Colin_Cameron

Not quite random. Tables are assigned by the maitre d' at the door. But when people move after being shown to a table, and then other people are shown to a table that 'should ' be empty it slows everything down.

Very steady most of the time. An odd shimmy and shudder as we crossed the Bay of Biscay but very little pitch and roll. Still getting used to things, as are the crew. I thought the Britannia galley problems were fixed as we had no problems yesterday but then we started hearing some horror stories, and then this morning's breakfast took a couple of minutes under two hours. It was just as well we had a good table and everyone was happily getting along. If we'd had a table of moaners we would probably have left. Tables around us that arrived after us, ordered, were served, ate, left, and the tables were being refilled and we were still waiting. According to the waiter all the delays are with orders for large tables. I also note that they have either given up on the iPad ordering, or that system has stopped working. Things are not helped when passengers are shown to a table and as soon as the waiter has left, move somewhere else. I saw this at lunch and last night we had a gent moved to a spare seat at our table because others had parked themselves at his table. I know BellBoy has had the same problem. Other than these problems I do like the dining room. It reminds me quite a bit of Vistafjord/Caronia's dining room.

My first thought was that the corridor carpet design pointed forward, but it actually points to the closest staircase/lift.

Pre-publicity was quite confusing. It has to be booked, but there is no charge for the show. There is a drinks service which, like everywhere else on the ship, is charged. It is the same show, twice a night, every night, at least on this voyage. I guess they may introduce a different show at some point. The same venue is also used as the late night disco.

So with the Commodore Club at roughly 20% capacity, both drinks orders took 25 mins to be served. And both times the dry martini arrived without the olives specifically ordered, and repeated by the waiter. We headed down to dinner at 8:20 and finally got into the dining room at 9:15. I'm stating these as facts, not as complaints. It's a maiden voyage. Stuff happens. But there are definitely some people that shouldn't book maiden voyages. Once we were at the table I'd say things were no slower than any other first night, maybe even better than most, but because of the late start that's us just out at 11:15.

With nearly half the ship in at dinner.

In the Commodore Club for our first martinis. First thing we noticed is no seats at the bar. Must be about double the seating capacity of the Vistas but with the same number of staff. The room is also completely flat so has a different feeling. Edit: Just been advised by @Solent Richard that there's no canapés. And won't be any !!!

Oops. That bottle was upright when I posted the pic. Boarding was OK. We had a short wait in the terminal as they had to suspend boarding while a container ship manouvered past QA. Someone mentioned a boutique hotel rather than ship feeling and there's certainly something about the lift lobbies that gives that impression. Not sure what it is. For the first hour and a half our cabin toilet wouldn't flush, but seems to be OK now. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a repeat of QV's maiden voyage. The lower hanging rail in the main wardrobe is too high to allow stuff on the upper rail to hang cleanly without draping over the lower rail but it's OK in the narrow one beside the bed. A total of 30 hangers (20+5+5) in this standard balcony cabin. On QV the full length mirror was inconveniently on the inside of the wardrobe door. They corrected this on QE by putting it on the outside of the wardrobe facing into the cabin. Having learnt that lesson where do you think they've put it on QA? Edit:I see these portrait photos have also turned sideways. Not sure if HH can do anything with them?

Look what we have!

Nope. I wish I had. It turned the last hour of the journey into two and a quarter hours. I didn't notice at the time how much longer (or shorter) she thought it would take. Because it was last minute, I was already in the left lane ready to take the exit, I assumed she had good reason, but who knows. Anyway, we're now in The Potters Heron, between Romsey and Chandler's Ford. Booked through Secret Escapes, and so far I'd recommend it for a night or two before a cruise. 23 mins from the Mayflower Terminal according to Google.

Our trip down to Southampton was going great until Sally Satnav decided at the last minute (literally as we approached the junction) that she didn't fancy the A34 after all and thought it would be much more fun to take the M40, M25 and M3 ... at rush hour!

But were the changes to the design the reason for the delay, the official line, or something they happily managed to achieve because of the delay, which is my belief.

Yes, sailed on her numerous times on the Clyde in the 60's when she was Queen Mary II. She's now back where she belongs and back to being just Queen Mary again.

Same here. But I have sailed on Queen Mary 2 AND Queen Mary II !😄

And as such didn't have a Cunard designation during her design/build. Yes, that's why I said 'or some other designation'. We were booked on that maiden voyage as well, but obviously that didn't happen. Q3 and Q4 were Cunard designations for 'the ship that never was' and QE2, QM2 was known as PQM or Project Queen Mary and I've just remembered that QA was (is?) Project Halifax. I've never been convinced by that, and said as much to a Cunard exec on QV's maiden voyage. I said that I thought the change and delay was less to do with the ship's suitability and more to do with Cunard not being ready for another new ship so soon after QM2. That got me a very big grin and "I couldn't possibly comment."