Colin_Cameron

Windsurfboy,

I was thinking the cruise date / cancellation date / request date, would give us a clue as to which one they were using to prioritise refunds. 

I would hope that booking via a TA or direct wouldn’t have any impact but you never know.

And it’s always possible that, eg. the US office uses the sail date, the UK uses the cancellation date, and AUS uses the refund request date as their primary criteria. Or maybe one office just gets through their list faster than the others. 

Can I suggest that if/when refunds start to come through we start a thread to track the progress.

Not for questions, speculation or comment but just, eg. cruise date, cancellation date, refund request date, received date, probably where in the world you are, booked direct or through a TA, any other relevant details.

This would give those waiting an idea of whether the 45/60 day schedule is being kept to, or allow them to reset their expectations.

Just a thought.

Hi Folks,

Went beyond the garden gate for the first time in over three weeks today to our local Tesco (local being about 5 miles away). Every aisle is one-way and for some reason every one of them is the opposite direction from the way I normally go. Really confusing.

Got my first Skype funeral tomorrow, and another one probably early next week! One of the local funeral directors installed this set-up about a year ago (for people with family and friends abroad) but it's really come into its own in the last month.

Only slight delay we had one time was when the old room hangers were of the hotel type, where the ring stays on the rail, and the new room had hook on hangers meaning all the clothes had to be transferred onto new hangers. But this was all done for us, it just took ten or fifteen minutes longer.

Having not sailed PG since QE2 I’ve been avoiding this thread as I have nothing relevant to contribute. But since others have already mentioned Britannia Club I’l now chip in my tuppence worth.

Aside from the cabin, I have to say that our restaurant experience in Britannia Club on QE outshone our QG experiences on both QV and QM2 in both the food and service departments. Maybe we were lucky (or unlucky - or both)!

42 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

"light the blue touch paper".

Don’t know what your online references say, but I know it from instructions on fireworks, “light the blue touch paper and retire.”

Clearly Hattie is quite a bit younger than me, “stand well back”, must have replaced “retire”, a long time ago.

2 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

I got quite excited this afternoon, my boss referred to me as a Senior Spares Engineer in an email ! When I enquired if that meant a promotion he told me that I was just the oldest !! 

First, may I offer my condolences on the death of your colleague.

And much less importantly, Re this afternoon’s conversation: I’ve been there as well. When one of my workmates laughed at my toolkit because it was older than he was, and another helpfully pointed out that I had been working for the company for fifteen years before he was born, or when I was chatting-up a customer (in a purely professional manner obviously) and discovered that I once went out with her mother...! That was when I knew it was time to move on. But it hasn’t stopped me getting calls from management, “How do I ...?”, “ Where do we...?”

I'd guess that anyone facing increased costs and reducing their prices is probably going to be offering a product that I could do without.

Had a similar experience a number of years ago (when it was a bit of green card stapled into your passport). Somebody forgot to remove the cards from the passports for a whole planeload, and a friend has had the same thing as well. Neither of them anything to do with Cunard.

I don't think this is uncommon (but you still need to sort it). 

Don't want to worry you but when my friend next went to the states he was refused entry and put on the first plane home. As you say, hopefully, it would now get picked up at the ESTA /waiver stage.

21 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

The remaining passengers certified to the medical center that they were unable to fly.  Not all are British and it will be interesting to see what happens to them when they get to the UK.

Reading the World Cruise roll-call it seems at least one has already made a miraculous recovery from whatever it was that made them 'medically unfit to fly'. I always knew an ocean voyage was good for you.

I'd be quite happy to see Carnival Corp & PLC place those who subsequently fly after disembarking QM2 on the No-Sail list for needlessly endangering the lives of other passengers and crew. I don't believe it's possible for any of them not to have been ashore in the two weeks prior to leaving Fremantle, or not to have interacted in some way with someone who was.

2 hours ago, Roger88 said:

I wonder what is the total sum of refunds that they have to pay to all those passengers lol. How many cabins are there? 500 -1000? This will be devastated for the cruisers. Did anyone received any information on the situation? I called the office of the Cunard just for my personal interest but I could not talk to anyone. Apparently  the line is super busy. ...

So now you know. When you’re half a world away from home with no way of getting back and you’re in the hands of Cunard but can’t get through on the phone. Now you know why.

Yes. We were denied boarding in Fremantle on the 14th March.

We got an email that morning and were close enough to walk to the dock to deal with things in person rather than by email or phone.

Cunard organised transport and hotels and the following night we got a call about our flights. The flight details were in an email that was in our inbox the following morning. Part of it telling us to keep receipts for out-of-pocket expenses (we didn't have any).

Some people didn't wait for Cunard and I thought at the time that if Cunard didn't organise their flights, and didn't authorise them to do so then I expected them to have to claim on their insurance (who may try to recover some or all of the costs from Cunard).

I'd be interested to know what insurance company you were with? A company that doesn't answer its 24hour emergency contact number is one to be avoided.

Hope you get it all sorted, one way or another.

Had a call from our travel agent a couple of hours ago. They had a call from Cunard about our 14th March QM2 voyage from Fremantle to Southampton that was cancelled on 14th March (perhaps still 13th March in the UK)

Cunard informed them that the refund would be paid direct to our credit card. Only after the call ended the travel agent realised that would difficult as Cunard didn’t have our cc info. We paid the TA and they paid Cunard.. They called back and the response was along the lines of ‘Ah! ... Yes ... Umm. ... We’ll send them a cheque.’

So it looks like no matter what, refunds will go direct to the customer. And even if not to an ideal timetable, things are progressing.

On 3/25/2020 at 11:07 AM, Colin_Cameron said:

Never mind rice, pasta, toilet rolls and all that nonsense.

 

WE'RE OUT OF TONIC!

I have no idea who you are but to the person who left two packs of Fever Tree on our doorstep:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH👍

58 minutes ago, Jack E Dawson said:

 

How is it that Cunard can offer one type of guidance to one ship and completely different guidance to the other.

I'm not so sure that they did. (But I don't KNOW any more than anyone else on this board)

On the day that they made the decision to suspend all operations the two ships were in different situations. QM2 was in port, in a country that would that would allow them to disembark the passengers. QV was at sea, heading for a country that wouldn't.

Like you, I thought at first that if they had made the decision a few hours earlier, before allowing people ashore in Fremantle they would have been able to carry on. No consolation for those of us waiting to board there but perhaps for those onboard willing to continue, non-stop to Southampton. But then I realised that they had been ashore the day before in Bussleton, and a couple of days before that in Adelaide, and a couple of days before that in Melbourne. Even those who boarded in Sydney hadn't been on a full two weeks. It was, theoretically, quite possible that there were a large number of infected people aboard not yet showing symptoms.

QV was heading for Ft Lauderdale where US authorities wouldn't allow anyone other than US citizens off the ship. It wasn't any decision on Cunard's part that 'allowed them to continue the cruise', but rather the inability to end it.

Hello from the naughty step. (AKA my second home)

We got a frozen food delivery today and as normal Sandra put the frozen food in the freezer and I played with the dry ice that keeps it frozen in transit. Sink-full of warm water, add what remains of the dry ice, and watch the mist that fills the basin and cascades down the front of the sink-unit to the floor. For some extra fun add a spot of washing up liquid.

Now, maybe A) The water was hotter than usual; or B) I put in a little more washing up liquid than usual; or C) There was definitely MUCH more dry ice than usual; or D) All of the above.

The kitchen looks like a disco in Ibiza! We’re knee deep in foam! And it’s still rising!

If you don’t hear from me again, send someone to look for my body.

2 hours ago, SilverHengroen said:

... you're talking about halving the number of passengers = doubling the fare per person. 

It’s worse then that. If you half the passengers, you half the onboard spend.

You can argue about the profitability of base fares versus onboard spend, and it will be different for each line, but regardless, it would mean more than a 100% rise.

Never mind rice, pasta, toilet rolls and all that nonsense.

WE'RE OUT OF TONIC!

Not really sure what things are like here. We haven’t been out since we got home on Saturday from our cancelled QM2 trip.

We’d been away from home for two months (should have been three) and as we’re prone to power cuts at this time of year we’d emptied and turned off the freezer. As we thought we would be ‘locked up’ for two weeks we tried to do an online shop from Australia but that wouldn’t work and once we got here we found that the first available delivery slots are next month. Fortunately friends and neighbours had anticipated our return and we are adequately stocked for the short term. Then tonight’s news!

It seems that domestic repairers are not considered essential services so I spent the afternoon stripping down, repairing and rebuilding the dishwasher which had gone on strike while we were away. 

Mrs C_C has now finished the holiday washing which means I have enough ironing to see me through to Doomsday (which might not be that far off).

As we weren’t due home until nearer the end of April we had also run down the coal stock. Given that we’ve gone from 30C to 30F in a couple of days, with hindsight, that now looks like a bad decision. I wonder if I could swap ironing duties for log chopping duties?

Once I get done with that there’s all the photos from our trip to be sorted out (Good news: There’s not as many as there might have been). And then there’s he family history research that I haven’t looked at for at least a couple of months. I think boredom is the least of my worries.

Finaly made it home about 10:30 (GMT) this morning.

51 hours door to door.

7 days since we were standing on the dock in Fremantle.

From 30C to 30F.

On reflection, could Cunard have done better? Without a doubt.

Overall, would another line have done any better? I doubt it. They would probably have done things differently. They may have communicated better, but I'm hearing of some lines where everyone has had to make all their own arrangements.

We've come home with not one penny to try and reclaim from anyone. We haven't had to deal with hotels, taxis, airlines or insurance companies. That's got to count for something.

The last time we were in a somewhat similar situation, 20+ years ago, when we went to our travel agent the day after getting home they already had the refund cheque sitting on their desk. Somehow, I suspect that in the age of instant, online, electronic banking it's going to take a little longer this time.

We've got a mountain of mail and it'll probably take our 14 days in isolation to get through it.

Once on board I realise that because of the time difference it’s going to be 27 hours before I have to drive so decide to treat myself to a dry martini (or two) at the onboard bar. It’s not the Commodore Club but we all have to make sacrifices at times like this.

We only made up about ten minutes of the two hour delay so as expected we missed our connection. Bad News: the Emirates Business lounge at Dubai is closed. Good News: we have to slum it in the First Class lounge for the next seven hours. The timing has turned out to be quite fortunate as from tonight all the lounges at Dubai will be closed. Not sure how putting the same number of people into a smaller space and closer proximity is going to help though.

Further update on Cunard fb

We know many of you are interested in the current locations of our ships, so the following information should be helpful. Today, Thursday 19 March, our Cunard ships are in the following locations: 

Queen Elizabeth has disembarked all guests and is currently anchored at the Port of Gladstone. 

Queen Mary 2 is crossing the Indian Ocean on passage back to Southampton, due to arrive 11 April and berth at the QEII terminal. 

Well, that’s us checked out of the Pan Pacific. We’re definitely the last of Saturday’s arrivals, and possibly the last Cunard people to leave. Six days in a decent hotel and the total bill came to A$10. That’s not bad going.

Just before we were due to leave I got a text from Emirates. Our Perth-Dubai flight has been delayed 2 hours. And since we had less than 2 hours to make our connection on to Glasgow it’s a safe bet that’s not going to happen.

Because of the delay, when we get to the airport the check-in desks won’t open for another hour but we meet lots of rafinmd’s former shipmates from Crystal Serenity. And one really obnoxious woman who was ‘absolutely disgusted’ by anything and everything. She’s from Manchester, and has never been any further than Birmingham before (less than 100 miles) and should never have made this trip. I think everyone in the queue agreed with her. When one of the Crystal reps asked if she was with their group her reply was, ‘No. We’ve paid for our tickets.’

Another holdup at security when the scanner spots my little multi tool. I was sure it was in one of the checked cases, and even though there’s nothing on it any longer than 1” it gets binned.

But all that is behind us. We’re in the Emirates lounge with plentiful supplies of Veuve Clicquot and Moët. Just my luck as, when we do make it to Glasgow, I have to drive (straight into self isolation)

35 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

At the airport but the booking is only to Sydney.

 

 Roy 

Have a safe and speedy trip home.

Maybe the next time we meet it will be under better circumstances.

Colin.

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

QE has made that turn to the northwest. Not sure what to make of that. Unfortunately that does put the earlier reports that she might be planning on returning to Southampton back into play.

From Cunard’s fb 

We know many of you are interested in the current whereabouts of our ships, so the following information should be helpful. Today, Wednesday 18 March, Cunard ships are in the following locations: 

Queen Mary 2 is crossing the Indian Ocean towards Mauritius on passage back to Southampton, estimated arrival 11 April. 

Queen Elizabeth has disembarked all guests and is staying in Australian waters.