TheOldBear

Back in November 2022 Illuminations also hosted a solo piano concert/recital & an original one man play.

I did the Cunard bus excursion on the second night [7 November 2022] at Tromso. [first night was the 'arctic cathedral' concert] There was a bright, almost full, moon - so I knew that I would not get dark adapted, and there was no reason to bring a tripod for long exposures. If the cruise was scheduled for a 'new moon' period I would likely have taken one of the independent 'chase' options for the night of the 6th - and used a tripod. The first stop was prompted by Aurora prominent enough to be visible [through holes in the cloud cover] from the bus. I was taking hand held exposures of about 2 seconds [Olympus OM1mk2 + 12-100 f/4 stabilized lens] and the camera was seeing colors that my eyes just saw as grey. This was a coastal stop, and as fog started to roll in our guide consulted with the other bus's guide and we left for an inland location. The second stop was the cookie stop - refreshments were available in the luggage bay. All three Cunard tour busses at the rendezvous. We stayed there for over an hour getting both aurora and moonlit cloud photos [needed the camera to see colors]. Arriving back at the pier, the lines were already singled up, with port personnel standing by. QM2 was departing by the time I got up to Kings Court for a late night snack.

We have been on three NSO crossings so far [2017, 2019 & 2022] and have a fourth one booked for this October. The 2017 was not planned - after that the NSO crossing was always selected for our cruise planning [Round trip crossings] There are two evening concerts with the NSO - an American night, and 'The Last Night of the Proms' night - with a passenger chorus on stage with the orchestra [I'll be in the Bass section - all the way in the back right side] There is also an afternoon concert where the NSO is joined by the Royal Court & Queens Room orchestras. During the week, NSO players may sit in with the Cunard folks when they are not rehearsing. The passenger chorus has an audition meeting [parts are assigned - no one is turned away] and assigned to the early or late performance. There are two rehearsal followups - plus a rehearsal for entering and leaving the stage. Anthony Inglas also has a well attended lecture in the Royal Court. Mrs Bear has a copy of his autobiography - we'll bring it along to get it signed.

See https://www.anthonyinglis.com for some details

NJ transit commuter train - according to the NJ Transit trip planner site - the trip takes about 23 minutes, with a $5.25 'regular' fare.

Only one - but for 26 nights, including two transatlantic crossings. We tend to book sailings no more frequently than every other year.

The luggage drop in Brooklyn is often receiving new embarking passenger baggage while departing passengers are 'zeroing out' the ship. [before the door open for embarking passengers] The post security / pre checkin waiting area is quite spartan [not even vending machines; hard seats]. I recall some discussions from a few years back about plans to do a full day of sightseeing between baggage drop off and terminal check in - it seemed to be overly ambitious. An option it to check everything except your carryons - and then head over to Van Brunt street - google maps shows some possibilities there, but I have not tried any of the choices.

Back in 2022 Zeebruge was our diversion from bad weather in two southern Norway ports - the diversion was announced when leaving Tronheim

Back in 2022 in Norway, I used my Oly 12-100 f/4 mostly zoomed out to 12 mm This was shooting hand held for 2 second exposures - lots of moonlight and clouds, so longer exposures would not have been too useful. Stars and power lines were sharp, so 2 seconds was within my [image stabilized] hand held limits. I tended to take a shot, and then review to see if there were any aurora colors. If your trip is scheduled when there is little or no moonlight, then a tripod would be useful - along with the camera's "live bulb" mode.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. There is a forum dedicated to insurance topics at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/499-cruisetravel-insurance/ The answer to most insurance questions is 'it depends' - you need to check the fine print and definitions on any existing coverage and see where the gaps are. Then contact a broker and see about filling the gaps. The definitions are important as the insurance contracts & policies may not be using the terms the way you expect.

You may want to visit https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/378-freighter-and-other-non-traditional-cruise-travel/ as a start here on CC forums. As far as sailing from east cost to LeHavre, it would be possible on a sailing like my upcoming QM2 crossing - after Southampton, port stops are Hamburg, Southampton again and then LeHavre before the westbound crossing. Passengers may be booked to embark or disembark at any of these ports. There are also sites like 'cruise time tables' that would let you see what ships are visiting LeHavre - likely just passenger vessels, not the 'non traditional' ships.

You may want to visit https://www.visittromso.no/getting-around Included on the page are https://www.visittromso.no/getting-around#GettingtoandfromBreivikaCruisePort https://www.visittromso.no/getting-around#Taxi With links to city bus maps and taxi information

That's how we ended up doing a round trip for out first (and second) crossings. When we priced out one way air fare, hotel and ground transportation it was only a minor increment in costs - and I had the vacation time available.

I guess it depends on where tour starting and ending points are - a typical NY to Southampton crossing is scheduled for seven days, and there is a five time zone difference.

We've had six crossings so far [three round trips] booking category BU or BV rooms on deck 5. All the crossings were enjoyable - even when you could observe waves washing over the windows in the Golden Lion [deck 2] or promenade access restricted due to 'force 11' winds. We also feel that the drink package does not represent a good value - I think for our 26 night sailing in 2022 we spent less that $300 total [soda, wine by the bottle, a few fancy coffee drinks].

I think the full drinks package includes the specialty coffee package - applies to Sir Samual's, Carthinia and other venues.

Cunard sells 'voyages' in multiple segments. The Quebec to Brooklyn sailing is a segment of a longer Southampton to Southampton round trip [and also a Brooklyn to Brooklyn round trip]. Cunard sells the shorter segments as just New England and Canada sailings. Since QM2 is doing an overnight in Quebec you can check in on board, check in for your muster drill and just come and go as you like - as long as you are onboard at the posted time before sail away. On a normal embarkation day [not a overnight port visit] there are no tours scheduled for embarking passengers. On board credit can only be applied to purchases made onboard. Excursions and even port visits can be canceled due to inclement weather [in November 2022 we skipped two ports in Norway due to weather]. Canceled excursions are refunded to the original payment method - back to the card when purchased in advance [my.cunard.com] Last June your sailing, and the following M432B sailing were adjusted due to scheduling conflicts with MSC's mega ship [quote] [/quote] So your sailing lost two scheduled ports, and our sailing gained them - extending our sailing to 21 days, with the eastbound crossing starting from Boston after the two new port visits.

It's likely that Viking is reselling an offering by a local vendor [e.g. the Tromso Wilderness Center]. You may want to visit the Tromso tourism site [visittromso.no] and see if a similar 'glamping' or camping experience is listed.

Hard to say if it's "too much" - this shows as your third post here at CC forums, but you may have done previous multi leg vacation trips and enjoyed them. Based on my crossings on QM2, I would try to arrange things so the trip finished with the westbound crossing to NYC [Brooklyn]. That way you arrive home without jet lag - and have five 25 hour days out of the seven for a typical crossing.

I would suggest reading the exact wording in the 'trip interruption' section of your policy. On mine there is some coverage for failures of 'common carrier' transportation - but nothing I would interpret as coverage for returning late to the ship.

Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is the current transatlantic specialist - scheduled for many crossings not just seasonal repositioning sailings . Our upcoming sailing is a round trip from New York to Southampton, Hamburg, Southampton again, LeHavre and back to NY If you are just interested in the October westbound crossing to NY, you could board in Hamburg on 15 October, Southampton on 17 October or LeHavre on 18 October - disembarkation is 25 October at the Brooklyn Cruise terminal. You may want to check on Cunard's web site for the dates of westbound transatlantic crossings in September, November & December.

The current bridge cameras have all been out for several years - I don't recall seeing recent announcements. You may want to consider rental or used equipment instead of purchase. The FZ300 / FZ330 / Leica VLux 4 is a small sensor camera - it is weather sealed, with a constant f/2.8 aperture zoom lens. I would rate it as 'most likely to replace my FZ50'. The compact size, reasonable price and bright lens for the zoom range are all tied to the smaller sensor. The Nikon P950 and P1000 are the kings of zoom magnification - they put a huge lens in front of the small sensor. The 'one inch' sensor cameras Panasonic [FZ1000, FZ1000mk2 [Leica VLux5], FZ2500] and Sony RX10 series have a different set of compromises. The larger sensor requires a larger lens for the equivalent zoom range, along with larger overall size. The Sony RX10mk4 is weather sealed, and has the fanciest electronics so is most suited for action photos.

We've done the New England / Canada sailing twice [as Brooklyn round trips to Halifax not Quebec] in both a Sheltered Balcony Category BY [4181 deck 4 aft of staircase 'D'] and glass fronted balcony Category BF [8003, deck 8 two doors from the Library]. Both rooms were almost identical in interior fittings - 4181 has a connecting door, but the neighbors were quiet [heard nothing]. 8003 was a bit of a walk to Britannia, that helped counteract sea air shrinkage of clothing 😉 Since then we have done mostly round trip crossings, and have favored midships sheltered balconies

Generally the ships clocks are adjusted to match local time as the ship cross time zones. The time of day when the adjustment takes place is at the captain's digression - on my recent sailings eastbound adjustments were made at noon, and westbound adjustments were made in the early morning 'midwatch' time period.

I would suggest visiting the MSC section of the forums for cruse line and ship specific advice [might vary between the older/smaller ships and the larger current generation ships] Cruise lines generally divide between assigned seat dining and 'anytime' open seat dining. From what I recall seeing of MSC reviews the main dining is open seating - you can likely request different table sizes. For their extra cost specialty restaurants you likely will use their 'app' to reserve a table/ We opt for assigned seating, and generally that is the case. When we or our table mates are dining elsewhere we tell the matre d so he knows we will be elsewhere [and our open wine bottle can find us]. I am not familiar with that bit of etiquette - not even on longer or more traditional voyages. If you are on assigned seating you likely will want to give some notice. If you are on open seating / anytime dining there is no one to tell [different wait staff & table mates for each of your seatings anyway] That varies, for example on Cunard's QM2 some guests in the higher price points (Queen's Grill, Princess Grill, Britannia Club] have the same table and seat waiting from them for all meal service in their assigned 'main dining room'. The large Britannia dining room serves breakfast and lunch [available for all passengers] without reserved seating - we usually request a mid sized table.