Paul NH

Yes, I have experienced this problem.  There are suspiciously few cabin options available on every sailing.

I have friends onboard who signed up to be extras.  The crew is meeting with all the extras at 6 p.m. tonight in the Commodore Club.  Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep are in the movie but it's not clear if they are going to be on the voyage.

Marine tracker shows it underway again, but heading north.  Maybe it's a software glitch

I think that is in Greenwich time, which would make it even earlier.

How are the seas the first couple of days?

On our very first QM2 trip, we were seated at a table for 8 with only two older British ladies. They were absolutely charming and we decided not to mention this odd seating arrangement.

 

Absolutely charming until the second evening when the entree arrived...over cooked. This genteel lady slammed her fist on the table....told the waiter loudly, in no uncertain terms, that this was unacceptable and she wanted a replacement immediately. Then she turned to me and said, in a lovely little voice, "so dear, are you enjoying your trip". I was stunned and speechless.

Great tidbit.

Whoopi Goldberg was onboard, but as a regular passenger, not entertainment. I saw her several times early in the morning on the boat deck while walking, but never knew who she was until after the last time I saw her. She had caught my attention the morning of the last full day at sea because I walked 4 miles around the deck and she was walking in the opposite direction, so we passed each other twice every rotation. At one point I didn't see her at the halfway point and then saw her a bit later in the loop and quickly said to her "I thought you had quit" and she said something like, "Oh no, I walk for two hours." At the time I thought I was just making small talk with a typical passenger, but shortly after that learned that she was on board and was always walking the deck earlier in the morning. She was somewhat incognito, no signature glasses hanging low on her face or visible braids/dreadlocks (she had a hood on as it was drizzling lightly).

 

I don't know if it was just me, but with two exceptions, I thought the entertainment was not up to the caliber of prior trips. I think I have been spoiled by past Oxford and other lecturers who were really, really interesting. No Royal Astronomy Club on board or anything like that on this cruise. The lecture topics on this trip just didn't interest me. And Viva Italia and the singing part of the Christmas show were a bit ... eh (we skipped Apassionata (sic?) as we have seen it manyatimesa). The vocal range of the current four lead Cunard singers seemed limited/flat, compared to prior Cunard singers.

 

Entertainment highlights were a baritone singer, Jeremy Hew Williams who did two separate day concerts in the Royal Court Theater, and an electric violinist whose name I forgot. Williams was a professional opera singer and along with the pianist, were a real treat to see live up close in the ship's theater (and this from someone who has never been to an opera). As I mentioned before, we missed a lot of shows; one time I poked my head in the theater and there looked to be an interesting acrobatic act going on. Another time there was a solo female singer on stage, but she was talking in between songs when I briefly poked in, so I didn't get to hear her sing.

 

I should mention that my critique above does not apply to the QM2 band, which I think is consistently great, and the various pianists, jazz players, and classical quartet that circulate about between the lounges. Any one of them, be it in the middle of the day or in the lounges at night are always a treat to listen to.

 

I complained about the sailaway parties in my live thread, but my older son corrected me later and said that I've missed being back there when they peaked, and instead wandered by before or after they were actually really hopping. So I stand corrected.

 

We went to Todd English for lunch on the last full day at sea. The weather outside on that last day was pretty dismal, raining most of the day. I've been to Todd English for lunch where the bar music from Deck 8 aft would come blasting in every time a staff member opened the back to go out to service the bar from the back of Todd English. Considering the weather outside, I figured it would be safe to go there for lunch that day. The four of us had a very good time there. The food was delicious and the service was just right ... and no crazy music from outside! We had to skip dessert to see the baritone singer at 2 p.m. but as people mentioned before, the servings are large so we were stuffed anyway. I should mention that it is much more expensive to go there now - say goodbye to that flat fee for either meal. It is truly an ala carte restaurant now. But we had a very good experience there this time.

 

I will complain once again about the strobe lights of the too-many photographers on Decks 2 and 3 intruding into the lounges at night. Terrible, terrible intrusion.

 

Overall, the waiters in the lounges, restaurants, and our room steward and the deck stewards all seemed to be in prime form, on top of their game. I still hate the way the stateroom corridors are all cluttered up with carts, dirty towel bins, vacuum cleaners and trash the better part of the day and early evenings, but besides that, the staff were almost always prompt, friendly and competent. The ship is always very clean and you can see people working hard to keep it that way.

 

It was interesting sailing into gail force winds and snow when Commodore Rynd brought the ship in early the night before. It was cool seeing snow on the decks. Disembarkation was delayed, and because we were on Deck 5, we were one of the last 400 to disembark. I won't go into detail on the complete incompetence of the Brooklyn Terminal traffic control personnel that were out in front of the terminal on the morning we disembarked. I think the earlier you got off, you wouldn't have seen the issue as much; it's when the later disembarkers started to tangle with newly arriving passengers for the next leg that things really got bad. Traffic into the terminal was backed up all the way a mile or so away in Brooklyn. They employees supposedly directing traffic should all be fired or undergo massive amounts of technical and motivational training. I could write a whole page on that snowy mess of an experience that morning but don't want to focus any more attention on it.

 

I think that's all I have to say about this trip. I won't bother discussing the islands, but they were a good selection and we had fun on every one of them. As I said, I think the pace of the itinerary was perfect for a holiday cruise. We had a very good time and will definitely consider doing this trip again.

 

Hope this review was helpful.

 

Paul

Cunard did a good job with Christmas and New Years on this trip. On Christmas Eve there was a passenger sing-along of various Christmas hymns and songs in the Main Lobby. There was a huge turnout for the event and it was moving to sing and hear the collective singing of one to two hundred passengers gathered on both levels and along the stairs. There was also a Christmas Eve service conducted in part by the Commodore. When we returned to our staterooms that evening there were wrapped gifts and a card from Cunard - a nice coffee mug. We thought this was a nice gesture. On Christmas day there were various services/mass about the ship and the Director announced over the lounge speakers that Santa had been sighted, and eventually he "arrived" and paraded first through most of the Kings Court with a Dixie jazz band following along playing Christmas music, until going down through the Main Lobby and back to the Queens Lounge to sit with the children on board. Later they broadcast the Queen's Christmas Address in the Queens Lounge and Golden Lion Pub. I had never seen her address so this was mildly entertaining as an American. On Christmas night paper crowns were provided in the Britannia Dining Room. The only thing lacking, I thought, was the evening show in the Royal Court Theater. It was advertised as a Christmas Show and it was really not. There was a great electric violinist (sorry, forgot his name but he is somewhat known in England) and it would have been nice if he played some Christmas songs, but he did not. As hinted at before, the best Christmas gift of all was the fantastic tropical weather out on deck.

 

For New Years Eve, the dining room was really done up festively, with brightly colored balloons and confetti on all the tables. Party hats and tiaras were waiting for us at our tables as well as horns. The horns were great fun. Many people took to blowing them as we were all getting seated which was a lot of fun to see the dining room in that sort of sound state. The horns settled down but every once in a while there would be an outburst that would spread through the room. The waiters were clearly rushing things along by the end of the meal; I assume they had somewhere below that they wanted to get to. We went next to the Commodore Club, where sometime after 11 the Commodore appropriately came through wishing guests a Happy New Year. Around 11:30 we wandered down to Deck 2 and the Main Lobby was packed and we proceeded back to the Queens Room and did the countdown from there in a very packed room. Free champagne was passed about. We then went back to the Main Lobby which had the sail-away band and there was a lot of dancing going on. Young people were in the glass elevators dancing and going up and down the two on them continuously while the band played on. Then we went to G32, which I never saw so crowded and alive (although my older son told me that's because I'm never back there after midnight on other nights when the club really picks up).

 

I am happy to confirm that a tidal wave did not come along and capsize the ship shortly after midnight.

 

So I did not know what to expect for both of these events on this holiday cruise and we ended up being very happy with the level of festiveness.

 

Paul

BTW, did any cigarette smokers get grief by trying to puff in Churchill's?

Only once did a couple of women come in and ask if we minded if they smoked and the four of us who were there with cigars told them that we did not mind. But they hurried their smoke along because they said they did not want to get the waiter in trouble, or get him agitated.

Because the weather was so nice on this trip, I did not spend as much time indoors attending events or places that I might have done more of had I been on a transatlantic. A typical routine at sea would be to wake up around 7-8, have a cup of coffee in the Kings Court, walk several miles around the boat deck, meet up with family for breakfast in Britannia, walk some more on deck, or sit in a deck chair, maybe go to Sir Samuels for a coffee or by then head into the Chart Room for a jazz concert, then to Britannia for lunch, then catch an afternoon concert in the Royal Court Theater, or go back up on deck, and then to Churchill's Cigar Lounge and then dinner. The days would go by in such an entertaining and relaxing way. Our family of four would sometimes do things all together, or just a couple of us would meet up, or we would be off on our own doing our own thing. It was a nice mixture. On Christmas Day, for instance when we were still at sea, I parked myself on a deck chair on the boat deck from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and switched between reading, sleeping, and staring out at the deep blue water. It really was a wonderful and relaxing way to spend vacation time.

 

One of my favorite routines was eventually wandering up to Churchill's Cigar Lounge and meeting up with people. Several of us became shipboard friends as we all settled into a routine that by chance brought us into Churchill's at similar times during the day. We would relax with a cigar and talk about anything and everything, frequently with a late afternoon cocktail. I really enjoyed my time in that lounge, so it is unfortunate that the ventilation is so awful in there. I do not understand how this cigar lounge was planned from the birth of this ship and yet contains no fresh air circulation. The air in there gets very, very cloudy with cigar smoke and all of us were amazed by the poor circulation. Cunard has some portable piece of equipment on the floor in the corner that I nicknamed the "Placebo Machine" which would make a lot of unnecessary noise while doing nothing to clean the air. And for some reason Cunard has taken away the matches from the lounge tables ... in a cigar lounge mind you. I once saw a gentleman come in and purchase a cigar and the waiter could not light his cigar. Luckily a number of passengers had lighters on them, but we were all puzzled on how the staff that serviced a cigar lounge had no lighters/matches and couldn't explain why they were not provided. Despite these two issues, this lounge is a big draw for a select subset of passengers and I meet the most interesting people in them - many who I feel would make great longer term friends under more practical circumstances.

 

The Tea Service in the Queens Lounge was improved from a couple of years ago as well, in terms of coverage by the waiters. My favorite day for tea is when the QM2 band plays during it. But the service seemed more attentive than prior years, although it could still fluctuate at times. But my son did tell me though that one time he and my wife were there and he asked for four desserts off the tray at once and the waiter said to him, "The Kids Zone is down the hallway." My wife and him (I had not yet arrived at the tea table) and other son were surprised by the comment, and my son was a bit insulted. When he came over again and my son had some sandwiches, he told him that he should watch his appetite for dinner. They couldn't tell if he was trying to joke with him or what was going on with his comments, and thought it was very weird. Similar to Churchill's, we would sometimes share a table with other passengers and meet some nice people and have a good chat about random things.

 

I'll continue my thoughts on this trip in another installment.

 

Paul

That sort of impression left with the passengers is not good. I do not expect waiters or any staff to be all smiley around me. In fact, I often get the impression they are trained to be overly smiley ... or else, which is a shame. But they should not come across as surly either. That's pretty unacceptable, especially if you are noticing it on an ongoing basis.

 

By the way, on the QM2 I specifically asked if they served Costa Coffee in the coffee bar (Sir Samuels) and a woman showed me a generic bag of coffee that did not have the Costa Coffee logo on it anywhere. The coffee was very good.

When are you going? In the middle of winter, you probably won't get much use out of a balcony. I don't think there are third person options with balcony cabins except for some of the obstructed view ones on Deck 8.

Allow me to jump to the conclusion of this review from the outset: this cruise was a very enjoyable one and my family and I had a great time. This was my 6th trip on QM2, and all the prior ones were transatlantic. The itinerary was perfect with 3 full days at sea heading to the islands, then island hopping for 5 days, then 3 full days at sea on the return. I was traveling with my wife and two sons, 20 and 21, who are typically away at college these days. The dates for this trip were perfect for all of our schedules, and the great tropical weather is a good getaway destination. Sailing out of New York allowed us the luxury of not having to get involved with a plane, although I know a number of people connected to the port via flights. So, having provided a "thumbs up" to this trip at the start of my review, I will now move onto the good and the bad details (some may be called nits) I experienced during the 12 days. After all, this site is called Cruise *Critic*.

 

The layout and grandeur of the QM2 continues to impress and please. The reason I keep returning to this ship is ... the ship. The boat deck (Deck 7) is a great walking deck with a continuous deck all the way around. The cabins are well designed and can absorb a lot of clothing. I never felt claustrophobic in our Deck 5 balcony cabin the entire 12 days. The life center of the ship, Decks 2 and 3 are well laid out and especially shine in the evenings. The Chart Room is my favorite lounge. Sir Samuels during the day is a great place to park ones self and have an espresso or other hot beverage, and read a book or chat with someone (they have great little desserts as well). The champagne lounge continuous to look very classy. The Grand Lobby always has a hub-bub of people milling about. I can go on and on about the various public rooms, including the Commodore Club, Churchill's Cigar Lounge, Royal Court Theater, etc. They all function well at the job they are supposed to do.

 

I saw an improvement in the Britannia Dining Room since 2011, but there are still issues that we observed - not because we were looking for them, but because we could not help being made aware of them. First of all, I am impressed at the amount of fine-tuned work going on in the dining room to get hot, sometimes gourmet food out to 2,000+ passengers. Our table was situated about 30 or so yards on the starboard side of the ship from the kitchen entrance, and my seat faced that entrance and I could not help but watch the intensity of waiters coming and going with scores of trays, at lightning speed. Those waiters work hard.

 

What I started to noticed though, after a few days, was that this was a highly tuned dining room machine, created by fine-tuning the exact minimum number of people needed to get the job done. As a result, I eventually noticed that there was always a hurrying going on and that things were going to happen in that dining room when Cunard needed them to happen, not when we were ready for them to happen. It becomes more noticeable as more time goes by like a 12 day itinerary.

 

The sommelier service in Britannia is very poor. This comment has nothing to do with the particular sommelier that covered our table, but everything to do with a calculation that someone in management made on how many sommeliers they think are needed for the Britannia Dining Room. Our poor sommelier was running around like crazy. I thought she was going to have a heart attack on Christmas night - and I am not exaggerating that observation. She was working as fast and as hard as she could but it was obvious she had way too many tables to cover. I noticed all this because I would be waiting for her to get to our table to take a wine order, and then I would be waiting for her to being the bottle over. And since the finely tuned dinner machine would never pause to coordinate the timing of the wine with the appetizers and dinner, it detracted from the meal to wonder if the wine would arrive in time for the entree. In 2005 I remember asking our sommelier what wine she would recommend for the meals we were having, and how relaxed the conversation was and well thought out the suggested pairing was. Now, it is a completely ludicrous, rushed service. Our table skipped wine many nights because we did not want to experience the stress of the whole process. In an attempt once to get our wine early, towards the end of the cruise, I figured out a rather pathetic method; when she brought the wine list at the beginning of the seating, I didn't even open up the list so as not to let her go away, and immediately said: "Bring me your least expensive Merlot". That way I got my order in before the nightly craziness started with all the tables she had to cover. I would have thought that wine at dinner would be a lucrative business for Cunard and that they would staff it accordingly.

 

Our waiters were friendly, and were never late or out of sync with delivering the plates, but they just barely spoke English, and this really detracted from the experience in Britannia. Three times we had a wrong plate put in front of one of us. In all those cases the problem was remedied promptly. On two occasions the one waiter did not know what a particular dish or appetizer was when we asked him for an explanation and had to go off and find out. And when he did explain a dish at our request, I could not fully understand what he was saying. I got to know a table neighbor with the same waiters, via Churchill's, and he told me their table was having the same language problem and that he had received a wrong order several times and had resigned himself to just accepting whatever was put in front of him because the food was good.

 

The food was generally good and frequently of gourmet caliber, but one night I ordered Venison and literally could not chew the piece in my mouth to resolution and had to remove it. Another friend I met in Churchill's told me he had the exact same problem. So I have to be surprised by this because I would not expect to experience a poor quality meat like that at a local restaurant or diner - much less a Cunard ship.

 

I never got tired of walking into that dining room and taking in its ambience, the soft lighting, the live music on the balcony, the nicely dressed passengers, and smiling, pleasant staff. It's a classy experience with lasting power. People dressed well even on informal nights when most of us wore ties under our jackets and women wore very nice dresses. The Britannia Dining Room had a great feel to it the whole voyage.

 

I suppose I have gone on too long about the experience in Britannia and will take a break and pick up with other parts of the trip in a later installment(s).

 

Paul

New Year's Eve was well done on board last night. Very festive in the dining room with balloons, hats and horns, along with confetti strands on the tables. I've never seen the ship so vibrant as last night. G32 was packed, along with the rest of the lounges. We saw the New Year in at the Queens Lounge.

 

We are on our second-to-last full day at sea. The temperature is beginning to drop back to reality, although still warm enough on deck.

 

Will collect and organize my thoughts when I get home and do a full review of the trip. This itinerary was perfect for the holiday.

 

Happy New Year all.

 

Paul

Hello All,

 

It is hard to post updates as I am too busy having a good time. Ha ha. A few more observations from this cruise, which is just past the midway point.

 

- Nice island itinerary. We have done something different on each island and the weather has been spectacular.

 

- Our waiters in Britannia are efficient, but both are difficult to understand due to accents. This detracts some from the experience. One time the waiter gave my son a Vegetarian dinner when he ordered Venison. At other times the other waiter who is very friendly was doing some light banter with me and I couldn't understand most of what he was saying.

 

- The Commodore's cocktail party concept needs recalibration. Yesterday they had to have two of them and ours (at 7:45 p.m.) was very very overcrowded. The speaker said that something like 66% of the passengers are gold or higher. When it gets that crowded in the Queens Room it loses its fun. And as some of you know, the second half of the event becomes an infomercial for Cunard. The idea of this event is a nice idea, but the actual reality of it is something different. I don't think I'll attend any more of these.

 

- Twice so far I was told they were out of a certain cognac/brandy listed on the cocktail list in Churchill's.

 

- The sailaway party aft continues to be a forced event most times. I went back to meet my son a couple of nights ago, and there were only about a dozen people there, with music blasting so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. Have you ever attended events where people in charge think the louder you turn up the music the better the event will be? NOT! I can't imagine what it would be like to be in those suites overlooking the deck and having to listen to that every evening.

 

- As the trip progresses it seems like the number of photography setups are thankfully reducing. The ship is beautiful at night. The Chart Club continues to shine, and it is very popular just before dinner, with great music playing.

 

- With only one exception (a Venison entree for dinner which was inedible) the food has been very good and I am overeating. Me and my one son skipped dinner last night from extreme satiation.

 

- The ship is kept meticulously clean as always.

 

- It appears that Sir Samuels does not serve Costa Coffee. The waitress pulled the bag out from under the counter and it was a generic bag.

 

- The passageways are still cluttered most of the day and early evening with carts, towels, vacuum cleaners etc. I've learned to just accept that unsightly bit of semi-permanent scenery.

 

- I also have just accepted having our coffee after dessert. It really wasn't that big of a deal - it just struck me that I couldn't seem to change the practice. Thanks to all for clarifying that custom and I enjoyed the banter around the topic.

 

- We haven't made it to any evening shows lately. Too busy watching the sailaway or having dinner or some other distraction.

 

Today we are in St. Maarten so I have to get going as my family and I will be disembarking soon. We have not purchased any on-board tour packages. We just wander off the ship and figure it all out on the fly and so far it's worked out great that way.

 

For now,

Paul

A quick post to say we are enjoying this particular trip. A few notes:

 

- Dinner service much improved in Britannia since 2011. Lunch and breakfast service good as well, although breakfast doesn't seem worth the bother there compared to Kings Court efficiency.

- In-hull balcony cabin still a pleasure to stay in.

- Some of the nautical paintings in the stairwell are significantly fading, which was a surprise.

- Shows are okay, not great. Viva Italia is downright weird. Great electric violinist on board, very entertaining. Christmas show was ... eh.

- Commodore Club out of certain cognacs and brandy which was surprising.

- Singalong on Christmas Eve in main lobby was special; great experience.

- Tea as popular as ever, and service there much improved from prior experiences. Sandwiches seemed fresher as well.

- Weather has been great, although there was a fair amount of rolling and even more pitching on the way down from New York.

- Ship still looking good, although showing age in a few places, but nothing of significance. Always very clean everywhere.

 

Question to the Europeans. Is it a custom to be served coffee *after* dessert instead of with it? Every time I have sailed on this ship it seems impossible to get coffee with dessert - it always arrives towards the end of dessert or after it, even when I specifically request it come with it. I am coming to the conclusion that I am battling against some cultural norm or something.

 

All in all a great trip so far.

 

Paul

Pepper, thanks for the TE review.

 

Any noise problems from the aft deck? The last time I was there a couple of years ago there was tropical music blasting into the dining room every time one of the staff opened the back door to the bar just on the outside.

 

Glad to hear the meal was good. Maybe your review will be read by the right people and they will throttle back that over-eager edge.

 

We will be on board this Sunday and my wife and I are thinking about giving them one more try.

I'm having dinner at Todd English tonight :) (QM2 mid-Atlantic in a force 9 gale, 19th Dec. '13) so no Verandah yet...

Please let us know how the dinner and the service was.

Very interesting review, Martin. Thanks for your observations. It looks like you only dined in the QG dining room in the evening, skipping all breakfasts and lunches there. Is that correct and due to time, or some other reason?

The biggest difference I have seen between 2005/2006 and 2011 is the increased presence of the room stewards. In late 2011, I noticed that every morning they roll their mobile stations down the passageways and park themselves for the entire morning and early afternoons outside your door. In 2005 and 2006 I was struck how you barely ever saw your room stewards and they always seemed to have a skill for cleaning your room while you were out of the cabin without ever been seen! Now there seems to be a culture that they are the hallway monitors and you have to get around their carts every time you go in or out of the cabin, because as I said, they are ALWAYS outside your cabin with their cleaning cart. It also seemed like they started their shifts earlier and made a lot of noise. It reminded me in 2011 of being in a Marriott instead of a classy ship.

 

I also noticed a decline in dining room service in Britannia in 2011. We had two waiters tag-teaming our table of 6 and one was very qualified but the other one was just terrible - getting the order wrong, slow service, etc.

 

As mentioned by others, the photographers are way more obnoxious than they used to be. My favorite lounge before dinner is the Chart Room, with a great quartet or jazz band playing pre-dinner music. It had a great ambience with a drink, good music, and good conversation. Now, the strobe light from the photographers just outside in the hallway is constantly going off and extremely irritating. Very bad taste of the management to allow that kind of circus environment to intrude into the lounge.

 

Other than those three complaints, I think the ship has held its own well. We are returning to it next week for the Christmas Cruise and I am curious to see how the ship continues to fare.

Sir Samuels always serves great coffee. That explains it if its Costa Coffee.

Just happened to me as well with Explorer. Switched to Firefox and had no problems. They really should get it fixed though as it's been occurring for at least several days now.

Todd English restaurant on QM2 is unimpressive. My glass of wine ran dry 1/3 into meal and couldn't have gotten the waiter's attention if I had fired a flare. The next time, in September 2011, for lunch, the door to the back deck periodically opened where Jamaican music bombarded in, then quiet when the door closed, then more Jamaican music. The restaurant is amateurish, in my opinion. Enjoy every other dining venue onboard except TE.

Thanks for the posts, Paul. Great pictures as well.