Eastcroft

I'm on it. Dec 6 - Black and White Dec 11 - Masquerade Dec 13 - Roaring Twenties All others are smart attire.

Well we enjoyed ourselves and our party looked rather splendid at least. It just didn't quite have that feeling of being a gala night really. For the actual gala night we had booked the Verandah which was very good so we didn't really experience the MDR on a gala night, and then packing straight after a final drink. I'll try and remember that next time I'm on QM2, although as its QV next time I've got 11 days to get used to the idiosyncrasies of getting served there. 😄

I expect I wasn't alone in being a first timer on M411 12th May Southampton to Hamburg and back. I'd booked it as a surprise for my partner although the ulterior motive was that I really wanted to go on QM2. Some friends joined us as well once they heard we were going so we became a party of six, not quite the ideal number for finding seats in the bars. Our restaurant booking went somewhat awry as on the first day we were all allocated tables of 2 at different times for late dinner. The Maitre'd was rather accomodating and found us a table on the first night and the next nights we went for open dining. One thing I found rather bizarre is that we had all been informed in advance that it was an optional gala night on the second night, and then in the daily programme that was never advertised, but on the fourth night before Southampton it was advertised as an optional gala night which for us had previously been just a formal night. I'm guessing it was because we had booked the shorter cruise as opposed to continuing through to New York, but it would have been nicer if we had dressed on the "right" night as the ship did seem more 'in the spirit' on the night we were just in formal clothing as we'd worn our tuxedos earlier! Service on the whole seemed really good bar one or two slips, my partner and I both opted to go for drinks in the Carinthia Lounge one evening leaving our friends in the Golden Lion, we ordered drinks and waited almost an hour despite me visiting the bar after 30 minutes to see what was going on. Eventually the waiter came over and explained everything had "gone wrong" and clarified our orders and they appeared 10 minutes later. The couple infront of us had been waiting an hour for two pints of lager. So something was clearly not working. Again the next day we met in the Carinthia Lounge and had to leave for a lecture, we waited 30 minutes for our order to be taken despite trying to attract attention, and then when taken we had waited over 20 minutes for two coffees so had to leave before they arrived as we wanted to attend the Concorde lecture. Aside from those niggling issues everything seemed as I'd hoped it would be, the food was good, service was good and despite it being a taster to see if we liked crusing I'd booked the 11 night Atlantic Coast Adventure around 3 months earlier because I'd already made my mind up that I'd enjoy it.

I'm booked on a Hamburg short break next year as my first cruise and also can't see any way to book. It doesn't present any options at all.