Alslc

Hi Richard, you are spot on! I had the same feelings, you elaborated them much better than I did. The Maitre D' didn't seem really proactive and I had to request a different table every time he was giving me a table. Funny enough he wanted everyone on the left side of the restaurant for a reason he probably knew. As you rightly said, being crammed in a single area of the restaurant was far from nice. In regards to the Covid situation I felt the 14th and the disembarkation day quite a lot of people were coughing around. Yes I know that cough is quite common and given how miserable the weather was the last day I can imagine that could have played a part. You are not too picky, I recently was on QV and the Maitre D' Aziz and Sandro were true gems!

Hi showingdiva, I am so glad to read another review from the same sailing. Glad you enjoyed that more than myself 🙂 I have to admit I loved the overall experience, but compared to other sailing it doesn't reflect the Cunard experience. In regards to Covid unfortunately a couple of members from my group got it onboard and tested positive the day after disembarkation. They haven't mingled a lot so it was really bad luck. I have to agree with you, the Steward were all lovely and yes the menu I have to admit a bit uninspiring, but the quality of the food was really high. QM2 was absolutely fantastic and I would do it again just for the pleasure of being onboard QM2, hopefully on a longer itinerary 🙂

I could forgive the new hires for some oversights, everyone has had to learn a job once. But when the behavior comes from higher ranks employee, that is frankly unacceptable.

Hi all, just off the QM2 for a short cruise of 5 days/4 nights. I believe this is the first Cunard cruise where the requirement of a negative test before embarkation has been removed. The itinerary was Southampton-Bruges-Rotterdam-Sea Day-Southampton. First of all the itinerary in my opinion wasn't the best one, but I knew when I booked it. The sea day was essentially the QM2 sailing at 10 knots on the Channel and having to go further towards Portland and circle around otherwise she would have arrived too early at Southampton. I believe the itinerary could have been structured in a better way and include a port further away than Rotterdam, which in itself is not really worth a visit and Amsterdam is too far for a proper visit. Boarding process in Southampton very well organized and professional. Not a single queue despite I was allowed to board well before my boarding time. The ship was ready to board at approximately 12.00. No documents have been checked, Just the boarding pass. I didn't have to show the vaccine certificate or other documents. Back to the cruise. I was in Britannia and the restaurant service was well below the usual Cunard service. I know the staff is not as engaged with the guests as they are on longer sailing, but the level of disengagement and lack of professionality from most staff at all levels (from the Maitre D' to the Waiters) was extremely disappointing. Pursers Desk was another disappointment as the level of customer service (from some staff) was below what you would receive at a 2 star hotel. One trainee was extremely rude and unprofessional (which you wouldn't expect given the fact they should embrace the training they just received). The stateroom stewards were spot on and extremely professional and they deserved every single penny of the tip. There were 2300 guests onboard, so around 85/90 per cent capacity. Now .... the COVID situation. It was evident that despite very low COVID cases in the UK there was a lot of COVID onboard. The isolation area was just the forward section of deck 5 between A and B. So quite a small section, but I have never seen so many medical staff going around doing COVID tests in different cabins. Just in the small section where my cabin was located we had 3 cabin moved to the isolation rooms and I believe some people have been left in their cabin isolating. Obviously this should not give an idea of the overall level of COVID but just a small picture. Mask wearing, despite not mandated, was approximately at a 30% level. I saw staff carrying out covid tests since the departure day... so a pre-departure test would have helped. Wi-Fi shocking throughout the voyage despite being close to the coast. Another quite disappointing thing was the dress code totally unenforced. Yes I know the demographic of the short cruises is different than the others, but during the gala dinner was quite a disappointment to see many people not adhering to the dress code and not a single word by the restaurant staff, likewise during the other evenings, where the dress code was far from the one recommended on the Cunard website. Overall the dress code adherence was 80-85% during the gala dinner and 60% during the other evenings. To summarize, would I do this cruise again? No. It doesn't give you the real idea of how a Cunard Cruise looks like. Obviously it doesn't help I have been on other Cunard longer cruises before this one. This particular itinerary is good for first time cruisers to get a glimpse of how a cruise is, but not to understand how a real Cunard cruise is. A recommendation for Cunard staff... I know it's hard to engage with guests on short cruises, but the level of customer service I was provided with during the whole voyage was quite shocking compared to what I received on longer voyages, they should not make it as evident that they are not really willing to engage as they normally do on longer sailings.

Hi all, we'll soon be onboard QM2. We are 3 different parties and despite being all in the same category of stateroom/deck we have been given 3 different boarding times, one of those just 15 min away from the last boarding time. Needless to say I won't be arriving just 15 min before the closing time, I have two question: - Does the staff at Southampton enforce the boarding times on the boarding passes? I have been turned away in the past from other ports for turning up too early (yes on Cunard) - Can the upgrades be awarded past the 21 days before travel deadline? Thanks 🙂

What has all of this got to deal with Bermuda? Cunard is requiring test for ALL cruises, not just for Bermuda ones. In regards to mask, they enforce mask wearing in the event cases are high in the ship.

It all depends. For US cruises or US bound cruises CDC can mandate tests at any point through the journey, if their COVID threshold is met. For all other cruises I think they mostly go on symptoms or close contact possibly?

If Cunard follows UK public health guidance, then they would have been released among the public. I remember on the Cunard website it says you can use your own car to go back home or they can book a special taxi for you. I was on Deck 6 as well, so it annoys me I might have be next to someone with Covid without even knowing it. I saw an ambulance at Kiel with people "dressed up" but I haven't see any massive movements out of the ship.

Agree they don’t want to alarm everyone, but it would have been much better to be open and honest with the passengers and clearly define an isolation area. Not ideal walking around the ship not knowing if you are walking in an isolation area or not. I found staff quite dismissive when I was asking question about COVID onboard, like it’s a secret there would be cases onboard a ship. Again it would be much better to close a whole deck or a whole side of the deck to make it safer for everyone. I can also clearly remember people rejoining the restaurant, meaning they might have ended their 10 days isolation Given what you reported as well I think the number of cases was quite substantial, otherwise they would not have reintroduced the mask mandate or closed the launderettes. Again I’m not speculating, but given the number of decks where the fire doors were shut and given those days were the peak of COVID cases in Germany and the UK, I can’t imagine a low number of cases. Having said that… my whole party didn’t get COVID which is nice 😃

You’re welcome. Unfortunately the mandate is not back for every cruise, but either if the CDC threshold is reached on ships in US territories or if the Cunard threshold is reached, this is my understanding. I would say also Captain’s discretion, I remember a post on this forum mentioning that.

Hi all, I would like to share with you my recent experience on board QV during her Baltic Voyage. This voyage had the mandatory masks reintroduced after approximately 10 days. I'd start saying the ship was at approximately 50% capacity, this is down to the COVID cap and the staff reductions cap. So around 1000 passengers were onboard. All facilities were open, but after the mask mandate was introduced the launderettes were closed. I was trying to ask a few staff members about covid cases onboard, most of them seemed reluctant to speak about the topic, but a couple of them told me they had to reintroduce the mask mandate as a certain threshold of covid cases was reached (I'm not sharing that percentage, but it's above the CDC one). There were many stateroom decks closed to the public, I can't remember if it was next to stairs A or C, but the stateroom area on 4 decks on the port side (next to lifts A or C - I can't remember) was shut with a blue badge on the door that said "Do not enter - Sail with confidence", now I don't now if that means that area is a designated isolation area, but it was quite a big area, it might just be the doors were shut for another reason. I could only see just one small door that said "Isolation Area do not enter". You can clearly notice the lack of staff in some areas, there were glasses and rubbish left on the deck 3 for days with no one clearing them. I asked for extra toiletries in the room such as a toothbrush and they told they don't provide them anymore due to COVID. FFP2 masks were provided free of charge in the stateroom and the compliance rate was 99.9999%, as I said on another post I probably saw one person without one on the whole voyage after the mask mandate was reintroduced. On a positive note, most of the staff working on the ship were lovely and happy to help. The restaurants were, as usual, top notch and the staff was doing their utmost best to go above and beyond. WI-Fi was an absolute disgrace though, I complained to the Pursers Desk and I was told the signal might be weak as we are at sea .... really ?? Not that we are on a cruise ship. The upper level of the Britannia Restaurant seemed not in use. All in all, I really enjoyed the cruise, the mask wearing made me feel very safe and this was a shared opinion with other fellow travelers. Compliance was extremely high, so I would kindly advise to ignore people moaning on this forum saying they won't be wearing them. Most of your fellow passengers will and I really felt safe. Staff was reminding non-mask-wearers to wear one, but I have only seen doing this in one occasion as everyone was wearing one anyway. In regards to COVID cases you could see some passengers were coming back from isolation, so COVID was there, but I can't give you much details on the numbers of cases as it would be just my assumption. The ship was really quiet and you could clearly see you were at 50% capacity and a few people were isolating, but regardless that made for a very nice experience as you could enjoy the ship without the massive crowds of people around. One more final shout to the staff, as despite most of them were just recently back on the ship, made the experience even more pleasant.

Masks (and other requirements) gets triggered by Cunard after a certain amount of people test positive onboard, so for the "masks ruin my cruise" fans, the requirement can and, thankfully, do change at a short notice as witnessed on the previous QV cruise where the requirement changed after 10 days. I find this a very sensible approach by Cunard and I have to say when the masks were required the compliance level was really really high (I probably saw just 2 people not wearing one). Given the new wave of covid cases I think we all need to be prepared to small changes like masks wearing, that have no impact whatsoever to my enjoyment of a cruise.

I would not read too much into it. I think they are doing a general review of all the ships safety procedures, but I wouldn’t think they will shut activities. One of the thing they shut first are the laundrette.

It doesn’t look like a letter just for QV. To me it looks like a generic letter, so it may well mean a change of policy

For what is worth, QM2 has always been in Orange even during the latest Norway cruise where data haven't been transmitted to the CDC. Not sure how in real time that website is updated. I'm not talking about the date at the bottom right, I'm talking when data from every single ship are received. I think we'll never know the actual number of cases onboard.