justfoxie

Where do you find out information about which days on any given voyage are formal? Not that it matters a huge deal I suppose, but I gather that on a 7 day cruise there are 2?

Oh DH was very glad to hear that it's real coffee that's served! The look on his face when he got a taste of the princess syrup stuff last summer was highly comical :).

I guess I should clarify on the coffee quality question - is the coffee that's included, real brewed coffee or is it some kind of instant?

Thanks for the insight all! We're not really bottled water drinkers (don't see much of the point), so no fuss for us there, though I appreciate it seems to be really important to many.

Any comments on the quality of the coffee that comes included? If DH wanted say a double espresso at dinner, I would presume that comes with an additional charge? Can that be served in the dining room or would he need to discretely pop out to Sir Samuels to get it? Do they have a "coffee card" that he could purchase at the beginning of the cruise for this or should we just factor those individually into our budget?

Another question from moi, this one prompted by DH. We were both wondering if coffee and tea were included in our cabin price? Or is "plain" tea and brewed coffee included but you pay extra for nicer or special versions?

I guess we're mostly thinking about our princess cruise last summer where basic (twinings) tea and coffee o(pretty horrible, by DH's standrads) were included, but we could purchase a "coffee card" which was for a special brand of tea and espresso based drinks. Does Cunard do something similar?

Thanks again for all your insight!

What a fantastic post! Thank you very much!!

One very small question for you (we're sailing on 15 June), you mention that Emerald is in a new port this year compared to years past, which seems to indicate that she will NOT be in the cargo port. Is this right? Is she docking instead on the far side of Vasilistrovsky Island? *fingers crossed*