ShipboardSteve

If you call customer services they can easily fix any of the settings as they have direct access to changing them on the server. It is possible that if you book through a travel agent you may not have a Cunard account of your own of course.

That's what happened to me at the time a few years ago too - when I talked to the Cunard customer service staff they said that the part of the settings related to questionnaires had 'accidentally' been switched off, and they changed it at their end - but they referred to it as part of the marketing email settings. That's all I know, but it would certainly be worth talking to them to ask that same question. That phone call made the difference for me, so presume the same would apply if talking to them and being specific too.

The marketing settings are not in any World Club login but in your main Cunard account login. (paper forms still take lots of staff time to put into an optical reader and be processes - online web based questionnaires require no staff input and the computer handles it all automatically, so that is a cost saving)

A few years ago there was a switch that was made to the 'marketing email' settings in MyCunard to turn off the marketing emails - and at the time when I didn't get the usual feedback questionnaire email after a voyage, I phoned Cunard and they said if I want to switch back to full marketing email they can simply put the setting back, and they did it and it has been fine ever since. I believe you should be able to do that by logging in as well. The paper feedback forms on board were terminated several years ago, and nobody will get that now or in the future. But simply get your marketing email setting switched back on and all the post-booking and post-voyage emails with the link to the questionnaires should arrive from that point on. O course the analysis of the online feedback is handled by computer systems and produces the summary results data, so that saves staff time compared to manual processing.

Of course there has always been some level of happiness coinciding with some level of discontent but this seems to be much more so than in the past. Also there are commentaries on unhappiness and displeasure among the crew too, and that is worrying. A happy ship depends on crew giving their best, and the majority of passengers happy with the service and entertainment as well as the overall atmosphere on a voyage. This seems to be an increasing problem at the moment. Also it is pretty obvious that Cunard are sending out more special offers and inducements for people to book certain sets of voyages - that would not be necessary if booking levels were already at a level the company felt was meeting their expectations. There must be quite a bit of naval gazing in private meetings of senior staff within Cunard at the moment - and they must surely have some management plans to make things improve if they want to be financially buoyant over the next few years.

However long this thread continues, the long and the short of it is that it will be what passengers do, or don't do, that will govern the future atmosphere on board Cunard cruises. Each passenger will in the end decide whether they wish to pay for a cruise where the current traditions suit them, or if people don't like it then they can, and will, decide to go on different holidays than a Cunard cruise. Scanning the various forums and groups on various social media would indicate that people are already changing which cruise lines they are going on. Some of course are trying out Cunard for the first time, and others who are long standing Cunard cruisers have tried cruises on other lines, and others are asking questions on other forums, having booked voyages with different lines in the coming months. It would certainly seem that Cunard have pretty well made a pigs ear of the transition to the new ship, with a huge number of complaints about dining services in particular, and not just on Queen Anne - with more complaints than in the past about service on board QM2 for example. The entertainment on board all the ships seems to have generated a range of posts with some glorifying wonderful experiences, and others condemning it as terrible. The whole issue of dress code looks like it will continue to generate animosity into the future too.

...and a light-hearted comment for any tennis Cunarders - "love all" is more comfortable than "break point" (move to the next post if you don't watch or play tennis).

Really? I didn't think squabbling could be any more intense than here!

Having dipped into the great many posts on this forum over time I have a few observations about the opinions expressed. One thing strikes me in a big way in that when I think of the posts here, and especially on a long running thread like this, is that there are a lot of posts by a 'relatively' small number of people, and quite often the same set of people will post many times every day. But even if the number of people expressing opinions here is several dozen, I also think about the number of people overall going on a cruise - and if you take say 2000 people on a voyage of typically two weeks, and then say that one ship will do about 25 voyages in a year, then that would be 50,000 people on that one Cunard ship in a year. Given that many will do one or two voyages per year, but there are now four ships, then that might be around 100,000 different people taking a Cunard cruise in one year. So out of that 100,000 people, it might be 50 people who regularly post on this forum and express often strongly held views about the ship, the service, the food, the entertainment and the itineraries. It would be easy to feel that the general opinion, or split of opinions is representative of what we see in the posts in this forum, but in reality it is the 99% of passengers who form a personal, and not publicly expressed, view of what they want from their holiday, and what they are prepared to accept in terms of the environment, service and interaction with others on a cruise, and the overwhelming majority experience their voyage, come to a view of whether they enjoyed it, or continue to enjoy it if they have done many before, and whether they are prepared to book future voyages with the same ship or the same line. That same majority is mostly a silent majority, who want to enjoy themselves on their holiday, and don't post repeatedly their opinions or pictures of their personal experiences. It is also that same silent majority who Cunard will take most consideration of, since they wish to please that sillent majority enough to continue to book their cruises with Cunard, and not choose to change to other cruise lines or abandon cruises as their preferred type of holiday and move to alternatives. There will of course also be people who have not experienced a cruise before and who will look at what is posted here to come to a view as to whether a cruise may be for them - after all it is not a low cost holiday even if some other alternatives may cost even more. Seeing the argumentative squabbling in these threads may quite possibly put some off from even starting the process of booking a cruise, or may look at forums for the other lines, as well as the many private discussion groups on other well known social media, to form their initial opinion. Either way for some seeing the divided opinions expressed here might be pretty off-putting and might also find the kind of discussion is not one they wish to be part of. Just an option of course!

Or possibly at the dinner table, "Are 'we' ready to order?" With the reply, "No, but 'I' am"!

I am certain that Cunard will be looking at their booking data, since they have all the dates of birth of every passenger on every one of the four ships and will be scouring the histograms to see if their passengers are following what they hoped would be the changed demographic on the new ship. They will no doubt manage the activities on the new ship in the same way, or differently as the new data comes in over the coming months. They of course have the full demographic data for all the bookings for the next couple of years and not just the voyages already completed - but they will keep that data close to their commercial secrecy chests!

It is possibly the case that over the coming months of this year that Cunard may well 'optimise' their management of QA, taking into account the feedback received directly to officers and staff on board, as well as emails and the post-voyage feedback questionnaire, as well as the reviews on FEEFO. Clearly there were major problems with the disembarkation process as well as the service efficiency in the dining rooms on the early voyages. Presumably at least those problems they will surely have given high priority to fixing as rapidly as possible, as they are basic services that would be expected to work properly whatever the cruise line and whatever the range of passengers on board. As for entertainment and the kind of passengers on upcoming voyages, the latter are self selecting - people will decide for themselves whether the atmosphere on board is one they wish to be part of after draining their bank account of a not insignificant sum of money when paying for the cruise. Some will book, pay and enjoy qa, and other will book, pay and not think that they like what they have paid for - and then book elsewhere on other Cunard ships or switch to other cruise lines. There is some evidence that people have been switching between lines in the past few years, and not just from Cunard. So it will be interesting to see if the life on board changes over the rest of this year, or not.

Cunard explains the pre-authorisation on its page at https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/cunard-stories/disembarkation-day where it says "Please note that, to ensure funds are available on your credit/debit cards, pre-authorisation holds are placed on your account throughout your voyage. This ensures peace of mind for you that these funds have been reserved to cover all of your on board expenses. No funds will be debited from your credit/debit card until the final payment is processed. Pre-authorisation holds will vary by your bank provider but should be released within 14 business days." This implies a single payment to pay for the expenditure - but doesn't say a daily charge! Perhaps it would be better if they said openly that they would take payment at the end of each day on board?

One would imagine that there are basics for any cruise that must be done well - and for any cruise passenger irrespective of their age, it would be a basic essential of a holiday to expect reasonably decent food served in a reasonable time for all meals including dinner. All passengers would reasonably expect to be able to get up and down the decks, so serviceability of lifts is also a basic necessity for a ship with many deck levels, as well as efficient delivery of luggage and an acceptable time to embark and disembark the ship. These are all basic essentials that all demographics would expect from a cruise holiday. What the entertainment provides then comes next in what anyone will choose as a holiday destination. One would think that Cunard would make a huge effort to get the basics right if they want to compete with other cruise lines.

At the end of the day what would lead to change in management direction is whether bookings continue to fill the available cabins, or not. Feedback questionnaires may lead to small changes if they are read - but the primary drive is bookings and revenue streams.