jollyjones

43 minutes ago, Mudhen said:

Unfortunately for the most part, the only ships going out of Manhattan are the monster mega ships or what I would call the party ships. Occasionally in the fall there will be a few “upscale “ boats that go out, but the pickings are slim!

 Silversea is my usual cruise line and I will be out of and in to Manhattan in August. The Silver Shadow is sailing a season of cruises up to Quebec City and back.

I've been through the Manhattan terminal a number of times and have never had such a problem as at Red Hook.

I don't do big ships - the QM2 was much too big for me - that was probably the source of all my dissatisfaction with her.

But no worries, I'll not be sailing Cunard again.

17 hours ago, Annie1972-ret said:

 

Jollyjones - if you read this thank-you for your guidance a year ago!  It helped me! 

Stacy

Hi Stacy,

I am reading this but I've gotta confess I don't recall what I did, but no matter, I'm glad you're coming back to SS.

I don't think you need to worry about being on the Whisper - although I generally cruise the Muse class now, or even the Nova, I am on the Shadow for 24 days in August and am very much looking forward to it. I have cruised both the Whisper and Shadow plenty in the past.

I've just done a QM2 transatlantic and didn't particularly enjoy it, SS is so much better than Cunard I doubt your Aunt and Uncle will be disappointed.

Port to Port is strictly cruise only, no hotels or transfers.

Not sure why you are so bothered about getting SS hotels and transfers?

I am a solo female cruiser, no longer young, and always do cruise only (which my TA deals with) and do all my flights, hotels, and transfers myself. 

You can get your TA to do it all for you and it'll be perfectly easy.

SS hotels are IMO absurdly overpriced, you can get much better deals at quality hotels yourself. And you, or your hotel, should be able to get a taxi to the port.

Obviously, there might be some caveats depending on what ports you are dealing with.

15 hours ago, Covepointcruiser said:

We will definitely sit on the ship until we are forced off.   No need to join the crowds.

That's all very well if you don't have to get to some sort of transport 'at the other side' - ie past CBP.

Having heard about possible taxi queues or shortages, and not wishing to be stuck in the back end of Brooklyn, I had booked the Cunard bus transfer to Manhattan so I was forced to go with the time on my tour ticket. And stand for an hour in the CBP queue. Fuming.

It's the lack of up to date tech in the Brooklyn terminal that is the problem. When I finally got to the head of the queue, it was just a quick photo, a glance at what his screen showed, and I was through - ten seconds. I have GE with my UK passport.

If there were GE kiosks, the line for those without GE would be much, much shorter. 

Ah well, to protect myself from this, I will in future only cruise into NYC on ships that use the Manhattan piers - then I can sit and wait and avoid the crowds as I always stay overnight in Manhattan and walk to my hotel.

19 hours ago, spinnaker2 said:

JJ:

How about a crossing on the Ray?

I have other cruises booked that I'd prefer to do which clash with the crossings this year and next.

I thought about March '26 but went with the Spirit as it is the more southerly route which I hugely prefer even tho' I hate Barbados.

So, sadly, no.

And, even tho' I was getting used to the Nova after 23 days on board, the Muse class (incl. the Spirit) remains my favourite.

Oh, I would so much have preferred to be on the Ray with all the lightness and open space - just to rub salt into the wound here is a shot I took of her in Lisbon as I stood on the Azamara Onward ...

17 hours ago, DavyWavey70 said:

May I ask what you didn't like about Azamara please Jolly? I'm on the Quest in January so curious to hear about your experience. 

Actually there's quite a lot to like about Azamara, it's the ships that let them down. I was on the Onward, there may be some differences on the Quest but it's still an R ship.

I had sailed an R ship before (in my pre-SS days) - the Oceania Regatta, so I thought I knew what to expect and would be more or less OK with it.

But Az are in love with brown decor - dark, dingy, depressing brown.

(See pic below of my brown cabin)

I found the cabin to be annoyingly small, and the microscopic bathroom which was incomprehensibly coloured dark khaki, drove me nuts. The safe was tiny, the drawers stuck and I had to fight to open them, the little table either obstructed the balcony door or the sofa - I had to keep moving it, the lighting was a dull orange except the bedside lights which were very bright white, and on and on. 

They have upgraded the Continent Suites - they looked much nicer when glimpsed through an open door - but at at least four times the price (as a solo) and under the pool deck with the possible noise issues, I'm glad I didn't book one.

The public areas on decks 4 and 5 did have some windows but they were mostly heavily curtained and I found them a bit claustrophobic - I like to see the sea when I'm cruising.

The upper decks 9 and 10 were where I spent my time - the Observation lounge (they call it the Living Room) was very pleasant and had a good selection of books in their 'library'. I enjoyed Aqualina and Prime C.

The food was OK too good and the included wines were OK for me (but I pay very little attention to them). The crew were excellent. The cabin bed was very comfortable.

I can't tell you about the rest of the stuff - spa, gym, excursions, whatever, as I didn't partake. 

One odd thing - Az have taken the 'no announcements' thing to an extreme - I found the daily paper "Insider" not to be very helpful, the TV isn't much help and there isn't any sort of onboard app, so I often felt I didn't know what was happening.

It's absolutely ridiculous that one's disembarkation should be awful, moderately awful, or grateful that it wasn't as awful as expected.

It shouldn't be like this.

I cruised on the Nova in April and had some reservations although they diminished as I became accustomed to how the novel layout worked. But I was still a bit unsure about the Nova or Ray. 
 

I am currently on my way home after, for fairly silly reasons, cruising on the Azamara Onward followed by Southampton to NYC on the QM2. 

All I can say is I am never complaining about Silversea ever again. 
 

4 hours ago, exlondoner said:

I assume disembarkation was not too traumatic in the end?

Depends on your point of view. 
I wasn’t in any rush as I was overnighting in NYC, but I found having to leave my cabin and sit in public areas for three hours, followed by standing in a queue for CBP for an hour, followed by an absolute transport shambles outside the shed with nobody adequately directing pax to the correct bus/taxi/whatever queue, followed by an hour and quite a lot bus transfer to Grand Central, to be a less than stellar end to the crossing. 
In fact, since both embarkation and disembarkation were the worst I can ever remember after cruising many times and on many lines, I am entirely sure I will not be bothering Cunard with my business ever again. 
 

Other pax experiences may have been different. 
 

9 hours ago, commodoredave said:

Right next to the bed.

Thank you!

Hi,

A quick question for anyone on board the Shadow now or has been recently - are there power outlets by the bed? If not, how far away is the nearest one?

Thanks. 

I have the MarineTraffic app and the first thing I do on embarkation morning is to look to see where my ship is actually docked. 
 

I find the app is very useful during the cruise too, often in ports there are several possible piers, it’s helpful to see which one we’re actually at and how far from town or wherever we are. 

They always say 2pm but it is mostly not true.

Last time I boarded at Copenhagen I'm not sure but I think I was at Langeline about 1pm and boarding was well underway.

If you are making your own way to the pier, make sure you go to the correct one, there are three and they are spread well apart.

I have checked and the Dawn is due to dock at Langeline (C197) which was, last year anyway, sort of under construction so it all happens in a tent but it works OK.

Turn up when it's convenient for you any time after noon and you should be fine - maybe a short wait but probably not.

The only caveat is that if it's raining there isn't any cover while waiting so maybe then turn up a bit later.

Interesting! Thanks for posting and I'm sorry your cruise was a bit mucked up by good old British weather.

I booked this cruise but cancelled when I did a bit more research and worked out how many tender ports there would likely be - I so hate tendering that I will not go ashore at tender ports unless I have a very, very good reason to do so.

And I find it one of the great weaknesses of SS that they will not give any warning of how many ports will be at tender - pretty much every other cruise line I have looked at does - you can only find out after embarkation.

I had a cruise last summer on the Moon that was ruined for me because eight out of the ten ports were at tender. I looked back at my previous SS cruises and reckoned that two or three tender ports was usual, cruises that had four tenders were longer than 21 days, and I had never had a cruise with 5 tender ports or more. I have 550 SS days so I have plenty of past experience to draw on.

So you can imagine I was surprised, to put it mildly, by eight out of ten ports at tender.

And I have now resolved to only cruise SS itineraries with which I am familiar, or at the very least do a lot of research before booking a cruise.

3 hours ago, Syd58 said:

An issue with Crystal is their ships are old and cabins small.  

So true - I sailed once on OC on the Symphony, never again.

And I know about the NC bigger cabins but the price is ridiculous for a solo. And I know about the solo cabins but having a verandah is non-negotiable. Sailing midship is also important - I am not interested in being forced up to the pointy end with only a window or paying a huge solo supplement. 

Not interested if 'everything else' is better than SS if I hate my cabin.

The solo supplements on SS beat NC hands down.

Well, happy to give praise when praise is due.

I've sailed on a number of ships since Starlink was installed and while it's been better than before, nothing comes close to this - I am currently getting between 25 and 60 Mbps down! Admittedly only one and a bit up, but it's working very well.

I am a little concerned about my cabin fridge - it's cycling on and off very frequently, like 30 secs on, 5 secs off, repeat and repeat. Is this normal? It's clearly audible and disturbs me as I keep thinking the door must be open, but it's not.

It's the sort of fridge where it's door is attached to the cupboard door - I've looked to see if I can detach it as I suspect the fridge door is being held slightly open by the cupboard door but no luck.

I'm not sure asking my steward will help - he seems keen but after failing on the foam pillow issue when you tell me they should be available, I don't know if he is the type of steward who is always smiling and helpful but doesn't actually achieve much. I had been out of my cabin for a long while yesterday evening but when I returned after dinner, he hadn't serviced it.

Time will tell ...

4 minutes ago, Jack E Dawson said:

 

Jolly,

I dislike those coat hangers as well but they were very common in hotels in the States about 20 years ago, about the time QM2 was built. Your cabin steward will be happy to provide you with nice heavy duty chrome wire coat hangers with the standard hook. We just got off the QM2 one week ago and had no problem getting 20 of them. 

Jack

Again, thanks to you and everyone for being so helpful and I will certainly pursue the option of regular coat hangers. 
Hopefully my steward won’t say they’re not available either. 
 

3 minutes ago, amias said:

We disembarked a week ago and found both types of pillows on the bed - memory foam and a soft, fluffy one. Perhaps you might ask your room steward for ones that suit your needs. When we first began sailing QM2 we took a nightlight then realised that the bathroom light has two settings.  Bright for while showering, make up etc., and a low light for during the night.  The controls are to the outside of the bathroom door. We tend to pack handing clothes on lightweight, velvet covered hangers so that we can just push those interlocking hangers to one side and not have to bother using them at all.  (Too late for you, I realise). Hopefully you will enjoy the rest of your time on QM2.

Interesting. The first thing I asked my steward for was the pillows, he went to see and came back and told me they were not available. 
Also I have poked and prodded the bathroom light switch and nothing changes, it’s just on bright or off. Dunno what I’m missing. 
And having to bring your own coat hangers on board? I can see that it’s necessary but really?

But thanks for posting, I appreciate the info. 
 

34 minutes ago, MylesS said:

Sorry for seeming rude, but most of this stuff you could have found out way before hand? Too many cabin tours to count for Queen Mary 2.

 

Sorry for the bad embarkation though, I’m sure that’s due to her not usually using QE2 terminal.

You are correct and I tried to watch some but found them too much chatter and not enough detail. 
And nobody mentioned the utterly bizarre coat hangers, how could anyone have thought they’d be a good idea?
 

1 hour ago, D&N said:

There is. I think it's at right hand side of lamp over mirror. It is a shaver socket. Not a charging socket or nightlight socket. If you were using a powered rather than rechargeable shaver you would plug it in and need the light on to see what you were doing. When QM2 was specified pre 2004 that would have fitted with what was required of electric shavers.

Thank you for posting this - you are correct but unfortunately my nightlight although small and LED so very low current drain, won’t plug in because the outlet is too close to the mirror, the nightlight isn’t quite small enough. 

Lucky you Joe3.

My embarkation was an absolute nightmare, standing for hours (literally) shuffling slowly forward in stuffy and airless conditions - a long queue to get in the queue, which was also very long, then finally another very long queue through security. 
Didn’t get on board till well after 4pm. 
Then very disturbed to find:

No power points or usb outlets by the bed - big fail. 
No shaver socket in bathroom in which to plug my nightlight - second big fail. 
What twisted mind dreamt up those bizarre coat hangers? They are going to drive me berserk every time I need something out of the closet. 
A fixed hair dryer in the drawer that would be most useful to use? Yet another huge fail. 
No choice of pillow. I am accustomed to having memory foam pillows available but apparently not so on this ship. So six nights of rotten sleep coming up. Wonderful. 
 

I hope the rest of you enjoy your cruise but I can already tell I’m one and done for Cunard. 
 

Also, altho' you may not be interested, SS carries Seedlip non-alcoholic gin which IMO makes a perfectly acceptable G&T if you don't want to drink alcohol.

I too am boarding this afternoon but as a Cunard newbie, I have a boarding time of 3.45pm - ugh! 

So no lunch on board for me, shame, that's what I would usually expect to have.

Also, we're at QEII terminal - QA has the Mayflower - so I've had to book a taxi (hope it turns up on time) - I was planning to walk to the Mayflower but QEII is a bit too far even though I am, as always, travelling with hand luggage only.

Sorry OP for butting in, I hope you have a great embarkation day today and a great cruise!

I usually stay in Long Beach for San Pedro embarkations, there's a much better selection of hotels and it's a less awful neighbourhood than San Pedro.

Taxi over for embarkation should be easy, and you are near enough to the port for comfort without having to worry about some snarl up on the route from LAX, which can definitely happen.