bluemarble

No, just a comment that this webcam image provides more clues than some of the others I've posted such as those with distant views of the ship seen from a fairly nondescript beach.

Let's try this one. Here's a webcam capture showing part of a Cunard ship at a port we've seen before. There may be enough detail here to help identify this port. At least it's not as inscrutable as some of the webcam images I've posted in the past.

My wife has several food allergies. Cunard does a very good job handling that situation. You should notify Cunard of your requirements prior to your voyage by calling Cunard customer service. They will probably advise you to send an email about your dietary requirements to "cunardonboardservices@cunard.com". In any event, you will also want to confirm your requirements with your wait staff once on board. They will do their very best to accommodate your requirements the first day in your dining room. For subsequent days, they will supply you with the next day's menus for you to make your selections ahead of time. If you make a reservation at one of the specialty restaurants, you will want to check with the staff at that restaurant the day before your reserved time in order to make your selections from that restaurant's menu.

They seem to have provided two different deadlines in the latest "Carnival Corporation & PLC Shareholder Benefit document. In the first paragraph they do indeed state the following (emphasis mine). "The benefit is applicable on sailings through July 31, 2024 aboard the brands listed below. Certain restrictions apply. Applications to receive these benefits should be made at least three weeks prior to cruise departure date." But then later in the third paragraph they state the following. "Please provide by email, fax or by mail your complete legal name, reservation/booking number, ship and sailing date, along with proof of ownership of Carnival Corporation or Carnival plc shares (for example, photocopy of shareholder proxy card, a dividend tax voucher or a current brokerage or nominee statement with your current mailing address and your brokerage account number blacked out) no later than 4 weeks prior to your sail date to your travel agent or to the cruise line you have selected below." Previous versions of the document stated the deadline as three weeks in both places. That's an interesting point about the form stating the shareholder benefit cannot be used for gratuities charged to your onboard account. Previous versions of the document have said the same thing. Perhaps it has something to do with Cunard now calling the charge they apply to your onboard account the "hotel and dining service charge" rather than "gratuities". In practice, the shareholder benefit OBC can be used to pay for the hotel and dining service charge.

Just to help clarify the dress code, each evening is designated as either "smart attire" or "gala evening". On the smart attire evenings, a jacket is optional for gentlemen. Smart trousers with a dress shirt is fine on those evenings. On the gala evenings, the dress code is dinner jacket, tuxedo or dark suit with tie for gentlemen. The dress code applies to the main dining rooms but not to the buffet. To give you an idea of the scheduling, there usually will be two gala evenings on a voyage of 7 nights and three gala evenings on a voyage of 14 nights. The deadline for applying for the Carnival shareholder benefit used to be three weeks before the sailing date. But I just took a look at the latest Carnival shareholder benefit page to confirm that and it now lists the deadline as four weeks prior to the sailing date. Here is the link to that page for full details. https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/50351a91-4dc0-4f6b-bfec-684647e6129f

Most of the 2023 dress code and theme schedules were first posted in My Cunard on November 24, 2022. If Cunard keeps to a similar schedule this year, we may have about one month to go until they post the 2024 dress code and theme schedules.

Queen Anne is a Pinnacle class ship similar to the three ships in that class in the Holland America fleet: Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam. The specs for those Holland America ships are 99,863 GT, 300m length and 2,650 passengers. Queen Anne is a somewhat larger version of the Pinnacle class at 113,000 GT, 322.5m length and approximately 3,000 passengers. If you look at the deck plans for Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam you will see they are quite similar to the deck plans for Queen Anne. It appears the Rotterdam deck plan is the closest when it comes to the obstructed view cabins on deck four which are oriented differently from the rest. I don't know if Cunard will be using the same cabin layouts on Queen Anne as on those other three Holland America Pinnacle class ships. But the "cruisedeckplans" site is a good place to start for photos/videos of similarly positioned cabins on those Holland America ships.

To answer this question, QE's call to Haines on June 7, 2022 may have been the first ever call there for Cunard. I couldn't find a reference to a prior call to Haines by any Cunard ship anyway. QE called again to Haines on June 13, 2023. And now she has four further calls to Haines scheduled for 2024. So, yes, Haines is very much a newer port of call for Cunard.

Here's a Le Havre port schedule I found that looks at least somewhat official. https://www.havre-port.com/fr/liste/2077/escales-croisieres That site lists QM2's call at Le Havre on 1 June 2024 with arrival at 06:30 and departure at 19:00. At least half a dozen other cruise booking sites list the Le Havre arrival time on 1 June 2024 as 08:00 (8:00 AM) and the departure time as 19:00 (7:00 PM). That includes Cunard's own website using the "view page source" method I mentioned earlier. By the way, those other cruise booking sites list the Zeebrugge arrival time on 31 May 2024 as 08:00 (8:00 AM) and the departure time as 17:00 (5:00 PM).

Yes, indeed. I remember that well. That was April 1, 2016 just prior to QM2's 2016 remastering. Here's a link to the full post from Cunard's facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/cunard/photos/a.149158368222/10154140278573223

That's an interesting question. There was some previous discussion about this early last year on the "New Ship" thread. One school of thought was that Cunard might roll out the new livery on the current ships during their scheduled drydocks prior to QA's debut. That didn't happen with QV's drydock in Belfast during May 2022 which is understandable since the emphasis then was to get QV back into service. Perhaps more significantly that didn't happen with QE during her more recent drydock in Singapore this past March. Now QM2's current drydock is both longer than the others and closer to QA's debut, so I suppose it's possible they could update her livery to match Queen Anne's. I haven't read anything specifically mentioning QM2's livery will be updated during the current drydock. My guess is no it won't. Perhaps I'll be surprised.

Cunard does not provide the precise arrival and departure times on their own websites or itineraries. However, those precise times are available on quite a few other travel agent and cruise booking websites. That includes Cunard's own partner websites for Spain, Austria and Switzerland. What I just said isn't entirely correct though. Cunard does actually provide the precise arrival and departure times on their own websites if you dig into the details to view the page source on the voyage details pages within your web browser. Here's an example showing how the Cunard UK website reveals the precise arrival and departure times within the HTML code for one of their upcoming cruises to Norway. ...,"arrivalTime":"08:00","arrivePartOfTheDay":"Early morning","departTime":"17:00","departPartOfTheDay":"Afternoon","portDetails":{"id":"AES","name":"Alesund, Norway",...

QM2 being situated in Damen Verolme Rotterdam dock 7 as seen on Marinetraffic this morning.

Here's another chance to see QM2 at Cuxhaven during daylight. She's on her way to Rotterdam for her scheduled drydock there. This is a capture from the webcam at "schiffsansagedienst-cuxhaven.de" a few minutes ago.

The onboard Gala Evening dress code states "floor length dress, ball gown, cocktail dress, smart trouser suit, or formal separates." You should be fine.

Unfortunately the functionality with the different flags to select either the Cunard US or the Cunard UK website only works for those of us in the US or Canada when we attempt to go to the Cunard UK website at "www.cunard.com/en-gb". From the US or Canada, we have the choice to view either the Cunard US or the Cunard UK website. Here's the flag display allowing that choice for those who haven't seen it. Unless there are some exceptions I don't know about, everyone else is restricted to one specific Cunard website based on their location. For example, when residents of the UK attempt to go to "www.cunard.com/en-us", they are automatically switched to "www.cunard.con/en-gb". That's similar to what happens if we in the US or Canada attempt to go to the Cunard Australia website at "www.cunard.com/en-au". We are automatically switched to "www.cunard.com/en-us". No flags are presented to let us choose between the Cunard US and Cunard Australia websites. The telephone number for Cunard US Customer Support is (800) 728-6273. But that probably won't help you much since I don't believe you can call an "800" number from outside the US. There is a phone number for the Cunard office in Valencia, California but I hesitate to post that number since I don't know if it is appropriate to call that number for general customer service enquiries, especially from outside the US. Sorry I can't be more help with this.

To update the guidance I posted earlier about the Roaring Twenties and Masquerade themes (which is several years old), here is what the Cunard website says now in the "Gala Evening themes" section of their "What to pack" page. Roaring 20s For Roaring 20s, a simple nod towards the theme is all that's required - a pocket square in an art deco print or a feathered slide in your hair - but if you'd like to bring a flapper dress, or braces and a trilby, you're sure to fit right in. Masquerade Ball An evening of mystery, intrigue and suspense awaits as Cunard transports you back to Renaissance Italy and the infamous Venetian Masquerade Carnivals. Whatever you decide to wear, bring along a mask to match - or even make your own.

Here's an afternoon capture from the same webcam showing a bit of the monster cruise ship Costa Toscana (6,000+ passenger capacity) at the far left also at the Stazione Marittima. Marella Voyager is also docked at Naples today along with several large ferries.

Yes, that is Le Havre. Here's another view captured a couple minutes earlier making it more obvious it's Le Havre by including the prominent tower of Saint Joseph's Church in the view. I left the date stamp on this one in the upper left showing it's from QM2's most recent call at Le Havre on September 3rd.

Here's a capture of today's sunrise with QE at Naples, Italy. This is from Baltic Live Cam's "Molo Beverello" webcam.

I don't think the dress code and theme schedules have been announced yet for any of the 2024 voyages. I'm hoping we'll start learning those schedules in another month or so. In the mean time, I'll take an educated guess. For several years now Cunard have kept to a standard schedule for 7-night QM2 transatlantic crossings. For eastbound crossings, the themes have been Red & Gold on the second evening and Roaring Twenties on the sixth evening. For westbound crossings, the themes have been Black & White on the second evening and Masquerade on the sixth evening. There have only been a couple exceptions I am aware of the past couple years. Last year during the "London Theatre at Sea with the Olivier Awards" eastbound crossing, the theme for the first gala evening was designated as "Oliviers Gala". Once earlier this year, the first gala evening on a westbound crossing was listed as Red & Gold instead of Black & White. Not sure if that was intentional.

Don't stress over the theme nights. Participation in the themes is entirely optional. By all means wear the lovely dresses you had in mind if you'd prefer not to dress according to the themes. You won't be a bit out of place dressing according to the standard gala evening dress code regardless of the theme. In my experience, participation in the themes is not all that high in the main dining room for the Roaring Twenties and Masquerade themes. The participation rate does tend to go up at the gala balls in the Queen Room, but even then not everyone dresses according to the themes. For the record, this is a few years old, but here is what I have for Cunard's suggested attire for the Roaring Twenties and Masquerade themes. Roaring Twenties Formal Wear Gentlemen – Double breasted pin-striped suit or tailcoat & waistcoat. Fedora or top hat Ladies – Flapper dresses, feather boas, beads, headbands and gloves Masquerade Formal Wear Gentlemen - Domino masks Ladies – Fans and harlequin masks Any Venetian Mardi Gras style masks can be worn (a selection are available for purchase on the night)

This one may not be quite as challenging as my previous post. Here's a webcam capture showing a Cunard ship departing a port we've seem before.

The word on social media is that QM2 suffered a loss of shoreside power this afternoon while docked at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. That power loss apparently caused problems with some internal systems which need to be sorted out before she can continue on to Southampton. She left the cruise terminal and is now at an anchorage to sort out those issues.

That's correct. The webcam is showing the cruise port for Le Port, Reunion which is actually located just a few miles to the east of Le Port at La Possession. Those two round storage tanks are interesting in that they are recent additions and so don't show up on some older stock photos of the port. They are apparently inflatable storage tanks to hold biomass for the Albioma power plant which is in the process of converting from burning "charbon" to biomass. The camera is a bit to the north of the Riviere des Galets within the community of Pichette.