ballroom-cruisers

I'm sure that Britannia rooms are not 60% of the total on board, even if Britannia was 'only' 80% full!

True - though like so many ports of call, it is personal taste. Some like the bigger cities, others like the smaller towns, some like city life and others like the scenic places. I guess you were looking forward to Marseilles, and already know Cartagena. On the other hand Cartagena is, for some, one of those places, that repeat visits are always a pleasure to enjoy, even if as a last minute change of itinerary.

Cartagena is a lovely port of call - walking into the town directly from the ship is less than 10 minutes, and it is one of those places with lots of interesting cafes, streets and history - and such a shame that it is so rarely on Cunard itineraries. So it is a super replacement for Marseilles!

All of the Cunard ships have done afternoon tea dances - the golden rule seems to be that they are always on a sea day, and they don't make a decision until they are sure the next day will be slight seas, and a sea day, and only then put it in the daily schedule. Sometimes we have asked about whether there will be a tea dance when it gets towards the end of a voyage - and miraculously there is one scheduled the next day! On our next cruise perhaps we will ask at an earlier phase of the voyage!

I guess it depends who 'they' are. It may be the bank and not Cunard, so it is necessary to ask the bank. Of course banks normally will apply a fee for a foreign currency transaction.

Yes a nice blazer can work really well. Of course those who are lucky to be able to drive to the terminal don't have to worry too much about what can fit in their cases, but people flying to join the ship do have to be aware of luggage weight limits, and that can impact decisions on which clothes to take on the voyage. So whilst it is nice to think about the Gala evenings and what to wear, we also need to be sympathetic to men having one tux outfit for all the Gala nights. Nevertheless the majority still seem to make the Gala evenings special.

The theme evenings are best as elegantly dressed gentlemen and ladies with a 'hint' of a nod to the theme. The masked balls were always best when people followed the tradition of the Venetian style masks, and not over-stated fancy dress masks, with black tie for men, and elegant evening dress for ladies. Similarly for the Cunard ball, it is nice when men are dressed in dinner suits, whether black with black tie, or black jacket with gold or red tie, and the ladies evening dresses with some red or gold to connect with the theme. People do like dressing up - and this can be seen on land such as the past weekend when the newspapers had plenty of photo coverage of the Races weekend at York racecourse, when 77,000 people attended the races, with huge numbers of men of all ages with smart suits, ties, and even gold chains, and the ladies dressed to the nines, with new very fancy dresses of all styles, and hats or fascinators of a huge range of designs, and the inevitable high heels. People love dressing up. Not that the Gala evening is likely to be anything like the dress style of going to the races, but it is clear that a lot of people enjoy the whole process of anticipating an evening in style, whatever that style might be in terms of clothes. However the Gala ball is not a 'fancy dress' evening, and dressing like a gangster for the 20s evening is not to me elegant - in the 20s a century ago I am quite sure people did not go to a dance with a firearm to show they were in theme! They wanted to look smart to impress the ladies, and the ladies would have donned the most fashionable dresses of that time - so I guess the theme would be to try to emulate what people would have worn to an elegant dance evening and dinner a hundred years ago.

Also might be a service charge for foreign currency transaction? Cunard banking is through UK banks, and although their charges for services are in US dollars, they convert to UK pounds for UK customers, and this incurs an admin charge. Similarly if you are in Canadian currency on your credit card. You could check with the card company rather than Cunard to ask if that was the case.

It is nice to have the option of the quiet version with the special teas and cakes, or the more lively version including the music - and on those occasions when it is also a tea dance, then we love to dance in between the tasting of a cake or sandwich.

We have been through the process of 'going through' US immigration on a voyage a few years ago on QM2, westward TA, NYC to Caribbean and back to NYC then TA eastbound to Southampton. We too did not want to get off in New York, but as you say the ship is required to be 'zeroed' so we endured the several hours of queuing to get through with face photo, fingerprints and the full security check despite never wanting to get off in the first place - however on the return we were not required to get off the ship, as the passengers on board had already all been 'cleared' on the outbound to Caribbean sector, including those who boarded in NYC. However the process on first arrival in New York led to us deciding we would never again transit New York on a cruise. Also some passengers at the time had bought walking sticks, and claimed to be in need of special treatment due to mobility issues, and hobbled looking suitably pained, as they were prioritised through immigration, as we stood for an hour and a half in the queue. We heard them talking about it once we were back on the ship, as a mechanism for getting through faster. Why on earth the requirement to zero the ship is there at all is difficult to understand - especially as everyone on board has already been through security in the UK at the start of the westbound TA - but that is life I suppose!

Yes we felt the same when we were in the Grills. The selection of Afternoon Tea cakes and scones, including the 'logo' on top of scones and some cakes was lovely, but the atmosphere was missing compared to the Queen's Room. As you say, no procession, no feeling of space, no music, but just fairly quiet lacklustre 'grey; boredom in the Grills afternoon tea - which is a shame. Also we always loved the Afternoon Tea dances, when they were organised, which can't happen in the Grills of course. We were disappointed that there was not even one Afternoon Tea Dance on our last voyage to the Med on QM2 though.

As has been said, Alex and Liuba, are dance professionals, and excellent dancers. They are available for private lessons (cost charged to your on board account), and they teach extremely well if you want to talk to them about booking a lesson. They also perform excellent show dances on Gala nights for around 10 to 15 minutes in the Queen's Room, sometimes twice during each Gala evening, and they also run the ballroom dance classes that are in the schedule around lunch time on sea days. They don't act as dance hosts in the sense that they are not 'available' to dance with any single dancers in the evenings as the 'dance hosts' used to do, but they will do dancing with a single partner for the same time as a private lesson, in the evenings, and paid for the same way as private lessons. That kind of practice can be valuable during live dancing, as you would be dancing with a top professional, and has equivalent value to a private dance lesson in terms of experience.

I suspect that the management, and captains, of the Cunard ships all know what they can, and cannot, do, and what they will, or will not, do, regarding whether, or not, they can or cannot meet the stricter emissions rules for Norway (and any other country where the rules will change). So it will be a question of physical possible options, as well as commercially viable options and finance/management planning. Whether they will make that knowledge public is a different question!

I suppose it is hard to get at the full decisions/reasons why QM2 can't go into Flam, but in addition does she meet the sulphur emission requirements, with the various options presented for entry? Perhaps the ship's engines and exhaust handing, and its systems for reducing emissions is now too old to be able to have any changes implemented that could lead to satisfying the new stricter requirements? Certainly the ship is smokey as any passenger can see looking back along the ship when the wind is along the direction the ship is heading the yellow haze from the smoke plume is easy to see, relative to the sky colour in any other direction, and that is likely NOx in the smoke, but also we all know about the soot emissions too if we have had the tell tale spots when standing in the wrong place on deck.

Observing that on one night is not a full assessment of what happens over many voyages or an average. There will of course be variation and 'some' nights there will be fewer on the floor whilst other nights more will be dancing. The first night of a voyage is often less well attended because quite a lot of people are tired after long journeys getting to the port of embarkation, and are also unpacking. Equally on the last night people are often packing and wanting an early night if getting up early next morning to disembark. So quoting only 6 couples on the floor is only valuable it that is always the case. What other data do you have to give a proper assessment of how well the room us utilised?

Some are absolute beginners - as I mentioned a few days ago, but it takes courage to get on the floor when you are not experienced. It is up to people as individuals to chat to, help, encourage, and nurture the ballroom dancing for new people.

There are lots of details about the Norwegian requirements if you have plenty of time to read the technical small print at https://www.sdir.no/en/shipping/legislation/directives/amendments-to-the-regulations-on-environmental-safety-for-ships-and-mobile-offshore-units/

Absolutely, and I agree on the best use of the floor too, as well as Queen Anne decisions - but there are some who would wish the Queen's Room to be changed from a ballroom dancing venue to something unrelated to ballroom dancing, and that idea seems to keep coming up. I don't know if it is envy that people are enjoying something that someone can't themselves do, and want others to stop being able to enjoy it, or if it is something completely different.

Well, those of us who dance, and who love watching ballroom dancing, have our view, and those who don't, and who also don't like watching it, may have a different view. Those who want to do disco dancing have another venue to do it, and those who like watching performances have a theatre for that and do not need to use the Queen's Room as a place to watch performances, other than the professional ballroom dance performances on Gala evenings. Usually when the Queen's Room is used as an alternative pop evening, then the theatre is often not used when it could just as well be used, and have both venues in use at the same time. I any event most of the time when the Queen's Room is used for party nights or other performances such as a Duo playing music it becomes effectively a theatre and the floor is often very poorly utilised - and some of those events they lay out additional chairs right on the dance floor leaving a fraction of the space to dance - and even then the smaller area that is left has relatively few people on it. So basically you spoil the room for those who wish to use it for the purpose for which it is designed, and have the right place for such events then empty - the logic does not seem to stack up when you take what happens in other areas of the ship when the Queen's Room is taken over for non-ballroom events. At the end of the day Cunard management will decide whether or not the ballroom will remain a key feature of the fleet. Certainly on Queen Anne it seems that a dilution is in the making - so we will just have to see what happens as time passes. In the meantime we will dance and enjoy ourselves to the full, and hopefully others will be doing the same, whether on TA voyages, or other destinations, and those who don't themselves dance, but love watching those who can, will also hopefully enjoy cruises whilst that activity is available.

As someone has pointed out there are various activities in the Queen's Room which give a pretty full, and in fact sometimes overfull, floor - at different times of the day. It may also be used again in the future for receptions even though at present they are not happening. So it is whether it is used at a reasonable capacity overall, and not just at chosen times. After all the Commodore Club is pretty empty most of the day but gets more use in the evenings - should the Commodore Club be turned into a room for some different use? The function room next door to the Commodore Club is mostly empty almost all the time - same question. G32 is pretty much completely empty until the evening on QM2. The tables along the corridor either side of the ship on QM2 that used to have games, have at most one couple at them now - should they be removed? Much of the time Illuminations is empty especially in the daytime. What percentage of the time in any 24 hour period would you deem used enough to justify no change? The pools on deck are regularly empty or only one or two people in them - should they be filled in so nobody can used them? The grand lobby has a few people sitting at the seats - but mostly it is a queuing area for the purser's desk or excursions office. The space isn't full - so should that be replaced by something else and have a narrow corridor for those queueing where the queues can really fill the space allotted - so you can see - you can take that argument to extremes.

And how many on this forum would pay to go on a Cunard cruise to watch hip-hop and break dancing? The kind of passenger would change significantly methinks!

One danger is the concept of the 'cost centre' - and in this case it is classic. In my career the over enthusiastic use of the cost centre idea has been detrimental when losing the analysis of the system as a whole. The theatre has nobody paying extra money so it might be construed that the theatre is financially detrimental to the voyage costings. Equally people do not pay to use the deck space, so a lot of the time if the weather is bad the deck space is not financially contributing to the voyage profits either, and the same for the gym. So perhaps the deck should be removed, along with the gym and the theatre because they are not financially viable cost centres? Of course none of that takes into account the people book a cruise because they have the freedom to choose to go on deck whether nearly empty or not, and some people go on deck specifically when it is fairly empty. On recent cruises I have been on the Queen's Room has been pretty well utilised with the floor well used and not often empty, particularly on Gala nights, but also in the main part of most evenings, so your suggestion does not bear up with the reality on the cruises we have been on recently. Of course there may be some voyages where there are less dancers - and it is possible that your experience may have coincided with that situation. At the end of the day Cunard will decide whether or not to change things, but a few months ago on a cruise I chatted to the entertainment manager on one of the 'party evenings' when he wanted to observe how the party evening was going regarding people getting up to dance - and in fact though the seats were reasonably filled, people were there to watch the pop band, but there were less people on the floor even though it was only needing disco dancing, than when the ballroom orchestra were playing, but the entertainment manager told me that Cunard does not have any intention to remove ballroom dancing from any of their ships or voyages, as they know it remains a popular part of the decision to book Cunard voyages.

Is it possible that Cunard has found it more difficult to get a pianist to take a contract recently. Certainly on QM2 in July the pianist in the Commodore Club in the evening was sub-par compared to the excellent musicians we have had in the past. Also again pre-Covid on QV we have had excellent pianists in the Commodore Club, and they usually do have an evening off during a voyage - sometimes they have had a jazz sax player on the pianist's evening off, but they have usually been soft jazz and play some lovely music, including classic pieces, rather than the kind of jarring cacophony that leads to people leaving the venue.

Yes - I did chuckle reading that - certainly there are people who will swill the wine around and stick their nose over the rim, roll some of the wine around their tongue and say they like it - but how many would take an unknown wine, and do the same, and then be able to say which country it comes from?

If that does happen then Cunard would lose bookings from that fraction of people who would no longer see Cunard as being sufficiently special relative to some other alternative cruise lines. At the end of the day, time will tell. Certainly for us, if we could not go and dance ballroom and Latin every evening in the Queen's Room, then the particular lure of Cunard would be gone. There are other lines where ballroom dancing is still possible every evening, even if there is not the grandeur of a ballroom of the quality of the Queen's Room, but with high quality dining, and more alternatives for dining too, and similar other entertainment. If there are sufficient passengers who will book and fill the capacity of Cunard ships if ballroom dancing were to no longer be a key part of the evening, then hopefully people who then do book, will be delighted and enjoy the voyages, but for us, and indeed for quite a few people we know, then holidays will be taken elsewhere. I will certainly be sad to see that happen, but if it does then we will find enjoyment away from Cunard. Maybe enough people will find that perfectly acceptable, and good luck to them, but the special character of the Cunard experience will have disappeared for us in that case.