exlondoner

What a wonderful dolphin. Is the lighthouse Dubh Artac?

I love Cunard, but I’m not sure they have really got over the replacement of dipping pens with fountain pens. Luckily, they are good at many other things. 🙂🙂

And, if they are offering a full ship’s tour, which lasts 3-4 hours, it is $100 or more, and is worth every penny. So include that. 🙂

Yes, you have to consider the view, the fact you are at sea, are served at your table, the live musical accompaniment (at times), and the free canapés (if you are lucky).

Well, we are going on her second voyage, so I shall expect everything to be smart and gleaming, but shall also expect a degree of organisational chaos while everyone sorts out where everything is and what they are supposed to be doing. I think the impressions of the interior I have seen so far seem rather nice.

Exactly how I feel. Sailing from Southampton is so trouble free, except we have to pay. I just hope I like QA.

Same here. She’s my favourite. Actually, sailings from Barcelona would be possible, using the train, with a stopover in Nîmes. But rather a hassle.

This is very interesting. So many of the things you mention are things I more or less take for granted, never having travelled on another cruise line: the dining room coffee, the standard of service, the lectures, the twice daily room service, the free shuttles, etc. Sometimes we don’t appreciate how lucky we are. I am aware that the feeling of spaciousness and calm is not universal on other lines, and it is probably the thing I value most.

And more Cunardy.

It’s a permanent covered market where everyone shops for food. I’m not sure what you can import post Brexit, though.

I think it looks rather nice. What was there before?

Given that even the goddess Athena can’t be in two places at once, how could one possibly know?

There was a shuttle to the city centre when we were in Le Havre a few years ago. The market it splendid.

Rags and barefooted children? (Probably not on Cunard.)

They seem to be doing so.

Interesting. Glad it was nice. I wonder when it was changed.

I notice you went to Cobh instead of Holyhead, presumably because Holyhead was such a shambles on our version of this cruise earlier in the summer. Was this notified in advance?

There won’t be snobbish passengers. I think the food, admittedly in QG, is at worst very nice, sometimes excellent, though some of the menu combinations are a little strange.

I doubt there will be a problem. Before or after? i.e. bribe or thanks? Remember Cunard is not in America.

Are you worried about overtly informal dress or finickety and snobbish fellow passengers? I don’t think you need to worry about either, but I would be curious to know.

Here is a fact. On the first night of our last cruise, on which there were many younger and first time cruisers, my husband and I looked round the QG, when it was almost full, to count the men not wearing jackets (which is perfectly allowable), and I think we counted three. Whether this says more about their standards of dress or the temperature of the air conditioning I’m not sure. And of course on a different night or ship or in a different restaurant, the result could have been completely different.

There are things that are simply facts, such as being as to go and change to appropriate dress before returning to the Commodore Club. But lots of other things are impressions. If it annoys you, you may well notice a few people in frayed denim shorts at dinner in the restaurant (why would you do that, but never mind) and think the dress code is crumbling, even if 90% of people are impeccably conforming. I, on the other hand, would probably not notice a few improperly dressed people, unless they were very close to me, or drawing attention to themselves in some other way, among the gorgeous array of glamorous black and white garb on a gala night.

And, just once in a while, or a little more often, there is a major problem on the M3, not least on the (not very) smart section.

Yes.

Sometimes at lunch on port days, when there are very few passengers aboard, your waiter may be having some well deserved time off.