soraya

We're on a cruise that ends in Sydney in January. We'll have a week post cruise in Sydney and then are trying to decide what to do. I love to snorkel but I don't surf. We can either stay in Australia and find a good east coast snorkel place or break up the journey home with a stop in Phuket. The original plan had been to sped a week at the Barrier Reef but with the jellyfish situation in January that isn't an option! Lots of beaches on the East Coast are more geared up for surfing which doesn't usually allow for calm water snorkelling. We're back in Australia next year to see more.  What would you do? Any help appreciated!

I think it's fair to say that Cunard are far more into formal than Celebrity. Overall, perhaps more like HAL in the old days. We enjoyed it a lot but it is not lively in the evening like Celebrity where on our last cruise there was dance music in the atrium, Cunard had a harpist!

Thank you so much for this - especially for posting the menus. I need to plan my days food in advance and I use an app to do it. I can 'choose' what I might have if these menus are used and having it in advance it saves me loads of time compared with doing it onboard 🙂

Thank you for your reports - really enjoying them!

Happy New Year!

Anne, thanks for this, it's v helpful.

As far as tripadvisor vs cruisecritic recommendations, when on a cruise, I prefer companies experienced with cruise ships.

Thank you for the replies. I was surprised by the tone of the replies about my geography, as I thought cruisecritic is usually helpful. Then I realized that I've put UAE rather than Abu Dhabi all the way through the post & title, sigh - my mistake

On another forum, I was chatting about the cruise and the folks thereseemed to think that it was too long a trip  when on a cruise rather than staying in Dubai.I would hope to combine the trip with the Sheikh Zayed mosque.

I have found some prices online, but would prefer to do this with a recommendation for a company from cruisecritic members than tripadvisor etc.

Hi Everyone, We're in Dubai for the day in a few months time. We've been to Dubai a few times and seen most of the sites. We'd really like to see the Louvre in the UAE, but would like some input on whether a shore excursion from Dubai is possible or not a good idea? This cruise doesn't call at the UAE.

I love live blogs and they seem quite infrequent. Our cruise in on 10 January on QM2 so really interested to hear what you think. - especially of the food, daytime activities (we have loads of sea days on our trip), how the new steakhouse is and how dressy things are in the evenings - so pretty much everything apart from the entertainment.

Hope the packing goes well 🙂

Thank you for posting - am really enjoying hearing all about it 🙂

Hi Hattie, I'm not an expert,  but I did read that Cunard weren't intending to have another Commodore. Something about considering it to be out of date.

I'm just glad that we had the chance to try the Verandah on QV in March - we really enjoyed the whole experience. We've got the Steakhouse booked for January and will leave it as there isn't anywhere else nice for a special occaision. If it was a normal holiday though I would wonder about paying for it as there is the other steakhouse option at the Kings Court in the evening - the Smokehouse, which sounds v similar.

Not sure whether you've booked already? I've only done 1 short Cunard cruise, we tried it as an alternative to P&O after a bad experience on the Adonia - although we do tend to cruise with anyone who is going where we want to go, at the right time and price! We had a really fantastic Med cruise with Oceania a few years ago - the food and service was great. Not sure about entertainment as that isn't really our interest, but the ship was beautiful too. HTH

Interesting analysis about the SWS concept. I'm not sure about it, we did Aquaclass and suites on Celebrity which was nice, but not amazing. On reflection, I prefer to cruise on a ship where all the amenities are of a standard that I want rather than just parts of it. If I'm paying a lot more I think I'd prefer Silversea, Regent etc rather than the megaships.

Clearly, it's a business model that works as more companies are going that way.

I find people's reaction to Cunard really interesting. I shared with some Celebrity friends that we were going on a Cunard 4 night cruise to see what it was like and I got a pretty negative response about the Cunard Class system. But Celebrity have what they call the 'Suite Life' with a different restaurant and the new Edge ships, it'll be their own deck. MSC have the Yacht Club and I think NCL have the Haven.

I personally don't see the issue, you pay what you want for the things that have value to you.

We went on a 4 day cruise on the QV and really enjoyed it, with no impact on us from the Grills. It's not a big party ship but we wanted to relax and we really enjoyed little things that some of the other lines we've cruised with have cut back on such as the flowers displays and the live music.

Just a point of correction- it was a 7 night cruise.

 

I believe that the price also included a classic drinks package.

Yes, it was a 7 day cruise !

I've just seen the new Celebrity Edge being advertised. For July next year, two weeks it's £2689 pp for an infinite balcony cabin. For a Single Infinite balcony, it's £2749 total. That's only £60 more very different product, but good pricing.

Annoying when this happens especially if it's the reason you booked the cruise. We were about to book Southampton to Hong Kong when I noticed the change on a website. It was v confusing as Cunard still had KK on their website. I have noticed that one quite a few websites n newspaper offers it still has KK on the itinerary. I do think that they need to let folks know quickly.

Not to compare Cunard with Marella but they sold a cruise called 'Cuban fusions' then months before the cruise cancelled Cuba. That sort of change and you are entitled to cancel. I notice that most of their cruises r now called nonspecific :')things like tapas and tango!:')

I see our voyager personaliser now also discusses the Alternative Find Dining option on QM2 as being "Steakhouse at the Verandah". We're too far out to book anything yet for our voyage, but I've attached the dinner menu from our Voyage Personaliser. Looks to be the same as what was previously posted on "beyondships". This document may be a little easier to read though and it does include a second page with the desserts and wine list.

Our voyage personaliser for January it just has the Verandah, with the higher charge. I have booked a table as it's a special occasion but for me a steakhouse wouldn't be something I'd pay extra for

They also said in March that we were going to have the wettest summer ever! Love the mail weather forecasts!

I thought that all the ships would have the same menus - is that not the case?

I had a look at the new menus from Host Hattie's recent QV cruise and they had 4 meat/poultry main courses, 2 fish and 2 vegetarian courses most nights.

My DH who likes meat and is coliac did notice that a lot of the vegetarian items are marked gluten free. Makes sense from a business perspective to make items multi tasking but he look a bit down at the prospect!

We're in Athens in mid-January. We've been to the main sites a couple of times and were wondering what to do in potentially not great weather. I quite fancied Delphi but have read that with rain in the mountains and shorter daylight times, that this might not be best for January. Can anyone recommend anything else - we're interested in history and food!

We did a cruise on the Oceania Insignia a couple of years ago that stopped at those places and also Patmos and Israel.

Patmos was very atmospheric - we arrived at the cave v early and joined the service going on and it was a tremendous experience.

Israel was also a real experience. I personally found it scary - there was a security issue when we first arrived and an ongoing heightened state of security - they only reopened access to Bethlehem on the morning of our excursion. But seeing the Sea of Galillee and when we went to Bethlehem, we swopped to a local guide 'George' who was so fantastic and gentle in his manner, he recited the Lords Prayer in Aramaic to us which is still on of my top experiences anywhere. He was a sharp contrast to our main guide who spent 3 long days being pretty offensive to just about every major world religion!

And when you separate the scone - don't use a knife! :eek:

Hattie, thank you so much for your posts and for taking the time to post the new menus - really appreciate it Glad you enjoyed yourselves:)

Look forward to hearing about the journey. Interesting about the Verandah - it's back on the Cunard website at the $49.95 as it used to be, so I thought that they had reverted to the previous menus.