ICEX21

Another thing that's just came to mind which is quite trivial but I just found strange, was ordering room service. Twice I asked for a club sandwich and twice the sandwich came without bacon but egg in it's place. I called room service the second time around and asked them why there was no bacon in the sandwich and their response was "because we don't have any bacon". I then questioned this as they cook it on a daily basis and it's always there at the buffet but room service just told me it was out of stock. I couldn't be bothered arguing but yeah, I found it so strange 😕

Yes I was aware of them transferring staff to the Queen Ann, but this is something they had long time to prepare for. It's not like the ship launch was just out of the blue, they had plenty of time to hire and train staff, or make accommodations for a reduced level of staff on the other ships. Like you say, they got greedy and kept the customer capacity high, even though the service suffered.

Having completed my very first Transatlantic crossing back in May 2022 whilst also having a magical time on my very first journey on a ship, I was so eager to get back on board I booked this crossing bringing some friends along with me. While I still had a fantastic time on board the ship, there were a few things I was really disappointed with and I was shocked at the decline of the service compared to when I was last on the ship. Embarkation was definitely an improvement from the first time I was on board, it was painless and fairly quick, I was quite disappointed that we didn't get to sail out of Southampton during daylight hours but that was due to maintenance issues which couldn't be helped. However, the dining experience in the Britannia restaurant was horrendous, we waiting 30 minutes to have our order taken, the starters didn't arrive for another 30-40 minutes, drinks took over an hour to be served to us and we only received our wine after we had finished the main course. The staff also seemed to have mastered the art of pretending not to notice you which seemed to be a common theme in the Britannia restaurant throughout the journey. The following morning we had breakfast in the main dining room, we thought the service couldn't be as bad as the previous night...we were wrong. We sat down and once again it took over 30 minutes for someone to take our order, another 20 minutes to be offered any drink and then another 10 minutes before we received the drinks and even then we were 2 drinks short in our order. It took over an hour and multiple complaints from myself before we finally received our food which was cold and extremely disappointing once received. We found the service did improve in the evening, but only once we moved from our regular table to a table on the upper floor where the staff were far more attentive and actually cracked a smile. I suppose this was my biggest gripe throughout this trip, 90% of the staff we encountered just looked absolutely miserable and it showed in the level of service they provided. One example was during afternoon tea, one of the staff whilst pouring tea hit the table and spilled tea everywhere, when I asked for replacement plates so we don't have to put our sandwiches in tea the response was "Do the wet plates bother you?" I replied with "yes" at which point the waiter just walked away and didn't replace them. The table next to us witnessing this were utterly shocked as well. I believe part of the issue with the staff was Other things I noticed: Sir Samuels chocolate bar was removed just prior to this voyage with no explanation given, gone were the little canapes in the Chart Room bar and these were replaced with some weird glazed nut mix, the main dining room soups were pretty much all the same. I'm pretty sure all they did was change the name from one consommé to another with no difference in the ingredients. The Boardwalk cafe didn't open on any day, much like the last time I was onboard Lots of cocktail ingredients were apparently out of stock, strange considering you would have thought they restocked at Southampton. An example being when I ordered a Dalmore cigar edition whisky on the first day in the cigar lounge, only to be told they had sold out, another example being when I ordered a Pina Khul-ada (Cunard's version of the Pina Colada) only to be told they had run out of the mixture. The planetarium was closed throughout the journey which was annoying as I was looking forward to experiencing this again without a broken seat On the whole, as much as I was disappointed in some aspects of this journey, there were lots of positives and for me and my friends we had a fantastic time and didn't let the issues above spoil the journey for us. We met some really nice people, our team won the progressive quiz with what the lovely host said was the highest score she'd ever seen and we had a very successful bingo game! I'm not sure if I'll get the chance to do another Transatlantic on the QM2 but I certainly hope they make some improvements in regards to their customer service onboard and maybe take a proper stock inventory before leaving on a 7 day journey across the Atlantic!