kohl57

Odd. To read yet another report of diminished nibbles in the Commodore Club at cocktail time. And again, certainly not the case on QUEEN ELIZABETH (at least mid September and long after the first reports of cutbacks on QM2).  It seems strange that QM2 will differ from the other ships in this respect.  We certainly had no complaints on QE in this regard.

Impressive. And ever so much nicer in colour scheme than the original QE/QV suites. Indeed, this reminds one of  suite on French Line's LIBERTE or ILE DE FRANCE with the mirrored wardrobe doors. 

Whatever the new Cunarder offers, hopefully this sort of freshened "please anything but more beige" decor will be among her desirable features.

Sorry, but Tihany doing the interiors just reinforces my belief that we are indeed looking at a QUEEN K'DAM as the new Cunarder.  And also my belief that with this new ship, Carnival will attempt to "reimagine" (God, how I hate that trite millennial term) Cunard with new decor, "freedom"/"fixed" dining and making us accept no traditional promenade deck etc etc. not to mention sharing the ship with 3500 others. They might as well go for broke and I suspect they will. Companies love poking their regular clientele in the eye with this "but we gotta think of where the next generation is coming from" and Cunard is next on the list for sure. 

Good luck with all that. 

But almost anything would be an improvement on the decor of QE/QV which I personally find just about the worst of any premium line ship. It's brown, it's beige, it's an insipid take on "art something or rather" and it's rendered in the cheapest fake wood imaginable. As a "homage" to the great liners of the past, it's rather an insult.  Having said all that, Cunard has at least made improvements with the recent QV refit (similar to that done on QM2) and it's at least in a step in right redirection. Or at least discovering some other colours other than brown or beige. I suspect the length of QE's upcoming refit indicates rather less will be attempted. 

Promenade Deck.. especially first thing in the morning on a day at sea. It's much closer to the ocean than on QM2 and you get the spray, the salt and the feel of really being at sea. The sunrises can be spectacular, too. Three laps and a coffee in the Cafe Carinthia afterwards is a great way to start the day.  And the classic walkaround promenade deck seems to be a feature we won't be getting in future Cunarders. So revel in it whilst you can. 

Sigh. Well, that's $39 saved and another reason why I'd rather spend the extra and go Princess Grill and never have the need or the desire for extra cost restaurants. Indeed, the menu in Britannia is more appealing to me anyway.

I appreciate that 1970s retro is all the rage now, but a c. 1974 steak restaurant?  It's like date night with Jack Regan in The Sweeney.  And the wine list.. well that's sure not c. 1974 price-wise.. what a rip-off especially by the glass. 

My only complaint with this new format is that there appears to be no way to click on the LAST message posted to a topic as there was with the former system. 

Well good on you. I certainly agree that Cunard's bewildering and almost complete abandonment of traditional Mediterranean cruises is both annoying and headscratching. We are already booked on QV for next September on her 14-day "Voyage du Vin" mainly because it was pretty much "it" at a desirable time of year .

But I looked at P&O alternatives and came away thinking it was no bargain compared to Princess Grill on every level with no separate dining room, decks or much else except a larger cabin. They even charge for standard room service it appears!

We used to be real P&O "regulars" back in the day of CANBERRA (indeed my wife and I first met aboard her) but after a very disappointing cruising in VICTORIA back in 2001, never went back. We probably wouldn't recognise the line now. 

But with that savings, why not give it a try. Cunard is going to lose regular customers aplenty with this "No Med No Way" policy. 

My wife is gluten free (and seriously so, not a fad diet, as she has celiac disease). One of the reasons we have recently switched to Cunard is how much better they cater to gluten free than Oceania.

However, this year on QE she was most disappointed to find that they no longer have any gluten free flour aboard and no longer bake their own gluten free cakes and scones. And even pastry for beef Wellington. She was so delighted to enjoy these last year. But sadly, no more. It's all pre-wrapped factory made stuff which is 99% baking soda and inedible. A real pity.

But they still do a very credible job with main meals etc. And again better than we found Oceania did. On Cunard, the staff all seem to really know what's on the menu, how it's prepared etc.

Sadly, the old tradition of beef tea (and crackers) at 11.00 am and afternoon tea served at your deck chair is a thing of the past, even on Cunard. If you are in the Grills, they still have an excellent trolley service including full afternoon tea but sadly no beef tea in the morning. But for the rest of the ship, nope. And nowhere will you find proper steamer rugs, either. QE2 was the last to have those and they were all from the original QUEEN MARY as were the deck chair cushions BTW. Nothing was more wonderful than time on deck on the QE2's First Class sun deck with the incomparable Dennis Dawson as the Chief Deck Steward and you got "tucked in" in your rug and served tea in the old QUEEN MARY pattern square teapots on trays.

Odd. I live in the United States and been on Cunard 11 times since 1977 and never once.. not once.. sailed from New York. It's always been from Southampton. But I never recall a separate lounge for priority boarding either at the QEII terminal or the Ocean Terminal, just designated queues. And indeed I've never seen anything resembling a queue standing around for priority boarding. We've just walked up, shown our tickets and maybe waited behind one or two couples and went aboard.

Oh yes indeed... I'd pay extra for a "QM2 Blue Riband Express Crossing".

I think QM2 has the capability to do a classic five-day crossing, too.

Sign me up

Well we were Princess Grill. And we are Platinum World Club members. So we certainly deserved "Priority Boarding" which was embark at 12.30 pm as printed on our ticket. Which I would assumes means we could board from 12.30 pm onwards. Not anytime before that. Frankly, that's plenty early enough, I just pity the poor crew having to get all those cabins ready only four hours after the previous passengers had vacated them.

I am a conformist. Well in most things. And when told to arrive at 12.30 pm at the Ocean Terminal for embarkation, that's when we got there... within 3 mins. There were a lot of people standing in various, somewhat defined and inert queues. We showed our tickets and like Moses and the Red Sea, were escorted through and around all of them straight to the counter. We were aboard in maybe 10 mins flat.

So I suppose you can get there anytime you wish but my preference isn't to get to the pier but to get aboard the ship. And with 2000 others trying to do the same thing, I am not sure how getting to the pier well in advance of your scheduled time is going to hasten that.

Funny you say that.... when I got mine last year, I thought it was just more junk mail and tossed it. Then I vaguely remembered it mentioning $400 pp extra OBC and managed to fish it out of the trash can covered with coffee grounds and used it to book again!

Now, I am not sure if they send this out after every cruise or to every just returned passenger or just to Platinum or..... but got mine two years running within three weeks of returning.

For 10-24 nights, it's $400 pp for Grills, $300 Balcony, $200 inside/outside extra OBC and relative amounts for 6-9 nights.

It may be different in the UK. But as a Platinum member, I always get a better on board credit precisely three weeks after my return when my "Welcome Home" card arrives. Indeed, this time I booked as soon as I got back knowing space was limited (I went from a waitlist to a guarantee to a cabin to a cabin on my preferred deck in the space of a week) and they rebooked me to get the very generous additional OBC and keep the same cabin. At least in the US, the agents are pretty wonderful in ensuring you get the best deal and rebooking if needed to obtain it.

Cunard's very attractive rate promotions and extremely generous OBC for past passengers who rebook upon returning from a cruise are one of the reason's we've given Oceania a miss now for two (and now) three cruises in as many years. It just works out as a much better value all around.

Oh I rather like fast express liners. Although the only true express crossings I've made were on QE2 when she was a five-day proper liner.. I did three of those: 1977, 1979 and 1993. Five days meant you had a nice crossing but also didn't spend forever on a ship and had "the other side" to look forward to. Actually from the UK, it was really four and half days. People used to just call it the boat over and not make such a big deal of crossing as they do now. I guess the novelty of it now changes the perception. And Carnival is banking on folks wanting more time for the experience I suppose.

Nothing quite matched a QE2 flat out at 28.5 knots with the wake frothing to the horizon and the funnel smoke flattened astern to almost sea level by the slipstream. Or being blown down the Boat Deck by the wind. In bad weather, the wave action used to chip off the paint on her bows and her superstructure was caked with dried salt spray.

It was faster on both ends, too: the express Boat Train from Waterloo right to the quayside and you were aboard in minutes. And on the other side, why Pier 90 was an eight min. cab ride from Penn Station.

Those, as they say, were the days. And never to be repeated.

It appears that QM2 is not much different than UNITED STATES or FRANCE or RAFFAELLO being designed to be express trans-atlantic liners (QM2 is of course "dual purpose" but almost all of the extra cost and design consideration that distinguished her were with the express crossing capability in mind) that performed their intended function brilliantly. But didn't make money, or in the case of the first highly subsidised liners lost more money than was intended.

QM2 joins an elite group. But not her compatriots QUEEN MARY (36) and QUEEN ELIZABETH (40) which were, by any standards, among the most profitable and successful liners ever built through the 1950s at least. As such, they remain better conceived, designed and realised than QM2 at least to date.

I remember heaving an enormous sigh when it was announced QM2 was going to 7-day crossings. It was not a matter of more hours for the crossing, it was a realisation it was no different from FRANCE going from a 5-day to a 6-day crossing in her last year in service. And that Carnival had a hunch that QM2's trans-atlantic market was, in reality, more of a niche cruise one than the traditional Atlantic Ferry clientele of old. Getting There is Half the Fun replaced by Being Aboard is Most of the Fun. So far, Carnival has been spot-on correct. They just could have saved a whole lot of money, time and effort coming to the realisation years ago.

I'd like to see documentation (and you won't) of the gas turbines being used to make up speed... did she not have a delayed crossing just recently and there's no evidence they used them to make up the delay. Or she wouldn't have been late. We are talking about 1-3 knots extra speed here not just fractions.

I guess the good thing is that she was indeed designed with this new concept of "plug and play" power plants so that you can just put entire blocks of machinery off line. But it does seem a huge waste of plant and potential to me.

One supposes the numbers crunched to justify it but Cunard is, in effect, losing the equal of two 12-day cruises (or more crossings) per year by adding a day to the crossing. These gas turbines must sure use a lot of fuel to cost more than that lost potential revenue.

Well they had stabilizers 65 years ago....!

The official Carnival line on this is indeed "Oh, we were forced to do it because of new safety regulations". That's a verbatim quote from the captain of the K'DAM when she came out and there was (and remains) enormous disappointment in the lack of what they once heralded as a wonderful feature of HAL (and Cunard) ships. Indeed, as soon as the K'DAM came out, all those photos of steamer chairs on the promenade deck in the brochures suddenly vanished. Poof!! You don't need it, you don't want and we were forced to do it. Which is why Carnival has happier shareholders than customers.

Oh I think QM2 is a disappointment in that she was bred as a racing stallion and is now used as a Clydesdale. So much of her design, construction and cost went towards that one essential of a true express North Atlantic liner: speed. Speed in all weathers and all conditions. Indeed that's what distinguished her from the get go.

Now, operationally and economically, Carnival just decided they didn't want or couldn't afford to run what they wanted and got. So she's lumbering and loafing along at speeds not seen on a Cunard "express" liner since CAMPANIA and LUCANIA at the the turn of the century. She's a modern day take on the SCYTHIA.

It doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't appreciate and enjoy her many unique features, her quirky layout and the joys of crossing the North Atlantic. But if you missed crossing in her or QE2 at full speed, flat out, as a 5-day or 6-day boat, you missed a lot. And many of us who did are... disappointed that Carnival can't run what they built as designed. I guess you can buy a Ferrari and find you can't afford the petrol bill. And that's what they did.

Worse, QE and QV are "Vistas" on the cheap as they lack the lovely teak decking on the Promenade Deck that the HAL ships have. But still, overall, my favourite "new" cruise ship class. Indeed, I'd rather have Carnival transfer EURODAM and NIEUW AMSTERDAM to Cunard and give HAL the fourth K'DAM ship.

It's a shame that having QM2, Carnival have indeed decided to let Cunard "coast" with off the shelf ships. "Halifax" class my eye... it's a K'DAM with a red/black funnel and black pudding for breakfast.

At least all this reinforces the uniqueness and attractiveness of QM2 and reminds us there won't be another one.

We sailed in Renaissance Cruises R7 (now AZAMARA QUEST) in 2000 when the name, along with everything about the line and product, was daring, new and different. So it worked. And had a certain Rhine river barge simplicity about it. Rather like Cunard's refreshing honesty in simply calling them One Deck, Two Deck instead of "Bahamas Deck" and "Ipswich Deck".

I really don't care about the new Cunarder and even less about the name. The proposed passenger capacity alone make it a write-off in my book. What I tire of is Cunard's rather shameless efforts to tie in its marketing with the Royal family when it's an American owned company ultimately whose Italian (or French)-built ships are registered in Bermuda and the captain on our recent QE cruise was a Dane. It's all an advertising contrivance more than any bona fide national symbol. So if QUEEN ANNE fits in with the advertising, so be it.

Frankly, I'd rather her be named Q7 which she is. And for a country of MI5, 007 and the M25, I think that conjures up the "Britishness" Cunard trades on.

Indeed. And the more discreet, the better as far as I'm concerned. I like Princess Grill especially as it's low keyed and I find too much contrived pampering to be, well, too much. We had a butler on QM2 in Queens Grill and I never cottoned to him or indeed found out why he was there. It was a bit creepy in fact. I value the quiet privacy, exceptional cuisine and service that PG offers and that it's self contained without anyone much noticing or caring about it elsewhere in the ship. We didn't resent or covet "the grills" when we were aboard QUEEN ELIZABETH last year in Britannia. But sure enjoyed it when we decided to spend our money for it.

Oh I agree... for a straight crossing (which I've done in Queen's Grills and Britannia on QM2), I would never spend the extra for Grills. But on a cruise especially one in good weather (hello Cunard that's why we like Med cruises!) with lots of sea days. No question. That and the delightful option on QE/QV of dining al fresco, too.

And yes the Grills Lounge reminds me of the lounge at Euston for the night sleeper to Aberdeen. Why, one could doze off before even getting aboard. We did like it for a pre lunch drink but in the evening, it was deadly dull.