Splice the mainbrace

Chinos and polo shirt sometimes with blazer for me on non gala nights. I’m younger than most on Cunard and IMO polo shirt (yacht, golf club look) is smarter than some highly patterned standard collared shirts that older people wear.

In the end for last nights mdr meal I chose lobster bisque, chauteaubriand and chocolate soufflé. Very nice meal and great atmosphere. Just coming in to Lanzarote, clear blue sky and light winds.

Red and Gold, formal, gala, dress to impress or whatever’s it called nowadays tonight. Turkey dinner, monk fish or chateaubriand are the mains choices in the mdr. Think I’ll go for the chateaubriand.

We always wonder why people walk so far to and from the ships from the city, seems like hard work to me when you should be relaxing in pre cruise mode. After spending a lot on a cruise just spend £10 or so for a taxi and you probably take years out of the life of your suitcases. As andymichelle says bad in December but I wouldn’t want to be hot and sweaty in warmer weather either prior to embarkation 🥵

I hope they do something similar on our QM2 Cape Town to Perth then finishing in Sydney (with other stops in between). Might get 2 lots🤞. One lot of $80 per person (3 days of essential) seems rather tight for a 26 day cruise when you could get the same allowance for only 7 days.

I don’t normally carry one but I could do, fair point👍🥂

We are currently on QV and we are paying a pay as you go daily essentials price of $24 a day, so we get 3 days each from our Platinum $80 each plan.

We’re currently on QV with a drinks package. The answer to original query is that sometimes you get a receipt to sign and sometimes you don’t even in the same bar or restaurant. We only need to give one of our 2 cards rather than both but other times they remember us and don’t need a card. It is rather an antiquated system and I particularly don’t like using a pen that countless others have used and then some nibbles/canape come out to eat, I tend to sign after the finger food.

When we went away last Thursday for our current Queen Victoria cruise the forecast was showing a low this week of -1 or -2 minimum at home now showing -4 to -5 for a few nights. I’m glad that I left the heating ticking over in the day at 14c and hope that the boiler doesn’t decide to breakdown🤔 Anyway we are in Lanzarote tomorrow where 23c is forecast. As a bonus on the way down the bay of Biscay was flat calm, although it was a bit wobbly in the Brest region.😀

My wife and I are Platinum members so we can buy 3 days worth each from our $80 individual allowance. On port days we can use our normal mobile phone data allowance. For us it was better when its was a hour allowance and we’d log on for an hour or two a day, we don’t need 24 hour access. Also the allowance is the same whether it’s a 1 week or 4 week cruise, although for the longer cruises they used to reallocate the allowance for each leg ie for QM2 trans Atlantic and Caribbean it was split into 3 legs, not sure if that is still the case though.

We entered the terminal at 12.15 and they were calling for QG passengers for the first time to make their way to security, the queue built up quite quickly because they called subsequent priority groups in fairly quick succession. We were fortunate because we were one of first of the large group of Platinum grade passengers to join the queue.

On arriving back into our cabin on the second evening there was another half bottle of Pol Acker on our desk. Depending on your view of the bubbly it would be a reward or punishment😁 We went to the Lido instead of the mdr last night for the Indian menu night, the food imo was very good. It’s the red and gold night tonight mdr menu is looking good.

We arrived at the terminal at 12.15 and there were plenty of vacant check in positions. The waiting area was very full due to the build up of QQ, PQ, Diamond and Platinum levels (our level) which got called in order, the security queues build up due to the initial rush but it’s only 10 mins or so. They hold early arrivals who are not priority boarding outside until after the priority levels have started to clear the waiting area. Maybe the people in the queue that you saw with later boarding times were of a priority level because they were definitely checking status before entering the terminal.

I’m on this cruise as well. Some notes so far: - pleased with the overall feel of the ship. Friendly efficient staff, condition of the ship and things to do. - we have struck lucky with the bay of Biscay, smooth as anything. There was just a bit of movement yesterday as we excited the channel and rounded Brest 😀 - restricted mdr evening menu ( more so than I remember on here in June). Only 3 non veggie choices, last night black and white evening was beef wellington (which was very nice), sea bass or Sicilian something? and that was it. I hope that if any of the 3 choices were not to one’s taste that things like steak and salmon are always on if requested? First night I had steak Diane and it was a very thin sizzle type steak not thick sirloin type one, felt pretty short changed. Quality of food which we have had so far been good though. - we are on second sitting and the tables are well occupied (very full) compared to our experience on recent cruises where there we a lot of unoccupied tables. - the public areas were very full yesterday with mid afternoon chart room, queens room (tea) and pub all full. As weather gets warmer obviously more people will go outside and it will be less crowded inside. Looking forward to Lisbon tomorrow.

Earlier this year I didn’t have a problem using cruise critic from my old I phone and posted news and photos from South America. However before we went away on an August cruise I couldn’t sign on and again now before we go away again. I’ve tried email address and user name and various of my passwords without success. It kept saying incorrect password and then it seemed to accept it but locked on a redirecting screen. Now when I open cc on it it just goes to the same redirect screen. l’m more concerned that if this iPad or my laptop lose auto sign on info, which devices sometimes do, I won’t be able to sign in again. Has anyone had similar issues or know how to solve it?

We were last on QM2 6 years ago on the same cruise itinerary as yours. We are next on board her in February for the Cape Town to Sydney leg of her World Cruise. What time are the canapés served? 😛

You normally get to know your allocated embarkation time about 3 weeks before.

We’re half way through our busy week. We drove down to Devon from Cheshire on Sunday afternoon, stayed overnight in a hotel (accommodation good but food bad), went to my Uncle funeral yesterday then drove back up in the afternoon. Now we have 2 days at home before travelling down to Southampton on Thursday for our 12 days on Queen Victoria starting on Friday. We’re looking forward to getting on board and having a relaxing pre Christmas cruise to the Canaries.

I don’t mind using self service tills for up to 6 or 7 items but for a big shop I queue for a staffed till

The break even point on most drink packages is about 6 wines/cocktails a day which is about what we have plus specialist coffees and bottles of water on top. So for shorter cruises we tend to go for the package but can’t stomach the outlay for long cruises where we rein in a bit, we have a 26 and 30 day cruise next year!! One of which is on Cunard where they add on 15% service charge. What is a drink rest day on a cruise! We’re on uz holiday.

Does the fibre connection to the house come through the same existing copper wire conduit or do they have to lay a new connection in the ground?

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/23916483.southampton-cruise-nurse-hits-slapped-parking-fine/

When I saw the leaked result last night I thought that it was the correct decision because of their judges position on the night. However after watching the dance off tonight where he dances better and Angela was worse with mistakes I think that she should have gone.

I looked up some photos, one of my grandad on the North Africa, Sicily and Italy campaign and the other of my mums class in 1939 a year before 15 of them would be killed together during a Southampton blitz😪

One of my Grandads was a desert rat and did the whole North Africa, Sicily and up through Italy campaign, unfortunately I never met him as in the early 50s he and my Grandma divorced and my mum completely distanced herself from him, it would have been great to talk to him. My other Grandad was in an essential service supplying fuels to the merchant shipping in Southampton so didn't go to war. My mum was evacuated to Bournemouth from Southampton and I'm glad that she was. In a blitz on Southampton her previous school class was visiting Southampton Art Gallery and were sheltering in the basement after the air raid siren went off, there was a direct hit and 15 of her class mates were killed. Even more tragic was that this was over a year after the original evacuation in 1939 and there had been little incident so many parents had brought their children back from being evacuated😪 The Gallery in Wartime: A Commemoration – Southampton City Art Gallery