bluemarble

Oh my, I didn't do all that well after all! Upon further review I see she is indeed there for about six seconds starting at 17:20 for the Tunis departure. That must have been a very long blink for me! It looks likes she's there for five seconds starting at 28:13 for the Villefranche departure. And she's there for another five seconds starting at 29:17 for the Livorno arrival as well.

Based on the title of this thread, I thought this was going to be a perfect fit to the John Denver song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". But then I see you are leaving on a train instead. Never mind, it wouldn't have been a perfect fit anyway, since unlike the song, you presumably do know when you'll be back again. 😄 Have a great trip and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it.

Thank you for that video @Colin_Cameron. I think it survived pretty well through all those format transitions. I remember this Cherry problem thread from a few years ago which discussed the Baked Alaska Parade they used to have on cruise ships. Your video shows a good example of that starting at about the 49:00 mark. I did have to endure (er, I mean savor!! 😄) almost the entire video until I spotted a candidate for the future captain of Queen Anne. Is that her making several cameo appearances assisting with the departure from Valletta beginning at 51:20 into the video?

Time for another view of QE in Alaska. QE has returned to Ketchikan today for her third visit this season. The folks at KPU have so many different webcam views at "webcamketchikan.com", let's check out the view from another one of them today. This is the view from their "Mega-View (cam 5)" camera. It shows QE passing the Ketchikan airport in the background with the Taquan Air floatplane facility in the foreground as she arrived at Ketchikan this morning.

First off, let's correct the name of the ship to "Queen Anne". Now regarding the non-refundable deposit, Cunard started offering lower fares with non-refundable deposits in the US a few years ago. For the Queen Anne 2024 voyages, in the US you have your choice of booking what Cunard calls "Our Lowest Fare" with a non-refundable deposit and a guarantee booking where Cunard assigns your cabin. Or you can book the current promotion called the "Summer Savings Event" with a higher fare but with a refundable deposit, choice of cabin, and other perks that come with that promotion. I booked a Britannia Balcony on Queen Anne's February 2024 Caribbean cruise out of Fort Lauderdale. For me it was a very easy decision to book the higher "Summer Savings Event" fare here in the US. The extra perks offered for that fare almost made up the entire price difference over the "Our Lowest Fare", plus I have a refundable deposit, and also very important to me, I was able to pick our cabin. Of course others will see things differently but it would be very hard for me to choose a lower fare with a non-refundable deposit (especially this far out from the departure date) and with no choice of a specific cabin.

Cunard doesn't provide precise port timing but they are available on some cruise booking websites and Cunard's partner websites for several other countries. I'm not sure which late July cruise you are on, the 24 July Norway cruise or the 31 July Spain & Portugal cruise. So here is what I am seeing as the port timings for both of those cruises. 24 Jul - Southampton: Depart 16:30 26 Jul - Bergen: Arrive 13:00, Depart 19:00 27 Jul - Olden: Arrive 08:30, Depart 19:00 28 Jul - Alesund: Arrive 08:00, Depart 17:00 29 Jul - Haugesund: 09:00, Depart 17:00 31 Jul - Southampton: Arrive 07:00 31 Jul - Southampton: Depart 16:30 2 Aug - St Peter Port: Arrive 08:00, Depart: 18:00 4 Aug - La Coruna: Arrive 08:00, Depart 17:00 5 Aug - Porto: Arrive 08:00, Depart 17:00 6 Aug - Lisbon: Arrive 08:00 7 Aug - Lisbon: Depart 18:00 10 Aug - Southampton: Arrive 06:30

Sorry, no I haven't found anything about Insights Speakers beyond the meager (and often out-of-date) information found on the "Guest speakers" page on the Cunard website as well as the "Event cruises" page and a few Cunard press releases that mention featured speakers. A very few voyages have "Guest speakers" tabs on their voyage details pages but those are the same very few voyages that have their speakers mentioned on the main "Guest speakers" page. There are no master lists of Insights Speakers from Cunard any more that I am able to locate.

Thank you and @mushkicrawford. I will update my document at the posted link to reflect this update from Cunard assigning themes for your cruise.

You're not being picky at all. It's important to get these things right. You certainly may be tested at a pharmacy and get a paper certificate. That qualifies as an observed test and whether the certificate is issued electronically or on paper does not matter. I gather.from some of the check-in experiences I have read about, paper certificates are preferred since they are easier and faster for the agents to read and interpret compared to test results on a smart phone. When we boarded at a US port (on another line) we requested a print out of our test results where we were tested and presented that print out at the terminal. It is also important to note as you have that Cunard states antigen tests for boarding in Canada must be taken no more than one day prior to boarding even though the Canadian government's regulations allow two days. The rules for Canada are also a bit different in that they allow 72 hours if you take a PCR test. That's stated as 72 hours, not 3 days, for a PCR test both by Cunard and the Canadian government.

For boarding in the US, the test may be taken two days before you board. In your example for boarding in New York on Sunday, a test taken any time on Friday is fine. Another difference compared to boarding in Southampton is the test for boarding in the US must be an observed test.

As promised, here is a distant partial view of QV in Tallinn, Estonia today. The three ships to the left are AIDAVita, Phoenix Reisen Amera and Queen Victoria at the cruise piers. The other two ships are Isabelle and Silja Europa at the ferry terminals. This is a capture from the Freedom Square webcam hosted by the Baltic Live Cam website "balticlivecam.com". The webcam can be found at "balticlivecam.com/cameras/estonia/tallinn/freedom-square/". I am posting this image with the kind permission of Baltic Live Cam.

The Cunard advertising team seems to know Alfie Boe will be on board QE as well. This was part of an "Experience the magic of the Mediterranean" email I received from Cunard yesterday.

Just to make sure I'm clear, is this what you are seeing as the themes for voyage Q229, the October 3-10, 2022 cruise from Barcelona that @2Oldpeopleinlove was asking about? If so, I will update my master document for QE accordingly.

Well, if those "login" and "create an account" options exist on the Cunard Australia site, then they ought to work. I wonder why I'm not seeing them when I VPN over to Australia and poke around there. Can you give me a hint as to where you found those options on the Cunard Australia site? I don't want to make the assumption that functionality doesn't work for Australia just because I'm not seeing it. Perhaps some of our other regulars from Australia/New Zealand such as @roscoe39, @sfred and @lissie can let us know if they have been able to set up a "My Account" login for Cunard.

Interesting. Does Cunard Australia have the functionality to create an online account? The UK definitely does via the "Login | Register" link on the Cunard UK website. The US definitely does not have that functionality. Since I'm not seeing a "Login | Register" link on the Cunard Australia website, I figured that functionality did not exist for Australia either. I'm probably not looking in the right place though. Could you point me to the page on "cunard.com/en-au" where you are trying to create an online account? On the Cunard UK website, it's called "My Account", and the page is "www.cunard.com/en-gb/login". That page doesn't exist on the "en-au" site.

Quite normal as @Host Hattie has indicated for cruise lines to report your age as of the departure date. That said, I'm having difficulty finding my age listed in the US version of "My Cunard". Is it listed under "Before you sail", "Personal information" in the UK version? All I'm seeing there in the US version are these fields. Name Date of birth Address Mobile number Email address

The threshold for the "Orange" status is "0.3% or more of total passengers and/or crew" (emphasis mine). As of today's report, there are no more "Green" ships on the CDC's Cruise Ship Status Dashboard. As far as I am aware, that's a first. All 94 cruise ships operating in US waters are reporting some level of infection. The CDC does not provide a specific percentage level that triggers the next "Red" status. What they do specify are steps they request ships carry out to mitigate being assigned the "Red" status (such as requiring masks to be worn). I haven't been monitoring the CDC dashboard since the very beginning but so far I have yet to see a ship assigned to the "Red" status. Perhaps it has happened in the past to ships that did not provide the required documentation to the CDC. That's one specific situation the CDC has said in the past will trigger the "Red" status for ships participating in their program for cruise ships.

It's just as well I didn't wait to try to capture an image of QV in the late afternoon sun. The ferry Silja Europa was blocking the view of QV the past few hours and QV is now underway from Helsinki. Next stop Tallinn where I may have a partial distant webcam view of QV to offer. Anything to keep the string going. 🙂

On the subject of lost days, that odd protrusion of the international date line to the east, to place all of Kiribati to the west of the line, went into effect on January 1, 1995. Residents of the islands that moved west of the line on that date lost December 31, 1994 when they went directly from December 30 to January 1. Similarly, the reason you will be losing a day between Honolulu and Apia rather than after departing Apia is because Samoa (and Tokelau) decided to move west of the international date line in 2011. The residents of Samoa lost December 30, 2011 when they moved directly from December 29 to December 31 that year.

Another day, another webcam image showing QV in a Baltic port. QV is in Helsinki today. The other ship in this image is Norwegian Dawn. The early morning light from the east isn't the best but I figured I'd go ahead and post this now rather than wait for the late afternoon sun to give you plenty of time in case you would like to check out the live webcam for yourself. This is a capture from the "West Harbour T2" webcam found on the Port of Helsinki's website at "www.portofhelsinki.fi/en/port-helsinki/web-cameras/west-harbour-t2". I am posting this image with the kind permission of the Port of Helsinki.

The full name of the category on the Cunard website is "Britannia Club Balcony". I'm not aware it has ever officially been named otherwise. Most places on the Cunard website or in the Cunard brochures where the name is shortened call it "Britannia Club". However, the Stateroom Category keys on the Cunard deck plans list the category as "Club Balcony". That might be where that shorthand originated. The various Britannia categories are simply listed as "Club Balcony", "Balcony", "Oceanview" and "Inside" on the deck plans with Britannia assumed. The restaurants are labeled as "Britannia Club" on the deck plans though. Many travel agent websites refer to the category as "Club Balcony". As I see it, "Britannia Club" and "Club Balcony" are both widely used shorthand for the "Britannia Club Balcony" stateroom category. Edit to add: I don't think there has ever been ambiguity regarding the name of the restaurants for the "Britannia Club Balcony" staterooms. As far as I know they've always been named "Britannia Club Restaurant".

Oh, I love questions like this! I'm a complete novice at navigation but I can put some of my math and geography skills to work on this one. Here goes. Scheduled Honolulu departure: 13 Feb 2024 @ 23:00 Scheduled Apia arrival: 20 Feb 2024 @ 06:00 Adjusting for time zones/international date line: 130 hours sailing time Distance from Honolulu to Apia: 2262 NM Average speed to cover 2262 NM in 130 hours: 17.4 knots Distance from Honolulu to Equator along the route to Apia: 1373 NM (estimate) Time to sail 1373 NM @ 17.4 knots: 79 hours So, I figure you ought to cross the equator approximately 79 hours sailing time after you depart Honolulu the evening of 13 Feb 2024. Now the tricky bit is determining the date that will happen. That depends on knowing whether you will cross the international date line before or after the equator. As @ExArkie has indicated, the international date line takes a wide jog to the east around Kiribati along latitudes both north and south of the equator. I'm finding it hard to determine at what point (or perhaps points) the route from Honolulu to Apia crosses that jog in the international date line around Kiribati. Using Cunard's itinerary, it looks like you will be skipping forward from 16 Feb to 17 Feb when you cross the international date line which tends to indicate that will occur before you cross the equator. Other online itineraries make it look like you will be skipping forward from 17 Feb to 18 Feb which tends to indicate you will cross the international date line after the equator. Either way, I agree with @ExArkie that crossing both the equator and the international date line could well happen on the same day. If not, then that will probably happen on consecutive days. Now after all this analysis, someone who has done an itinerary from Honolulu to Apia can probably tell us precisely how the timing works for crossing both the international date line and the equator along that route.

Here's a closer view of QV today, this one as she departed Stockholm a few minutes ago. This is from another one of the many webcams hosted by webbkameror.se. It's from their "Stockholms inlopp 2" webcam found at "www.webbkameror.se/webbkameror/stockholmsinlopp/stockholmsinlopp_2_1280.php". This offers another view from the Danvikshem retirement home, this time towards Djurgården and Waldermarsudde.

Today QV is in Stockholm, Sweden. Here is a capture from another of the webcams hosted by webbkameror.se. This one is from their "Stockholms inlopp 1" webcam found at "www.webbkameror.se/webbkameror/stockholmsinlopp/stockholmsinlopp_1_1280.php". It offers a view from the Danvikshem retirement home towards Gamla Stan and Stadsgården. It shows QV docked at the Masthamnen terminal at Stadsgården berth 167. Peeking out from behind QV is the cruiseferry Gabriella.

Oh, sorry about that. Not sure what's going wrong for you with the link I posted. It's a link to a tweet from Cunard that includes the video. But no worries. The video is the same as the one you posted.