WantedOnVoyage

Strictly FYI only

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/over-100-cruise-passengers-sickened-after-gastrointestinal-illness-outbreak

Let's hope the report is more up-to-date than the accompanying photos...

Over to you, Katie McAlister...

What say you?

So to sum up.... we have now three different responses from Cunard on this.  Only Cunard would maintain two different drink packages, one of which has a limit  that doesn't even cover 95% of the drinks.  And that's an "incentive" to folks paying the most per day of any of their passengers. Wow. 

Again, I'd rather they just offer the American market the lower UK market price and we just buy the drink package of our choice. Or none.

We all need a double after nailing Cunard's jello to the wall..... make mine a Pol Acker split.

Well, QUEEN ANNE is built in Italy, registered in Bermuda, owned by an American conglomorate, has a Danish captain and probably will have fewer than 100 British subjects in her crew. So there's that.... 

Maybe it's time to put the artifice of "Ships of State" afforded royal christenings to bed in an era of international mishmash. 

Do you see "the new affluent in their 40s" aboard Cunard? I sure don't. If anything, the passenger profile is older than it was 30 years ago.  This is more aspirational marketing nonsense by clever young things in their slim fit Next suits... actually many surveys indicate the app addicts are actually not even disposed to travel fullstop. Gen Z doesn't leave their parents basements let alone travel and Millennials don't travel anything like boomers did as teens.  The old summer backpacking in Europe seems the stuff granddad did. 

But yes, if I am obliged to have a "smart phone" and they do away with printed menus and programmes, etc... I am done with ocean travel. As the customer, I am not going to be told what I should  embrace in fadish technology. 

This answer is misleading in itself... you don't "cover the difference" between $12.00 and the actual cost of the drink. You pay for it all... so much for "free drinks".  

If you have a booking, call back... complain about the false information and ask for $300 extra on board credit. You'll get it. I sure did.

Cunard doesn't need new apps or another ship... it needs everyone working in an office under one roof following the same policies and knowing what they are.  When I call Cunard in the U.S., I often rather talk to the cat in the lap of the person answering the phone. 

Let's hope you talked to the right person.... I spoke to two before our September cruise and told the same thing. Spoke to a third and she said still $12. And that's what it was on the ship.

But yes, as it stands, it's a "incentive" that at $12 is no longer a value... I'd rather pay the lower UK market fares and buy my own package that actually covers the cost of a drink. The crew are fed up with it too but take out their frustration by "gaming" the system in your favour.  But who wants the hastle and incertainty.

And yes.. if you manage get this writing... do share!

I do also realise that it was quite possible to take a cruise without one of those, too...  it was called a key. 

Easier still is settling in a proper wood steamer chair with a good book and view over the rail of the vistas of ocean, spray and a boundless horizon.  

How or why one needs "IT" or any of these silly nonsenses to savour the delights of an ocean voyage is quite alien to me.  Let alone to open one's cabin door. 

Oh I don't know, it seems quite in fitting with the rest of QUEEN ANNE inside and out from everything I've seen and read of it.

I first "met" Jonathan when he was a youngster of only 151 years of age, back in 1983 aboard RMS CENTAUR, on the front lawn of Plantation House.  

St. Helena is wonderful and I've been privileged to visit there, gosh, it must be five times. Not sure what, if any effect, having an airport will have on its unique charm. And it wouldn't be the same not visiting there on "The RMS."

Maybe Cunard would be wiser to offer an "device detox" cruise experience.... sounds like its needed for some.

Surely it is possible to actually travel in a ship for a few weeks without interacting with a piece of plastic let alone aspiring that one cannot get into one's cabin without it, be given an actual menu card and a printed daily programme without it.  

Enough!

Two months?  My Cunard schedule shows QM2 transiting the Suez Canal in mid April. That's four plus months distant. That is a lifetime in world events and especially that region.

We are Pol Acker recyclers.... we tried it once. Never again. And always leave in its natural habitat: the fridge.  The last oh three-four trips it seems to have been denied us in PG and replaced by numerous replacements, most of which are vaguely drinkable. 

In 50 years, I expect a bottle will appear in the Cunard "Heritage Trail" on QM3. Maybe one of our bottles passed on to a future generation.

Well one might point out that one Roger Moore was a model in the late 1940s-early 50s and, as shown here, used for photographs of the brand new CARONIA's public rooms in what was "smart casual" for those days... and still should be, too.....

Nor should you be... there is absolutely nothing untoward or noncomforming about wear a dark suit... blue, grey... instead of dinner dress on a Cunarder.  Never has been. 

Actually ARCADIA is QV without the provision of the Grills decks/PG accommodation block amidships that was designed for her from the onset. I think it was just a matter of market demand to complete a Vista for P&O before one for Cunard.  Any Vista for Cunard was going to have grill accommodation and facilities. 

If you've been on one, you can make your way around all of these Vistas, regardless of their name, line or "heritage" without missing a beat.  I personally this it the best overall cruise ship design in the last 25 years in terms of overall use of space, layout and ease of getting around.  NIEUW AMSTERDAM/EURODAM were favourites before HAL went headlong into mediocrity. We were right next to COSTA DELIZIOSA (good grief, these names!) at Santorini aboard QUEEN VICTORIA and it was like looking at a mirror image. 

I do relish these dress code discussions.... it makes one think Cunard passengers are watching their mothers sew in or stencil their names on their cricket kit and remembering to put in two extra collars before packing off them off to the station to some severe boarding school. 

It was true in 1910 as it is now: every gentleman over the age of 14 need only a smart navy blue suit, a crisp white shirt and presentable pair of shoes for any worthwhile endeavour after 6:00 p.m.  Today, alas, the tie seems subject to bizarre angst driven confusion.  But the rest, at least for gentlemen.... how difficult can it be, really?

The QM2 Promenade Deck is one of the treasures of the ship, indeed among present day passenger ships. Not just the dimensions, the shade, the traditional pleasures of proper steamer chairs and an open railing to the sea, but the superb real teak wood decks. That smell alone is worth the price of a ticket. And it must  confound those designing new Cunarders just how popular this deck and those on QVQE even with their plastic decks are... people actually enjoy these traditional, enduring ocean liner features.  And will continue to put their money where their preferences lie. No wonder they ensured QA is the only Southampton based ship.... I suspect run head to head against QV, the latter would attract more bookings.  

I even remember back when grill passengers would always be invited to visit the grill galley even cruise or crossing on a special tour... when it really was impressively small and separate. You got to meet the grill chef and even some of the staff and see the menus, recipes etc.  They have not done that for years now and one surmises the reason.  

Hopefully nothing less than it was aboard RMS FRANCONIA in 1911

Comply with the dress code? Like inflatable plastic machine guns and plastic derbys?  

You could and people did wear precisely what was suggested (dark jacket and trousers) in First Class on FRANCE and RAFFAELLO which, I might suggest, threw QM2 into a cocked hat on every level. It was not common but it was certainly accepted.

What a strange sartorial world Cunard is now: one night it's dinner jackets and silly dress up "themes" and the rest of the evenings, it's dress like the 19th hole.  I'd much rather they go back to the c. 1974 code where there was no code at all except jacket and tie at dinner. Every night.  

Navy blue jacket, grey dress trousers, tie and dress shoes... I cannot imagine anyone would object to that. 

Do also appreciate that if you have black dress shoes and bring a bow tie, you can also hire a complete dinner suit on Cunard (I think it's about $80 a night) except for those items.  United mislaid my luggage last May and I had no clothes save what I flew in (jacket and tie, of course!) and Cunard provided me with dinner clothes... they have a pretty decent range of sizes, too. 

This regular Grills passenger would much rather have the lower fares charged for the UK market and buy a drinks package that actually works for most drinks.  With the considerable increase in the per drink prices across the board, $12 doesn't get you much at all.  It used to be real benefit. No longer. 

Except that QUEEN ANNE has the same machinery and technology as KONINGSDAM which entered service in... 2015 or just five years after QUEEN ELIZABETH.  So QA is a nine-year old design.  Her staffing requirements "behind the scenes" would be little different from the Pinnacle-class ships. That's the whole point of these standardised designs.  

If it makes people feel better, QA's crew numbers  of 1,225 is an improvement on HAL's Pinnacles' 1,036 but I suspect that reflects that she has Britannia Club, Princess Grill and Queens Grill additional staffing needs. 

Existing crew on QV told us they had no choice in terms of ships they were assigned to... and several said they much preferred to stay on QV precisely owing to the anticipated workloads on a ship that simply carries far more passengers and fewer crew.