My wife and I just came off the Queen Elizabeth (QE) from a 10 day cruise in Alaska for our 20th anniversary. Our only previous cruise was a 7 day Alaska cruise on Holland America’s (HAL) Eurodam for our 15th. Below is a comparison of the two.
TLDR
All things being equal, I’d easily take a HAL cruise over a Cunard cruise, though possibly not for the reasons you’d expect. The technology, entertainment, and food experience on HAL was far superior in almost every way. Meanwhile the Cunard experience only really shined as far as the room steward and port timings. I’d happily take another HAL cruise but would probably give another line a try before going back on Cunard unless the price was a mitigating factor.
BOOKING
We booked the 10 day QE cruise and decided to take the train up from Washington rather than trying to find parking in Vancouver. It looked like parking was either a nightmare or excessively expensive. The booking was a pretty solid deal at under $100/day for our full view balcony room. Five years ago we paid a similar rate and had originally booked a guaranteed oceanview on HAL before being upgraded. Cost is a significant factor for us, we’re not looking at a suite or any of the fancy amenities that come with the trip, we’re also not really looking at excursions as we are perfectly happy to wander around each town and have a coffee.
SEATTLE VS VANCOUVER
Vancouver had four ships departing the same day which meant they were processing over 10K passengers onto ships that day. Considering this the process was smooth and well executed with a lot of walking and waiting in line. All in all it took us about an hour from dropping off luggage to boarding with check in as well as security and customs. It was crowded and not particularly interesting but you’re in line to get onto a cruise so there’s an air of excitement. It was pretty clear as to where we should go and there were numerous people there directing you to the next step. Seattle was much more straightforward where we dropped off luggage and were on the ship in about 20 minutes.
Queen Elizabeth vs Eurodam
All things considered the ships were very similar in general layout with a big dining room in the back on the lower floors, shops, restaurants, casinos and such in between the MDR and the theater in the front. On the Lido deck was the similar back of the ship deck and bar with a pool and couple of hot tubs, followed by the buffet area, followed by the main pool deck, followed by the spa. Above this was a couple of bars and lounges as well as a games court area. Outside of the English versus Dutch theming, there wasn’t a significant difference between the two ships.
DRESS CODE
Considering this is Cunard and everyone talks about the dress code on Cunard we went out of our way to be sure we would be up to snuff. I had spent months putting together a tuxedo set with vests to match my wife’s gowns she had picked up. Considering I was in a Tux and my wife in a gown, we were by far among the best dressed on the ship. I would actually have considered us to be overdressed. Numerous people in the MDR were in button up shirts and jeans. The average man wore a light colored sports jacket or blazer and probably didn’t have a tie, the average lady had pants and a blouse. Tuxes and dresses were by far in the minority and gowns were essentially absent. While we would have been perfectly happy to just wear a button up shirt or blouse, this was not what we expected on Cunard. There were a small handful of people in tuxes and a few very nice dresses which were largely absent on HAL. I feel that if I were to travel on Cunard I most likely wouldn’t bring more than a vest or blazer and button up shirt and my wife would have been fine in any of her nice knee length dresses. The evening didn’t really feel in any way more elevated than the formal nights on HAL.
STATEROOM AND TECHNOLOGY
A cruise ship room is a cruise ship room unless it’s not. These were. The biggest difference was the presence of the kettle in the room on QE which got extensive use. You’ve got a bed which was fine but kept gapping between the two twins, tv, desk, and couch. Plugs were an issue on the QE in a way they weren’t on HAL as many of the plugs were European style rather than US style. We had to get an adapter that our room steward happily supplied and we had a power strip to meet our device charging needs. Cunard provided a free bottle of champagne rather than stocking the mini-fridge with an array of overpriced goods we didn’t need as we had to ask to have removed on the Eurodam.
The stateroom attendant, Michael, was top notch, very quick and everything was put away, cleaned up, and restocked twice a day without fail. My wife kept saying we really don’t need them to tidy up the room but I figured it was a nice touch we never got at home. Any glass, spoon, or toiletry used was immediately replaced.
While not an issue for a significant number of people, the TV was terrible leading me to one of the biggest complaints of the entire cruise. Technology just felt way behind what I’d consider acceptable everytime we tried to use it. The TV would glitch out the stream, didn’t have anything on demand, and didn’t even have a guide station. There were only about 15 channels that worked and weren’t playing music or the same ship based ads on repeat. We’re not huge TV people but enjoy throwing on a cooking show or HGTV when we’re relaxing after walking around town for three hours. There was very little to watch and you never had any idea when anything was going to be on. Additionally, we could never hear the ship announcements even when we were on the proper channel. This meant we couldn’t hear the commentary in Tracy Arm Fjord or Glacier Bay and oftentimes missed other announcements.
PASSENGERS
There were certainly more international passengers on the Cunard cruise than on HAL. We chatted with several Australian and British couples and Americans certainly were not the norm. There seemed to be a significant number of Asian families for whom English was clearly not their first language. The people we talked with were all delightful but it’s not like we had any problems with passengers on the HAL cruise.
DINING - MDR
To carry on the previous technological complaint, the cunard app was not particularly useful beyond a regular accounting of on ship expenditures and looking at the day's program and it lacked the ability to message one another than HAL’s app had. There was the ability to book a table in the MDR–we chose not to have timed seatings–or join the queue for a ready table but it never actually seemed useful. We basically had to walk up and wait in line for a table regardless of which method we had used. The food was of similar quality between HAL and QM however Cunard offered some more interesting and international choices while HAL’s food choice felt fairly typical upscale American. HAL did have a decent selection of “always on” options such as caesar salad, soup, pasta, steak, or chicken but the choices felt otherwise similar.
One small issue we had was that the servers kept forgetting to come through to provide final chocolates leading to some truly extended dinners that weren’t necessarily intentional. I’m not sure if this was a training issue but it was something that happened multiple times, one of which we were finally encountered by the dining manager who was clearing out the area for a later seating which quickly got the issue rectified. We also felt that there was a lack of skill on the QM with a number of dropped dishes and seeing (but not hearing) servers getting a dressing down for screwing up. For those only familiar with American service etiquette, the British style was far more standoffish than we were used to or saw on HAL. The idea of being present but invisible was very prominent everywhere but the room steward. You didn’t have the feeling that servers were being friendly and personable, they were there to serve in the most colonial way possible. It wasn’t a problem but just a notable difference we felt pretty much everywhere on the ship.
DINING - LIDO
If there was a big failing of Cunard it came to the Lido and other included dining options. There’s really two threads into the problems here, choice and timing. I’ll tackle timing first as this one was the one that annoyed me most. The lido closed for breakfast at 10:30 reopening at noon which is when both the Golden Lion and Lido Grill open. This means that there isn’t any food available for an hour and a half before lunch. Similarly, lunch closes at 2:30 with only tea served from 3-5, however the Lido Grill is open during this time so that’s fine. The worst issue for me was that after exiting the 8pm shows in the theater, everything was closed until 10pm when the late night opened, having ended dinner service at 8:30. Now it is not like I went hungry but I always felt like I was working around their schedule instead of being able to be on my own. An early lunch before heading out for the day simply wasn’t an option. A mid-afternoon split dish in the pub wasn’t possible as they shut down at 2:30 as well. The grill closing at 5pm was a significant issue due to the incredibly limited lido buffet options for dinner. Followed by the choice of either staying up until 10 to have a late desert by killing over an hour waiting for the buffet to reopen was just terrible timing. None of these timing issues were a problem on HAL, where it always felt that the buffet was open and had numerous choices.
Choice was my other issue on the lido. The ship has two parallel main buffets with a shared drink area in the middle where the pizzeria was (only open during lunch and dinner times) which is where the late night and tea were served. However, these two long buffets were identical during breakfast (other than one side had congee at breakfast and the other did not) and lunch service, and one side was closed for specialty dining in the evening. All of this space offering identical food meant the dinner selection felt incredibly limited. Now the quality was always fine but with a total of nine stations with two taken up by the salad bar, one by sushi, one by cold cut meats, one by cheeses, one by bread, and one by pastries/deserts meant there were really only two hot food stations at meals, plus the pizzeria. One of them had some kind of stirfry/soup custom to order (where they did omelets in the morning) and one had a carving station. There was always beef, chicken, curry, and a handful of vegetable dishes. But it really felt like a minimalistic buffet considering the overall space they had.
It also may have been the British style but the idea of regular standbys was once again absent. With the grill closed at dinner you couldn’t have a fall back of a hamburger, hot dog, french fries, or perhaps some kind of roast or fried chicken unless that was at the carving station. Even white rice wasn’t regularly available. The carving station usually had pork loin but occasionally had a turkey, chicken, or striploin which was always acceptable but never good. Considering the space available having more non-rotating staples on one side seems like it would have been a good idea. What was available at breakfast never changed at all except for the flavor of smoothie and cinnamon twists shifting to hazelnut twists or lemon donuts shifting to chocolate donuts. While none of the food was bad, it certainly didn’t have the feeling of a plentiful spread and started to feel pretty repetitive by the third or fourth breakfast.
One of our dining tablemates noted that the overall the gap between the Lido experience and the MDR experience was much larger than any other line they had been on but considering that dinner tended to be a two hour experience, we weren’t necessarily driven to head there for lunch. Food in the MDR seemed to be very well prepared while the lido just felt more haphazard. Having the pub atmosphere available was a great option but their menu was only six items and after a couple of visits we didn’t ever really feel the need to return considering the options at the Lido grill allowed for more customization.
ENTERTAINMENT
While it would be easy to discard our concerns about entertainment as not being a fit for cruises aimed at older passengers, this was not really the issue. While the performers were clearly all very talented musicians, I don’t feel like their performances were particularly impressive. The flutist played lots of great flute music, the broadway singers sang a strange array that my wife only recognized one out of seven of. I went alone to one of the piano shows which left me thinking that he plays quite well but I ended up leaving after a few songs because there was little more than that going on and the comedian was clearly aiming for a much older, much Trumpier audience than we were interested in. Most of the rest of the onboard activities consisted of a handful of lounge singers. I never did make it to the Trad/Folk who we heard was quite good and the string trio playing in the atrium was always nice but there was never much else we sought out to engage with. HAL offered a kitchen tour, cooking classes, and a bit more lively action with dueling pianos and a blues band. Everytime we walked by the queens ballroom on the QE it very specifically felt not for us other than watching the procession for tea one day which was amusing but not something we felt we needed to participate in. We’re not much for trivia or other bar games which was the only real entertainment outside of the musicians on the ship so we didn’t engage much in any of that.
ITINERARY
The overall itinerary on Cunard was much better than on HAL. First of 10 days felt like just the right amount of time after our 7 day cruise left us heavily wanting more. Also, waking up already in port cut down on the sudden rush for the door that was more common when arriving in port in the late morning or early afternoon. Other than the tender in Juneau and the late disembarkation in Victoria, getting on and off the ship was a pleasant experience. Having the time to make a morning trip into town, come back for lunch, then return to town (which we only did once) made us feel like we had far more freedom to explore and while we were aware of the all aboard time, it never felt like it was getting in our way. I’d much prefer the overall schedule of the 10 day QE cruise in the future as it allowed us days in both Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm Fjord which were among my favorite days.
DISEMBARKATION
It was never really clear to us when our disembarkation time was supposed to be. At 8:45 while they were calling various groups our room steward let us know it was 8:30 and we began to head out. We were off the ship and on the street by 9:10 giving us 7 hours until our train was due to board. We were hoping to push this back as far as possible but it seems like everyone was off the ship by 9am.
SUMMARY
We certainly didn’t have a bad time on the cruise and I wouldn’t mind cruising on Cunard again, but I wouldn’t seek it out either. Considering price is a significant concern for us I probably wouldn’t pay $300/pp to go on another line, but if it was a matter of a couple hundred dollars between the two of us I’d rather be on HAL or give Princess or Celebrity a try. The “elevated experience” we expected really didn’t feel like it was there, the ship showed similar signs of wear that other ships have had, and the service wasn’t generally of any higher quality than we had found on HAL. Pairing that with an overall worse food, entertainment, and technology experience, we’d probably look elsewhere on future cruises.
