TheOldBear

I was poking around the voyage personalizer today, checking if there were any shore excursions posted for our 1 November Southampton stop [nope, no new ones] and decided to check out the dining tab. I noticed a new "Dinner at Kings Court" link, with no reference to the rotating cuisine / menu choices. [and apparently casual attire like the rest of Kings Court] I thought that was odd, and looked on cunard.com where the Kings Court 'find out more' link now goes to a 'not found error 404' page, instead of the old page describing the choices. Has anyone else noticed this? How about recent/current QM2 folks? Were the rotating menu choices available?

I would hope or expect that with years of experience that Norway knows how to cope with winter. Our Northern Lights sailing is in November, but I have been doing some research here and on sites like 'visitnorway' and 'visittromso' as starting points. See https://www.visittromso.no/travel/how-to-dress and any information Viking provides - and hopefully someone knowledgeable will drop in to this thread. Mrs Bear bought a pair of well fitted winter boots, and we have a pair of Yaktrax on order to fit them. Some of the excursion vendors include winter clothing and boots - check their web sites if you elect an independent excursion [vs the ship's tours]

Our last two sailings, and our upcoming 'Norway and Northern Lights' sailing are based on QM2 round trip from NY to Southampton. The basic crossing is seven days each way, or 14 for the round trip if no side trips are scheduled. The Northern Lights segment is a 12 day Southampton round trip. There are other options between different crossing pairs - currently the QM2 is doing a Mediterranean trip before returning to Southampton and then NY. As mentioned in a previous post, it is usually possible to pair a repositioning cruise with a QM2 crossing - with a variable amount of time and distance between them depending on schedules. We like the round trips - e.g. 26 nights and only need to unpack once. As far as minimizing sea days - the QM2 could do a 5 day crossing, but Cunard has elected for slower crossings [lower fuel costs, greater onboard revenue] and we enjoy our time onboard. For us the time onboard is the major attraction. Some repositioning and island hopping sailings will have fewer consecutive sea days, but the cruise will take longer overall [slower cruising speed, delays for the port visits]. You may want to take a look at sailings like HAL's "Voyage of the Vikings" - or for that matter some Viking sailings that stop in Iceland.

Note that this site is sponsored by folks who do not want other travel agents mentioned. You may want to look at the 'deals' and 'find a cruise' links at the top of the page, and visit the first Time Cruisers Forum

They can be - but you still need to buy / bring a shirt (shirts are not rented).

The Fire doors can be opened manually from either side. Their normal intended function is to limit the spread of smoke, not people.

I'm looking at a similar choice - in addition to my EM10 mark 2and its pair of 'R' lenses, I also have a EM 1 mark 2 body that came with a 12-200 travel zoom as the package 'kit' lens. I am currently evaluating getting a 'pro' grade lens, with four choices [12-45 f/4, 12-40 f/2.8, 12-100 f/4 and Panasonic/Leica 12-60 f/2.8-4] I'm tending toward the 12-40 as Amazon currently has the original model at a discount [the recently introduced 'mark 2' is the same optical formula, but has the better antireflection coatings introduced on the 12-45 lens] This choice is not urgent as the 12-200 is more than a decent performer in the shorter focal length range.

I have the older OMD EM10 mark 2 - and the mark 4 seems to nice successor model. [same tilt screen, OLED viewfinder, battery, popup flash] I have the cheapie 14-42R kit lens, and it is adequate, not spectacular. Your budget will permit an upgrade to the 12-45 f/4 'pro' lens. This lens zooms wider and longer than the kit lens, and is a bit brighter at the long end of the zoom. I would pair this with the 'plastic fantastic' - the 40-150R zoom lens. This is sometimes available refurbished for $99. For that matter, just checked the Olympus outlet store, and a refurb mark 4 body is currently $559 [in either all black or silver and black]

I've seen some recent postings over on you tube [from spring QM2 sailings] indicating that decks 5 & 6 between the 'A' and 'B' stairs were restricted [fire doors closed, isolation warning signs]

I might be answer this after my next sailing - a QM2 'Norway and Northern Lights' round trip from NY. There should be no shortage of available info here on CC. Have you decided on : time of year [midnight sun or northern lights]? departure port [Southampton, Dover, Bergen...]? One way or round trip [return home from cruise departure port]? duration? An unconventional option may be the Norway 'Costal Express' offered by Hurtigruten - it is not a typical cruise ship, making many short stops along its run. [apparently some stops are less than an hour as part of a costal ferry service]

I went through OCS - not Canoe U - and as I recall the OCS Celestial Navigation syllabus took at most 5 or 10 minutes, and Surface Warfare Officer school not that much longer, even in pre GPS days [1980]. The SWO focus was on LORAN-A and -C with some pre GPS satellite assistance, the Navy 'Transit' system. Piloting, maneuvering boards and charts were covered with more time and hands on experience. Oddly this also included use of a sextant - determining distance from objects of known position and height [like lighthouses]. Useful to back up radar fixes, or when emcon prohibited use of radar.

You may want to see if your cruise line offers an affiliated luggage service. For example Cunard offers 'White Star' branded luggage service - which over the years was fulfilled by different vendors [DHL, 'Luggage Forward']. With the current air snafus - are you planning on arriving the day of sailing, or the day before? It likely would still make sense to send the luggage to meet you at the ship.

Probably the winner was an old QM or BM Senior Chief

Perhaps Mrs Bear and I are old fashioned - but we prefer the traditional assigned seating and time [late seating is our preference]. We usually opt for a 6 place round table - larger or rectangular tables inhibit communication.

There is a comparison and buying guide over on DPreview https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/buying-guide-best-enthusiast-long-zoom-cameras For retailers, there are the 'usual suspects' - DPreview is owned by Amazon these days. There are the major NY retailers [B&H, Adorama] but you may want to see if there is a somewhat local camera dealer where you can see how the cameras fit your hands and eyes.

You may want to check over in the British Isles/Western Europe sub forum - I recall a mention about a drop box for VAT refund forms at the Ocean terminal - but I've never looked for it as we didn't buy anything except drinks and snacks.

This may be venturing into 'red banner' territory - but the UK Office for National Statistics indicates an infection rate of about 1 in 21 for the UK as a whole, and about 1 in 15 for Scotland.

I still recommend a 'fixed lens' [not interchangeable like a dSLR or mirrorless system camera] as the first step up from a phone. The Panasonic FZ-1000 mark 2 is a useful baseline [and a very nice choice]. Price new is about $800 - with the similar 'mark 1' available for less than $600 I still have, and occasionally use, the FZ50 bridge camera I purchased in 2007. The Leica branded zoom lens covers the range from about as wide as a wide cell phone camera [24mm in 'standard' terms] to extreme telephoto [over 400mm in 'standard' terms]. The advantage of the fixed lens is you always have it. The camera has 5 axis dual image stabilization [optical and moving sensor] to compensate for photographer movement. So far I have not found a need for a tripod or monopod even with the much older FZ50. The 'one inch' sensor is much larger than cell phones [apparently there is a pending release of a large sensor cell phone that will make an iPhone look cheap] There are nice 4k video modes, and a burst mode [6k photo] that helps to capture fast action [similar to the 'pro capture' mode on my Olympus]. There is a nice electronic viewfinder - and like all mirrorless cameras, it shows the live view of the subject [plus optional information like focus confirmation and over exposure warnings]

I spoke briefly with Steve Payne after an onboard lecture [he and I seemed to be the only gents onboard wearing a QM2 necktie] and he said the ship was wired for networking using the EIA768B standard [the so called CAT5 wiring] but was intended for relatively slow 10 mbps networking. It would be a fairly major rewiring job to install a fiber optic backbone and shortening some of the CAT5 wiring to allow for higher speeds. On the other hand - I do hope that the planned Starlink enhancement of satellite to satellite laser links will enable mid ocean use of the service [in addition to, or in place of the geosynchronous sats].

I’ve used Lensrentals twice - a superzoom for an air show and a ‘pro’ grade lens for my Olympus I am thinking of buying. The lens arrives packed in a Pelican case, inside the shipping box, along with the prepaid return label.

Even DPreview has a film forum & features a weekly "film Friday" article. I have had enough time [decades] using film cameras [and developing, printing, selling] that I cannot conceive of any reason to use film other than as a fashion statement. How are they planning on developing the film? Scanning? Printing? My home darkroom setup went to a thrift shop about 1998. For equipment, they will be looking at used - and some things will be common to dSLR bodies [e.g. the Canon EF mount for both film and digital cameras]. For a full retro experience, look for 'thumb powered' no auto anything cameras - they often have big bright viewfinders that are nice for manual focus. There may be a small supply of 'new old stock' film bodies - but none as far as I know are currently in production. In cruise related issues, back in 2008 I was using a Canon EOS Elan film camera and a Panasonic FZ50 bridge camera. Our first cruise was a 5 night 'taster' on QM2. I forgot to purchase a few rolls of film before the cruise, thinking it was no big deal - I could just buy some onboard. The onboard shops stopped stocking film sometime before 2008 - and the QM2 never had an onboard photo lab.

Cunard does not require US Citizens to have travel insurance - I think it is a good idea without an explicit requirement. If your primary residence is not in the US, things may be a bit complicated - I would check with an insurance agent [e.g. Tripinsurancestore ] and see what coverage makes sense for you.

We are local to NYC - in particular the Brooklyn cruise terminal - and that has influenced our choice of ships and sailings. On the other hand, our upcoming cruise is a Brooklyn to Southampton round trip, with a 12 night Norway sailing in between. Looked at it that way, we are traveling 3000+ miles to what is the embarkation port for a cruise.

Welcome to the Cruise Critic forums [a moderator will likely be along with pointers to more forum resources, including the 'help with the forums' forum] Each cruise line usually has two forums one for the line itself, and another 'Roll Call' forum with message threads dedicated to particular sailings, arranged by date. I did not see a specific roll call for 30 July, but there is one for 31 July Adriatic explorer and Aegean shores 31 July 2020 that does not seem to mention the ship. Roll calls allow folks on a particular sailing discuss shore excursions - and sometimes arrange their own. The ports of call forum https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/472-mediterranean-eastern-western/ is where folks discuss [no surprise] the ports of call and what is available [or what to avoid] at each one.