TheOldBear

We did the American sector tour last time (2017) and planing on the British sector this fall.

The excursion price was similar to Overlord’s bus trip, except the ship’s tour also included lunch (three courses, with wine 🙂 )

6 hours ago, babs135 said:

I know NCL has The Haven, MSC has The Yacht Club and Cunard has The Grills, but are there more ships with this extra accommodation, perks etc?

Cunard has less separation than many other lines - the Grills folks have their own Restaurant, one lounge & a small deck area. The rest of the ship is open to all.

On our last crossing, we had a couple who were upgraded to Queens Grill join us in Britannia every night for dinner.  They preferred the Britannia 'grand dining room' to the rather pedestrian Queens Grill. [Our muster station 'K' was in Queens Grill - so we saw that architecturally it was not a 'wow' space]

The Cunard web site has a few under ‘destinations’

Last time we did a short trip to Winchester. The 929B round trip has two Southampton days, so we probably will book a long excursion on one of the days (London or Windsor Castle).

I think the posting of the full excursion list depends on how many folks are booked for all the M929 ans M930 segments. I recall in 2017 there were only 200 or so round trip passengers.

I would second the 'not needed' vote - had the display on my EOS Elan film camera - have not missed it on any of my digital cameras [Olympus M10.2 at the moment]

I think the Brooklyn pier is the most convenient since for me there are no bridges or tunnels between my house and the terminal.

If you are on a multi segment voyage, each segment that may be booked as a separate cruise results in a refresh of your 'gold status' internet allowance. 

At least that was true in 2017 - the eastbound and westbound crossings each had an allocation.

For email, use an offline mail client instead of web mail to compose / read mail while offline, and then just go online to upload the 'out box' and download the 'in box'. I use Apple's mail app [the 'postage stamp'] - on a PC you may want to look at the Thunderbird application [from the same folks as the Firefox browser]

12 hours ago, Canuker said:

So..... when a vessel enters the Mississippi Delta, it changes from "International" to "Inland" rules?

Nautical charts feature a 'COLREGS demarcation line' indicting where the rules change.

For gents, sandals are not part of the evening dress code.

For ladies, I have not observed any extreme high heels, but I have seen a variety of shoe styles, including metallic finish sandals and sneakers

I've only had a total of one transatlantic, but I don't think there will be too many problems.

The larger, checked bags may be handed over to the Porters on arrival in Brooklyn, before checking your dog in with the kennel master [pet check in seemed to be outside, on the far left side of the terminal building].

In a normal Britannia cabin there will be under bed space for the large holdall - at 13" it should just slide under the bed. [or one of the beds if your room is configured with the beds separated] 

You may want to look over in the France forum, by Cruise Critic geography France is not located in "Western Europe", instead it's in the Mediterranean 😕

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

I believe you are referring to the USS Stark as the Perry class frigate that was struck by two Exocet missiles.  And you are correct about the UK ships in the Falklands, but there were fires previously on US and UK ships with aluminum superstructures.

Right about the Stark.

I was glad not to experience that is person - bu I could have. For some reason the US State department wanted a Naval 'presence' mission at the time of the Falklands war - only one ship would have been available, and we were just completing 'refresher training' in Gitmo 

Apparently the Navy brass told State 'not only no, but <expletive> no', so we didn't need to practice Exocet catching ourselves.

15 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

The example you cite of a ship damaged by mine, that would be the USS Roberts, which suffered a shattered keel, and the ship split so badly that the crew tightened wire cables around the superstructure to keep her together, yet she did not roll over or sink.  She was towed to Bahrain, where they made temporary repairs enough to get her onto a heavy lift ship and she was transported here to Portland, Maine, where they cut the entire engine room out and replaced it as a single module.  Her repair took 13 months and $89 million.  The problems the British faced were caused mostly by their use of aluminum as a superstructure material, which in some cases literally vaporized in the heat of the explosion.  Most countries have gone away from this practice after the Falklands war.  There was little difference between ships of WWI era and WWII era in terms of strength of materials, and naval design.  They just basically got bigger.

 

The losses of ships in WWII is actually the worst ecological disaster to strike the world's oceans.  Nearly all ships went down with oil in their bunker tanks, and many, like the USS Arizona, still have oil in those tanks, and like the Arizona are slowly leaking it into the sea.

While this is quite true of the Navy, as a merchant mariner Chief Engineer, I am an officer.  However, given the smaller crews of merchant ships, the officers do much of the work, along with the crew.  This was always a problem for me during my naval reserve time, as I could not sit back and just watch, as the senior officers wanted me to.

Hate to interrupt - but the Type 41 DDG's [Sheffield & Coventry] lost during the Falklands Islands war were all steel designs - no aluminum superstructure [unlike the USN DD-963 and derivative DDG and CG classes]

The Samual B Roberts, a much smaller Perry class FFG, did survive multiple Exocet missile strikes - and the Perry class had an aluminum superstructure.  

Former DCA - USS McInerney [FFG-8]

56 minutes ago, Abril222 said:

Thanks for the info. I usually carry on 4 but was hoping to check it thru if I had more. Looks like I will have a few to carry. Better safe than broken!! 

Our last trip my carryon contained mostly wine, padded with socks and underwear [6 normal bottles of 'good' wine and a magnum for in room consumption] 

Still happening, at least on the board's home page - Safari, MacOS 10.14.1

I had interpreted the OP's ask as leaving on one ship and returning on the other - with nights in Cuba in between, not simply two round trips on two different ships.

Is this even permitted?

Disembarking from one ship and embarking on the other might mean that both cruise lines could violate the PVSA [Passenger Vessel Services Act] that restrict how foreign flag carriers can serve US ports and passengers.

The 'report post' function needs to be visible in the topic [e.g. 'Ask a Cruise Question'] view, and not just when 'hovering' the cursor on an open message. 

Marking large batches of messages as spam is needed to counter large batches of spam [and blacklist / throttle the source network]

12 hours ago, broberts said:

Just report the post. (Upper right corner of the post when you hover over it.)

Hover over it? - I didn't want to touch it 

Considering it was chinese spam in the Cunard forum, it was probably a Titanic 2 sales pitch

The old boards had a report post widget on each post - there was a massive amount of seemingly chinese spam on the Cunard forum. The new boards have an ignore feature, but a spam report feature seems needed too. [and yes, the spam report should notify the spammer]

The card reader may be an old-fashioned mag stripe reader - may not be chip enabled [have not checked personally]

Just checked the ferry website - there is a buy online / display in app option that bypasses credit card issues. See https://www.ferry.nyc/ticketing-info/

31 minutes ago, smokey01 said:

Is it possible to walk from pier 11 to the Staten Island Ferry terminal?

 

Google Maps is telling me it is an 8 minute walk but I am wondering whether the road is actually walk-able or just suitable for cars?

It quite walkable - there is a sweet level underpass to 'South Street' crossing under the limited access FDR Drive. To the right [3 QM2 lengths] is the South Street Seaport, and the left [4 QM2 lengths] is the Staten Island Ferry terminal. If you have reserved a Liberty Island ferry ride, the Statue Cruises terminal is one more QM2 length into Battery Park.

I bring and wear my dance shoes - highly polished for wear with a Tuxedo, as my normal evening footwear. 

I don't need to worry about picking up grit in the soles onboard ship - not like wearing them to dance at a folk / dance festival. [e.g. Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs]

20 minutes ago, ddgarner1 said:

I'm incredibly jealous of your opportunity.  My recent cruise was the week after the NSO' Westbound crossing and all the staff could talk about was how great it was.  My understanding is that the NSO will be aboard again in 2019 but in September.  I'll be booking another crossing as soon as the date is firm. 

They are onboard for the September 15th eastbound crossing [and the matching westbound is the 'space week' crossing] 

There are two Southampton turnaround days on our next cruise - so I will be interested in two answers 🙂

15 hours ago, rob6465 said:

Always used my phone camera for my 10+ cruises and this December I want to use a point and shoot camera. Any suggestions on a camera under $400 Thanks

You may want to take a look over on DPReview's being guide page https://www.dpreview.com/buying-guides

There is a specific category of compact, long zoom 'travel' cameras [like the Canon suggested above] or water resistant 'tough' cameras for beaches and other potentially wet excursions.