Then we have a smaller carry-on that has all of our toiletries and whatnot, and a pair of PJs for each of us because quite often we’re doing a pre-flight or a pre-cruise night somewhere in a hotel. Since our first Cunard cruise where I had packed 3 gowns that I never wore, I have learned to pack with less clothing. I actually have a little spreadsheet that I’ve used over and over to make sure that I don’t over pack anymore. And even for my husband, he takes a tux, and he takes a blazer with two pairs of trousers. The first cruise I packed a second sport coat for him, but I looked around and saw most men wear their blazers every night so he does too now. Another thing helped me pack less was using the laundries and the laundry service. It’s so easy on Cunard, so I don’t have to pack as many clothes because I know I can do laundry or we can send it out. We actually pack many more every day clothes when we’re doing Celebrity since they don’t have self service laundries… We get free laundry bags, but sometimes they don’t do the best job… One more thing, I also love packing cubes. I find not only do you fit more items in your suitcase, but it really keeps them from wrinkling if you pack them in well. So I highly recommend packing cubes to anyone whose are frequent travel traveler

I am surprised you are booking in the Grilles and don’t have a drink package included…I guess the booking inclusions are different for the UK and the US? When we travel in the Grilles, the drink package is included. It’s not so bad, we can get plenty of drinks within the price range!!! (Celebrity’s is a bit better if you have the premium package..) DH and I actually think the drink prices are lower on Cunard so their limit is lower. Hmmm, perhaps Cunard thinks we Americans drink a lot more 🤣 🤣🤣 and so ups the cruise fare to include the drinks? ?

Due to travel yesterday, I didn’t even look until today. We will be going on the QA Fort Lauderdale to FortLauderdale Caribbean cruise in February 2024. Some notes—I have to say the pricing was a shocker…we like Princess Grilles and the price really has jumped, with very little OBC! The fare price is about 40% more “per day” than when we cruised in 2018 and 2019, and we had tons of OBC on that cruise. Another noticeable difference is the deposit is much larger than it was previously. I guess Cunard cruise lines need to refill their coffers… Despite the pricing, we will not have to fly or ship the big luggage which saves a lot of money for us, so we decided to enjoy the new ship closer to home. We are really looking forward to the cruise, wondering how much we will like the ship….we love QE, not so much QM, and all our cruises we had planned on QV were victims of Covid, so it will be fun to try another Cunard ship!