The start of our Panama Canal voyage January-February 2023

How the trip started...

We were on a QM2 crossing in December 2021, when the Voyage Sales office dropped off the complete Cunard voyage catalog for the next few years. We always buy a few Future Cruise Certificates when onboard, but this time a specific voyage caught my eye. We'd been toying with the idea of a Panama Canal transit for a while. Most of those we'd looked at sailed from Florida. What caught my eye in the catalog was a Queen Victoria Panama Canal transit that sailed from New York. Since we're in Philadelphia (just 90 miles, or so, from New York) and have sailed on the QM2 out of Red Hook numerous times, that was a huge plus.

At our appointment with Voyage Sales we were delivered the bad news that our Panama Canal trip was a leg of the World Voyage, and that our leg was sold out. We went ahead and put our names on the waiting list. I expected that we'd hear that there was an opening in a few weeks. Nope!

Almost every week I signed onto the Cunard site and attempted to make a dummy reservation, to see if any cabins had come open. In a few weeks, in late January, a balcony cabin seemed to be available! A quick email to our travel agent, and he confirmed that we could put a deposit down. That was easy, we had two Future Cruise Certificates from last December. We were at last certain of going.

I don't like the idea of 'Guarantee' cabins, but our new Booking Confirmation showed that's what we had reserved: a category BD (aft balcony) guarantee. I thought we'd be OK because that grade had cabins above and below, so it'd be quiet. And being at the aft the ship wouldn't bother us, we both have our sea legs. Normally, the far forward and far aft locations have much more 'motion'.

So, rather than signing into the Cunard site to see if any cabins were available, now I was signing in on a weekly basis to see if we'd been assigned a specific cabin! Week after week: nope, still just a guarantee.

Then, on December 9th, about a year from when we made our reservation (and just over a month before departure), we got an email from our travel agent advising us of an upgrade offer from Cunard. His words: "This is a good deal". It was, it was a *really* good deal. So we jumped on it. Not only was it a good deal, but I'd been corresponding on Cruise Critic with "Roscoe39". He had just cancelled his 2023 World Voyage, and his now-free cabin was what was being offered. Even though it's a Princess Grill cabin (5002), it's larger than many of the Queens Grill cabins. Because it's so large, it often sells out immediately. We couldn't believe our luck!

So, that's the convoluted tale of our embarking on the Panama Canal transit, from wait list to being in a Standard Balcony then jumping to a huge Princess Grill cabin. We leave in exactly a week, and can't wait.