Camgirl

We have just received a notification if our cabin number from our travel agent. However, it has not been updated on my cunard, so we still can't get our labels printed. Hopefully, it will appear soon. We sail on Sunday, so that is 3 days to go. Have never had to wait this late before. But, at least it is before we travel down to Southampton.

We are on QV next Sunday and still don't have a cabin allocated. It is a bit frustrating as we can't print our tickets or labels until it is allocated. Or even check that the bed will be a double not singles. We haven't had that message in an email though.

One week and a day until our long awaited Med cruise on QV and we still don't have a cabin allocated. I don't think we have had it left this late before. It wouldn't be a problem, except we can't view or change the bed layout yet, or access or print the tickets and luggage labels at all. I hope we hear soon. Host Hattie, my son is currently on QV. He tells me that the Golden Lion was serving food on embarkation. I remember you, like us, often make this your first port of call.

I think I might be on the same cruise in Dec. I have reason to believe that testing for those who are fully vaccinated might be dropped completely soon. I think this because I had an email from Princess cruises today saying that they were moving to no testing from 6th Sept. Also, I noticed that Cunard's rules for my upcoming cruise on 4th sept has the following message - Guests on cruises after 5 September 2022, whose testing requirements differ from the below policy will be contacted directly for their upcoming voyage. I'm guessing cunard might be going the same way as Princess (which is also a Carnival brand).

I'm a bit late to this discussion, having been away. We are reasonably experienced ballroom dancers (around 10 years of lessons). However, I am very self conscious, and find it enormously intimidating to find a set of very experienced dancers on the floor every night, and no one else brave enough to try. This happened to us on our Norway trip in March on QE. Several other couples made the same comment to us. That they felt intimidated as the floor was dominated by the experienced dancers, who also all chatted together, and never with the less experienced dancers. We were very sad never to get on the dance floor as we had been looking forwards to it. I realise we could have just gone on, but I would fear sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the far better dancers, and I just don't have the courage. I do feel that one thing that made a huge difference pre covid, was the presence of dance hosts. The hosts would always encourage the less experienced on to the dance floor. This then encouraged the couples like us, to also dance. The return of dance hosts (they gave returned to some lines, apparently) would make a huge difference to bringing the dancers back on to the floor again. We are on QV shortly, I really hope we get to dance this time.

As Host Hattie said, I'm just off our first Princess cruise. We were in a mini suite, but I don't know about any of the other grades. We were on a four night cruise, which, I know, often gives a different vibe to a longer cruise. We have completed 23 Cunard cruises, with the last being in March 2022. These have all been in Britannia cabins, which are a little smaller than the mini suite we had. We have never had a problem in the main dining room on Cunard. It is a little slower on the first night as each person is shown to their table, but no queue otherwise. We had to queue at length for every single meal on Princess. The food is better on Cunard, so is the standard of the musicians around the ship. We never went to a show, so I cant compare. The evenings on Cunard are much quieter. There is still the same old issue with people saving sunbeds and then disappearing. However, there a few children, so the pools tend to be much quieter.

Well, I'm back from my short cruise with Princess. We had a good time, but it was quite a culture shock after only Cunard cruises!! The boat was overcrowded and understaffed, with queues everywhere. Now we have just 18 days until our, many times postponed, 19 nights on QV to the Med. Very much looking forwards to that.

My son and his wife had their honeymoon on a Cunard cruise in 2019. They loved it so much, they are about to join QV for our daughter in law's 30th birthday in just over a weeks time. We were also on the Northern lights cruise with Rakkor and BouncingWheel. You should have a lovely time. However, it was really, really cold outside. Go prepared with decent coats, gloves and hats. We managed to see the lights, to varying degrees, four times during our cruise. I hope you see them too. Enjoy!

It is rare to get a picture with them both in but I happened to catch them both staring out of the window I had just opened this morning. Here is Jazz helping with the washing, and Biscuit in his favourite box, which has split open as it is too small for him!! They are 5 year old brothers.

Jazz and Biscuit say happy international cat day to all their feline friends too.

Hi, we are also on enchanted this Friday. We rang Princess in the end and they (eventually) repeated what it says in the faq - that you do not need a negative test certicate to board. You just need to atest that you have done a negative test within 3 days of boarding. Have just cancelled our tests booked for this evening.

Sadly not. We are on for the cruise before you. 10th to 15th Dec, Christmas markets. My sister and her OH are joining us for their first cunard cruise.

We are off on QV in just under four weeks. I cant wait to be back onboard my favourite ship again. We are also booked on QM2 in December. I love all of the Cunard ships. QV might be my favourite, but it is a close run thing. QM2 would come second. I wouldn't worry about the bad reviews, make your own mind up. I'm sure you will love QM2, Techteach. I often wonder if people could possibly have been on the same ship as us when I read some reviews! I have an admission to make - we are off on a 4 night Princess cruise next week 🤫All I can say in my defence is it was a very good deal! I have no doubt whatsoever that Cunard will very definitely still be our favourite line😅However, it will be interesting to try another line for once. Really glad this thread is remaining. It made so much difference to me during the lockdowns and I continue to thoroughly enjoy reading about other peoples experiences around the world. Long may it last. Thank you Host Hattie.

Here, here.

Its still very hot in Cambridge. Over 30° again today. It was 40° here yesterday. However, the breeze, which was like standing by a hot air blower yesterday, is a lot cooler now. My poor cats have really struggled. I found one lying in the bath yesterday. I thought that was quite a clever place to go!

Here, here! The photos really cheered me up during difficult times. Thanks so much for posting them all.

I cant remember if I mentioned before my March cruise - I don't think so. I treated myself to a new pair of sparkly dancing shoes before we went. When I started to get everything together for packing, I discovered I had treated myself to a pair of exactly the same shoes two years earlier for a covid cancelled cruise!!! Now I have two identical pairs! Another shoe related memory is of the time we returned to our cabin after a whole night dancing in the Queens room to discover I had one black shoe on and one navy (the shoes were identical apart from the colour)!! I was mortified!

Here, here. We have used them as well (once with Mr and Mrs Bigmac!). Really excellent tours that get right up close to where you want to go. And reasonably priced, especially if you can team up with another couple. Definitely recommended.

I think you probably need to test with several different drinks. Just to be sure🤣 Tragically, one of the smells I am no longer able to detect is when our cats use their litter tray!! My husband thinks this is very convenient for me 😅 I'm not desperate for that ability to return!

We have travelled on all three ships, and will (hopefully) do so this again year. I love all three and would be very happy to be oboard any of them. However, if I had to choose my favourite, it would be QV first by some way, then QM2 closely followed by QE.

Tonopah, I hope you are feeling back to full health soon. My sense of smell and taste are still compromised some 9 months later! I have done the smell training and much of it has returned, but there are some things I just can't smell any more. It is very bizarre what this virus can do to you.

We applied for our passports online at the beginning of the year. My husbands came back in a week, mine a couple of days later!

We had a fabulous day in London. We managed to see the fly past. Then, as we were heading for Hyde Park from Green Park, the traffic was all stopped next to us and all the gun carriages pulled by teams of horses came past us after the gun salute! Then on to the Dorchester for a superb Jubilee Afternoon Tea.

I have my Carnival shares held by Hargreaves Longdown too. I applied for some obc only yesterday. If you go onto the HL site (not the app) and search for shareholder perks, the top item will be a list of all the different perks available, including Carnival. It tells you to contact carnival I think, but at the top of the page, there is a telephone number for queries. I have always just rung this number and told them I want to apply for a shareholder perk. They ask for the booking number, ship name, date of sailing and lead booker name. They then do the rest. I usually get a new invoice from either Cunard or my TA which lists the obc under my name. It does take a couple of weeks or so to show. It is really easy and, so far, has always gone through with no problems. I have already had one lot of obc added this year and have just asked for two more lots for my next two cruises. I am based in the UK

Techteach, the key to driving on the 'wrong side of the road is hiring a car in that country. We have driven our own car to France many, many times and have managed the driving on the 'wrong' side pretty well. However, one year our car broke down when we were away, and we had to hire a car in France. It was so much easier to drive! As for the jubilee, we are off to London on Thursday to have a Jubilee Afternoon Tea at the Dorchester Hotel! I have just found out it is the day of the big fly past over Buckingham Palace, which is nearby. So we are hoping to be able to get into a position to see all the planes flying over, before going for our tea. The Afternoon Tea is actually a present for my 60th burthday last year. We were very lucky to be able to book their jubilee tea, which is only running for a few days. Does anyone else gave any jubilee plans?