ballroom-cruisers

It is interesting that the web site for the Vintage Dance Cruise group has a Q&A section, and one of the answers is listed as follows: Our vintage group will be an intimate private party of approximately 150-250 people so that everyone can fit comfortably in the Queen’s Room to enjoy the private events. The ship carries up to 2,620 passengers so most people on the ship will be regular passengers, not part of our group. The regular passengers will all be curious and envious of the fun we’ll be having! Be prepared to answer questions about “what’s going on?” and another answer says: Throughout the voyage, there will be five private performances plus a cocktail party along with the option of additional daytime meetups. Our main events will usually take place in the Queen’s Room between 6pm and 8pm.

Seems it is an electrical fault with a couple of hours delayed departure but with a little extra speed on passage should arrive on time in Southampton.

I have seen posts elsewhere that QV has broken down in Hamburg - does anyone know what has happened?

I bet it will be extremely well managed, and a great experience that may never be similar again for passengers.

I don't normally say this - but - me too! But it can't be alphabetic - though I guess Host Hattie is right about going out in batches!

Clearly there are those who are in the Cunard 'good books' and those who are not! I am clearly not!

It seems getting the cards, whether by real post or email, is pretty uncertain. I get all the other marketing email from Cunard, but just the card is not among them! Perhaps they have issues with their mail servers or the software they use for processing the huge numbers of mail addresses when sending the cards out! You would have thought they would send to everyone within a particular, or several, categories (eg all past passengers with a registered email address).

I don't if they get sent to all past passengers but I haven't had one!

Yes you are right - the 'Message' facility is disabled! Shame!

You can find out about group bookings for vintage groups or other dance groups by googling for a relevant set of words relating to 'cruise' plus those other key words - we can't mention or link to them directly on this forum, but it is quite quick to find out their web sites and see for yourself, independently of Cunard, which ships and dates they have planned. Some do go on other lines than Cunard but have a fair number on specific Cunard voyages too. I guess forum members can message each other privately if someone has a list of the websites concerned, as that would presumably not break forum rules?

Yes that is true - though it would seem that the groups do book well ahead, or at least advertise their intention to have a group cruise and often give the date and ship on their own web pages. So that is certainly the first thing I do when looking at possible booking. However I agree totally that if despite doing the trawl of possible conflicts, a group ends up booking onto a voyage after I have booked then I would do the same as you and make a lot of noise directly with Cunard and at the very least expect to be able to transfer cost free to a different voyage, and if no suitable alternative was available, then yes I would argue very strongly that the facilities I had been led to believe were available (namely the Queen's Room) would not be available as previously advertised and hence that the contract had been broken, and under British Law that should lead to full refund, if not more.

Better to research the issue of groups on board before booking - and if there is a likely conflict of interest book a different voyage where the problem should not arise - a lot easier than fighting for a possible refund that may not be accepted!

Much colder out of the cities - but only -3C in the city! But I have seen some great pictures from up in the Dales.

Useful to see these - I guess it will always remain our own responsibility to find if any groups are booking onto a voyage of potential interest for ourselves.

I guess others have also had the email with the survey about why a newly booked 2024 voyage was chosen? I did have to choose several of the 'other' boxes from a set of options to a question, where I could write in 'nightly ballroom dancing' as one of the options to choose where the list of other options didn't include it! Also it is interesting that the set of evening activities did not include ballroom dancing, and there was no box to write that option into for evening activities! However, there was space in the final comments box to make it very clear that ballroom dancing in the Queens Room was for us a critical factor in choosing the voyage, in this case on Queen Anne - and particularly so, since we don't know how the Queens Room on the new ship will be used in the evenings!

Seeing all that snow I am thankful the only white stuff we have seen has been the morning frost on the rooftops and garden shed. A journey today 90 miles round trip was incident free. Hopefully the frigid weather around the UK won't last too many more days.

I am sure Cunard are well aware that there are a number of possible options for adaption, and they will want to 'adapt and survive' as opposed to 'adapt and die'. Sure there are options - but if they make the wrong choices it could lead to a worse outcome than choosing the right options. So they need to keep as many customers happy as they can.

Megabear2: You are not the only Diamond member to get that survey - it seems to me that Cunard are wanting to understand more about what the customer base really wants - the market may not just fill available staterooms with no effort, and they may be genuinely looking at making sure any changes they may be planning in the way the ships are managed operationally will not turn customers away. Given the discussions on this forum, and elsewhere, it is clear that some changes have led to significant unease and unhappiness among long standing cruise passengers, and whilst they will certainly wish to attract as many new customers as possible, they will also not want to lose significant numbers of loyal customers either. As the cost of living rises further into the next few years, with economies looking in less than robust shape in many countries over the coming few years, it is likely to need more work to maintain the cruise passenger numbers and although there will always be a certain number of people whose cruise plans and ability to continue having this kind of holiday will not be affected by how the economy changes, there may well be many others who will find their personal financial position no longer allows them to afford to take as many cruise holidays as they would have previously or who may be unable to afford such holidays as their first foray into the cruise life. So competition between cruise lines may well increase, and Cunard will need to put the maximum effort into keeping the largest number of people booking as they can. So the new more extensive survey is likely to be treated more seriously than in the past once they get a good number of completed questionnaires back.

There was a choice of some OBS, or coach travel to the ship, and one other option I think. The default was some OBS. The email confirmations were taking time to come in, but then there are often delays on launch day.

It looks like for online booking the primary passenger has the Cunard World Club details listed but not other passengers - but when the confirmation email arrives the world club status of all passengers is there in the attached .pdf conformation file, provided the world club membership number was added during the booking process.

Looks like it has not been an issue booking today. At least we had an easy time doing it and no problem for the voyage and room we wanted.

Having done several cruises this year, we will continue to aim to take voyages in the future, but also do land-based holidays - not because there is a significant difference in risk being at sea as opposed to being on land, but until it gets to a voyage it is not possible to know ahead whether there will be an outbreak of Covid, and whether or not increased measures will need to be brought in when you are on board. You have to do what you can to plan to enjoy life - and accept the risk is non-zero that Covid, or any other virus or bacterium, could emerge at a late stage - that's life! If things look near the departure date that case numbers are rising to levels where too many people may have spoiled holidays then we can always cancel. But also it is easier to get suitable treatment on land than at sea so more likely that a land based holiday would be less impacted by any surge of Covid locally. Covid will be with the human population indefinitely, just as flu does impact some percentage of the population each year so we have no choice but to live with that risk, at whatever level it is and varies over time. However I expect the majority of people will still plan holidays and the vast majority of people will have a happy and healthy holiday, whether at sea or on land.

Presumably so and done to inform operational planning.

At the end of the day if the Cunard experience is what we like then we will book future cruises, but if the experience is no longer what we like or want then we will go elsewhere. Everyone has a free choice about the available options they are happy to accept as a holiday and also remain happy to pay the price. If it isn't what people want then bookings will go down. It's also possible the character of Cunard cruises will change and with it the kind of people who will be the future customers.

I will cross my fingers and toes that lots of other people have done the same!