TouchstoneFeste

You're right, our "round trip" was less than double. Cleveland to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal was $124 for a large bag. I think the original posters would be doing a Southampton to Southampton cruise, though, since they're doing Spain before and Italy after. Wow. Hey, @sundaypeople5, you could, you know, hire me to drag your bags around ...

Yep, one way. Still worth it for us.

"Expensive" is in the eye of the beholder, though. It cost us $275 to ship a large case from Southampton to Ohio last year. That's not nothing, but it's not more than a couple nights at nice restaurants. For us, it was definitely worth it - we weren't lugging around clothing we couldn't use ashore, and we had the clothes we really wanted onboard. Not to diminish your advice or that of others on the forum - if you can pack lighter and do laundry onboard, do so; but shipping is an alternative.

We've looked at that a few times, so I'd be interested in your comments after your visit.

Certainly paying for malware would be worse that picking up the free kind! :) Seriously (allowing for autocorrect issues) your options make sense as well.

We used the service (outbound and return) last spring and will use it again for an upcoming voyage. When you click through the Cunard White Star service, it will take you to a special Cunard page at Luggage Forward. I booked our luggage shipment directly with LF. I don't think there was a penalty in price or service options for doing so, but (at the time, at least) Cunard specified that only clothing items could be shipped; Luggage Forward will actually ship anything that's TSA/airline compliant. This might have contributed to the only problem we encountered with the service (see below). We had to specify what bags we would ship at the time of booking ("large red suitcase", etc.). You mention a garment bag (and LF will ship sports equipment and bicycles, so this wouldn't be a problem), but I'd recommended a normal suitcase, since your piece may be sitting at a depot for a while. You'll want to contact Luggage Forward (either way) about 3-4 weeks in advance. For standard 5-business-day service (one week of real time) we booked a morning pickup 7 days before embarkation; we left the bags in a secure outdoor location and they disappeared when we weren't looking :) You can also arrange a drop-off at a LF location, I believe. The standard insurance appeared to be pretty good, but we opted to boost it (for a modest cost) to cover some expensive items. They notified us of pickups and deliveries, and the online tracking system indicated that the bags in both directions were delivered well ahead of schedule. Our one problem: LF specified that ONLY their tag be applied, not the Cunard tags. Well, both of our bags arrived on board just fine, but one was delivered to the wrong room ("Hello, neighbor") and the other arrived only after we sicced our room steward on it. I suspect this was due to the bags not having the standard Cunard tags on them, so this is something I'll wrangle with LF about, next time. Since you'll be travelling before your transatlantic, you'll need to arrange the timing carefully, and you may want to take measures to ensure the bags waiting in Southampton are actually moved onto the ship. Luggage tracking tags?

For sure, you can get a cab ... you just won't spot one drifting by very often.

I don't think people have responded directly to one of your questions, so here goes. The hotels Cunard uses all look like at least a 10 minute walk from Penn Station, but you'd need to get through the theater district and Times Square, so the timing would depend heavily on what day and time you're arriving. (For what it's worth, given their locations a cab ride probably wouldn't be significantly quicker.) On the other hand, you would certainly not be the only person dragging a few suitcases through Times Square, regardless of the day or time. Overall, they're not a particularly desirable location unless you plan activities in midtown.

The Jane is a fun, quirky hotel, but be aware that the area is not well served by taxis.

You should also think through how much luggage you'll be wrangling. The subways are not particularly friendly for luggage. Personally, I'd be inclined to just bite the bullet and take a cab.

I see that the Coronation of King Charles will take place on May 6 with celebrations over the weekend and a special Bank Holiday. Should be interesting for those of us arriving (that would be me and my wife) or departing Southampton that weekend. Glad we already have a hotel booked in London.

I don't find "Yanks" insulting, for what it's worth; kind of charming, in my opinion, even when used by people from south of the Mason-Dixon line. And "Americans" excludes a lot of territory to the north and south, and "People from the United States" is a mouthful. My wife, on the other hand, spent her high school years in Canada during the Vietnam war, and she tells me she often heard it in a derogatory context, so it troubles her. And of course back in the mid-20th Century, we heard a lot about "Yanqui go home" from our southern neighbors ... so maybe I'm under-sensitive :)

I've taken care not to use the term since you first mentioned disliking it a few months ago (and seeing that some other British folk out there agree with you). However, please be aware that most of us over here use the term affectionately.

There's another British (I assume) term I'd never run into before. Does "pukka" mean roughly "genuine"? How's it pronounced? Seems very useful.

If you mean noise from passengers waiting for the lift ... The lifts are in dedicated stairwells, so you don't hear passengers waiting; it's not a raucous crowd. We were in 9063 - one of the cabins directly opposite the stairwell - and never heard a peep.

I found the room service coffee to be acceptable. Might have been made from a liquid concentrate? and not as good as what we brew at home, but a step up from instant, in my opinion. Regular ol' American style coffee can also be drawn from the urns in the buffet as early as 5am* if you're willing to venture out before room service arrives. * I didn't try earlier than that.

Actually, if anyone can provide better leads, that would be helpful. "Vintage dance groups" brings up a bewildering variety of folk dancers, Fred Astaire impersonators, etc. "Cruise dance groups" isn't much better. Couldn't find any reference to the group on the April 30, 2023 departure. Is it permitted to post the actual names of the groups? Or is that too close to posting travel agencies?

Oh, dear. No unkindness intended on my part. I enjoy your thoughtful and big-hearted posts.

And the composition is outstanding. The clouds really coopeerated.

In Tolkien. Ents = "tree-like shepherds of the forest". Hence the follow-on hobbit jokes.

But to be fair, it's hard to tell them apart, with the leaves and all ...

I also got the "transatlantic focus" one, which had an interesting component: in the section where it asked about direct transatlantics (with no stops in Canada; Iceland never came up) it asked about preference for an eight day crossing versus a seven day.

Apparently true. When we were departing on May 1, 2022, this was the taxi line. It was the day of the famous Five Borough Bike Tour, so maybe this was unusually bad. The driver of our incoming taxi couldn't figure out how to reach the terminal.

Or the Early Bird Special.

Well spotted. I happened to look two days ago and they weren't updated for my April 30-May 7 TA. Today they have been. I'll post again in December, @bluemarble, but they are exactly what you would expect for an eastbound transatlantic - Red and Gold on the second night, Roaring 20s on the sixth one, otherwise "Smart attire".