bluemarble

Just for the record, based on the past track shown on marinetraffic, QM2's departure from Brooklyn appears to have been at approximately 2:40am this morning.

I noticed the changed voyages started showing up on the Cunard website yesterday. The initial search results still show the wrong dates and durations. But when you "View voyage details", the correct dates and durations show up. For example, if you search for June 2024 QM2 voyages on the Cunard website, the search results show this misleading information for one of the westbound crossings which is being shortened to 6 nights. Westbound Transatlantic Crossing (M416) Ship Queen Mary 2 7 nights Embark Southampton, England, UK Jun 9, 2024 Disembark New York, NY, USA Jun 16, 2024 But then when you view the voyage details, here is the almost correct information. I say "almost correct" since the short blurb describing the voyage still says it's a 7-night voyage. Westbound Transatlantic Crossing, 6 Nights Queen Mary 2 Jun 9, 2024 - Jun 15, 2024 Departs : Southampton, England, UK Arrives : New York, NY, USA Embarking in Southampton, this 7-night voyage will whisk you across the Atlantic Ocean. Savor the freedom to spend each luxurious sea day however you please, indulging in the things you love most.

The estimated 3:00pm arrival time today is looking like a pretty good estimate at this point. If that is the case, I'll be interested to see if they can manage to cut two hours off the usual turn-around time and turn that 8 hour arrival delay into only a 6 hour departure delay for an 11:00pm departure.

Ah, yes. Quite right. QM2 is of course going to be off on her Independence Day Celebration cruise, not a crossing back to Southampton quite yet. It's ironic that her first port of call will be Halifax. As originally scheduled, QM2 would have 38 hours to make that roughly 600NM distance, at an average speed of about 16 knots. If we assume she will have a shortened 30 hours available now, that can be accomplished at an average speed of about 20 knots. That's obviously well within QM2's capabilities.

Here's my timeline of the delay that occurred for the diversion to Halifax. 1) Diversion began June 29 at approximately 02:00 Halifax time. QM2 had to turn 90° to divert from her generally westerly heading toward New York to a generally northerly heading to Halifax about 200NM away. 2) Arrived Halifax at approximately 11:00 local time. 3) Departed Halifax at approximately 12:00 local time. 4) Back out in the open ocean with an equivalent distance to New York as at the point of diversion at approximately 14:00 Halifax time. Therefore, I calculate the diversion cost QM2 about 12 hours total. The fact that she is now scheduled to arrive only 8 hours late tomorrow June 30 is a testament to her ability to make up 4 hours by increasing her speed an average of roughly 3.5 knots during the final run into New York. Now if we assume QM2's departure tomorrow will be delayed 8 hours, I figure she can make up that time by adding about 1.2 knots to her average speed over the duration of the crossing to arrive in Southampton on schedule. That shouldn't be a problem.

That's correct. The reported ETA is 12:30pm local time in New York. That may be the time to pick up the pilot which would make the arrival time at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal about an hour after that. But that's just going by what the ship is reporting via AIS. Hopefully there will be an announcement soon from the ship to confirm the expected arrival time at Brooklyn.

The TickerFactory site is new to me. I've just been taking a look at it myself. Don't copy the "BBCode" or the "HTML code". Copy the "Ticker Web Address" instead as @BklynBoy8 advised. That's a URL to an image that can be pasted into your signature. That should work better for you.

Interesting discussion about registering at the muster stations. I had no idea either that they accepted boarding passes at the muster stations. Perhaps it's different procedures on different ships. My experience on QM2 has been the same as @D&N's. My assumption has been that Cunard wanted us to collect out keycards and watch the safety video on our stateroom TV before attending the muster station. That's the procedure we've followed on QM2 but that's apparently not necessary. I can tell you when we last boarded QM2 in May in Southampton with the first group of diamond guests, we noticed the staff weren't at attendance at the muster stations to register anyone until about half an hour after we boarded. Edit to add: We were booked on separate back-to-back cruises in May, so it's possible my recollection about when staff were at attendance at the muster stations in Southampton might have been for the second half of our voyage when we were in-transit. Sorry, I can't say for sure at this point.

One item to note concerning the short cruise you have chosen is that it will be the first one after QM2 returns from what we presume will be a drydock. There's a gap in QM2's schedule from Oct 22 to Nov 15, 2023. The short 3-night cruise to Zeebrugge departing Oct 16, 2023 will mark her return to service after that gap. Naturally there won't be any carryover of passengers from a previous cruise in this case. Everyone will be newly-embarking on Nov 15 so that in itself will give your cruise a different vibe from most. There may be some passengers who will combine this cruise with the subsequent crossing to New York and cruise to the Caribbean. There is one gala night scheduled for your cruise (a Black and White gala the evening of Nov 17) so you will get a chance to experience one of those. As @Pushpit has noted, there won't be much opportunity for a robust series of Insights guest lectures on your short cruise. Your one sea day on Nov 17 will be the only opportunity for those along with a host of other activities typically only offered on sea days. Enjoy your cruise for what it will be; a taster of what the Cunard experience is all about. But it will be a different experience from a longer cruise with more sea days to settle in and enjoy everything Cunard has to offer.

To expand upon the process at Brooklyn, the staff who greet you as you enter the terminal will remind you to have your boarding pass and passport ready for inspection. The first queue at Brooklyn is to reach an agent who inspects your boarding pass and passport before you are allowed to proceed to the security scanners and then on to the check-in desks after the security screening. Now I don't know what happens if you can't present a boarding pass (either paper or electronic). I suspect we would have heard stories here if folks were denied boarding for lack of being able to present a boarding pass. But I wouldn't want to test the process to find out what extra steps might be required at Brooklyn if you can't show a boarding pass.

For a couple that are both diamond members, a 12 day cruise is the sweet spot for being able to stretch your internet connectivity over the entire cruise at the Essential Plan level. One person can use their benefit to purchase the first 5 days as individual 24 hour packages of $24 each using up $120 of their $135 diamond benefit. Then with 7 days left, the other person can purchase the full voyage plan at $18 per day using up $126 of their $135 diamond benefit. For a longer voyage such as a 14 day cruise, a good strategy at the diamond level is for one person to spread out their purchases of 24 hour packages to cover 5 separate days at the beginning of the cruise, perhaps skipping purchases on port days if applicable. Then once again, the other person can purchase the full voyage plan when there are 7 days left in the voyage.

As a diamond member, I also prefer the new plan, especially for voyages of 7 days. The prices went up earlier this year from $15 to $18 per day for the Essential plan for the full voyage and from $20 to $24 per individual 24 hour purchases. The $135 diamond perk now covers 7 days at the full voyage price of $18 per day or 5 days of individual 24 hour packages at $24 per day. So, for a 7 day voyage, the diamond benefit now provides 24-hour per day connectivity for the entire voyage. The old diamond benefit of 480 minutes meant you were limited to about 1 hour per day over a 7 day voyage.

When you buy an individual day, you have a full 24 hours from the time of purchase. So if you purchase an individual day at 2:00pm, you have until 2:00pm the next day to use it.

Yes, some rough calculations of mine show QM2 needing to sail at an average speed of about 19.3 knots for a typical 7-night westbound crossing. That increases to an average speed of about 22.7 knots for a 6-night westbound crossing. If anyone is wondering why Cunard decided to shorten westbound crossings rather than eastbound crossings, that's probably because westbound crossings take 10 hours longer. Add 5 hours rather than lose 5 hours for time zone changes, for a net difference of 10 hours longer duration going westbound compared to eastbound. I figure QM2 would need to average about 24.4 knots to make a 6-night eastbound crossing in those 10 fewer hours compared to a westbound crossing.

On QM2, first sitting opens at 6:00pm with last call at 6:15pm. There will be some queueing on the first evening as staff shows each group to their assigned table. That can be minimized by showing up a few minutes late the first evening. After that, you may go directly to your assigned table each evening as @TheOldBear has indicated. Sorry, I can't answer you questions about the hot drinks package.

That's correct. QV was in drydock at Harland & Wolff in Belfast for about three weeks during May 2022 after her stint as a support ship in the Caribbean and just prior to her return to service in June 2022.

I don't know of any definitive source for Cunard drydock schedules. I can tell you there is a gap in Queen Victoria's 2024 schedule during October 31-November 14, 2024. She completes a Spain and Portugal cruise at Southampton on October 30, 2024 and resumes service with an Amsterdam Short Break cruise from Southampton on November 15, 2024. Such a gap in the schedule is often a pretty good indicator of a planned drydock especially when there's a "short break" cruise scheduled immediately after the gap (although there are other possible explanations such as a charter). If that gap does indicate a drydock, then it probably won't involve much more than routine inspection and maintenance since that's only two weeks.

The "What to pack" page on the main Cunard website isn't all that helpful about the casual venues when all it has to say is "you’ll find many areas on board where casual dress is welcome." You can find the list of casual venues within My Cunard under "Before you sail", "Important to know", and "Packing for your holiday". Here is what it has to say there about the casual venues. "Of course, if you prefer to spend your evenings in more relaxed attire, feel free to dress casually as you visit any of the following venues: Kings Court or Lido Buffet, Golden Lion, Casino, Carinthia Lounge, Winter Garden/Winter Lounge, and G32 or Yacht Club. Non-ripped jeans are appropriate, but please refrain from wearing shorts, sports attire, swimwear or sleeveless T-shirts outside of the gym, spa and deck spaces." Not all those venues exist on Queen Elizabeth. For Queen Elizabeth, the list of casual venues is Lido Buffet, Golden Lion, Casino, Garden Lounge, and Yacht Club.

Cunard does very few six night cruises. The only ones I can find on itineraries the past couple years are segments from Civitavecchia to Southampton, Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, Adelaide to Fremantle and Fremantle to Melbourne. All those only had one gala evening scheduled. But I don't think those are valid to inform what will happen on a transatlantic crossing that's being shortened to six nights. The standard schedule on a seven night crossing is for the gala evenings to be held on the second and sixth evenings. My expectation for the shortened six night crossings would be for Cunard to still schedule two gala evenings and hold them on the second and fifth evenings. Of course we have no recent experience with six night crossings; certainly none since Cunard reduced the number of gala evenings from three to two per crossing. So this is simply what I anticipate will happen on the six night crossings. For the crossings that are being extended from seven to eight nights, I expect they will have two gala evenings, possibly holding them on the second and seventh evenings.

This may be a good time for an update on the 2023 voyages where I still need the dress code and theme schedules. We're almost there! I'm down to needing only the schedules for these two December voyages. That's just one each for QE and QV. If anyone could provide the schedules for either of these voyages, that would be very much appreciated. Queen Elizabeth Q335: 3 Dec - 17 Dec; New Zealand Queen Victoria V401: 23 Dec - 7 Jan; Canary Islands Celebration

Sorry, the last 6-night crossing I have in my itineraries was the eastbound crossing on April 26-May 2, 2011. The westbound crossing before that one on April 19-April 26, 2011 was 7 nights. It looks like all the 2009 crossings were still 6 nights. It was during 2010 when Cunard started adding 7-night crossings into the mix. Since May 2011, all crossings have been at least 7 nights. It's too bad it took scheduling conflicts at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with all the inherent upheaval to existing schedules to see the return of a few 6-night crossings. To recap, for those who might be interested, I believe these are the three 6-night crossings that are going to be on QM2's 2024 schedule now. All three are westbound crossings. Jun 9-15, 2024 Jun 23-29, 2024 Jul 21-27, 2024 Similarly, for those who might be interested in longer crossings, I believe these are the two 8-night crossings and the one 9-night crossing (including Newport and Boston) that are going to be on QM2's 2024 schedule now because of the Brooklyn scheduling conflicts. All three are eastbound crossings. Jun 15-23, 2024 Jul 27-Aug 4, 2024 Oct 4-13, 2024

Thanks for that update. It's been quite a while since QM2 did a overnight in Halifax. My itineraries show she did a couple very early on in her sailing history during September and October of 2004 but none since then. On the subject of 6-night crossings, I believe the last one of those was over 12 years ago. That was a westbound crossing on April 26-May 2, 2011.

Reading between the lines from the list of impacted voyages, I think we can deduce voyage M419: Independence Day Celebration is going to be extended from 6 nights to 7 nights. The new dates for that voyage are apparently going to be June 29-July 6, 2024. I haven't heard if they might be planning to add another port call to that itinerary. And just for the record, to document all four of the conflicting 2024 dates for Brooklyn in one post, here is what I have and what I understand is happening with QM2's schedule at Brooklyn to resolve those conflicts. Jun 16, 2024 - QM2 moving to Jun 15 Jun 30, 2024 - QM2 moving to Jun 29 Jul 28, 2024 - QM2 moving to Jul 27 Oct 6, 2024 - QM2 moving to Oct 4

I've been reading elsewhere that the 14-night roundtrip crossing from New York previously scheduled for June 16-30, 2024 (M417A) is now going to be June 15-29, 2024. That's the resolution for the conflicting date in Brooklyn on June 30, 2024 I was wondering about. I'm also reading that will be an 8-night eastbound crossing and a 6-night westbound crossing, so the June 23, 2024 arrival/departure date in Southampton won't be changing if that is indeed the case.

It is MSC Meraviglia which is also causing the conflict on October 6, 2024. She's scheduled for an 11-night Canada/New England roundtrip from Brooklyn on September 25-October 6, 2024.