WantedOnVoyage

Clearly, the narrator has had far more exciting times in the "infamous" Queens Room and Golden Lion than most of us might even imagine. Curious that the "promenade" deck does not elicit even the most casual of interest by these "reviewers" and that perhaps tells us all what we need to know.

I love it... The Queen Anne Plague.... $11 burgers, little uncomfortable chairs and six hanger wardrobes... spreading through the fleet, ravaging and infecting all before it.

Not all ships can be QM2, much as you would like otherwise! But of course they can.... if a business builds what its customers want. The best result here is that I forsee QA spurring bookings for QM2, QV and QE among regular Cunard passengers. And that is a good thing indeed. Customers buy what they value not what a business tells them they should because it makes them more money. Just ask the Queens Grill diners staring at the blank wall or the person trying to saddle around the bed in the min inside cabin.

Repeating it doesn't make it true. There are several posts here which define--. in real measurement ie sq. ft. of sample grade cabins and passenger to tonnage and passenger to crew ratios which are the traditional metrics to judge the density of passenger ships--- that QA is, based on these criteria, a more "densely populated" vessel. She just is. And the videos shows the effect visually... from the Queens Grill restaurant to the min inside cabin. As for QA for being "not that dissimilar to most other cruise ships," that is the more damning comment I've seen of her... most Cunard regulars had hoped she would be a Cunarder not "most other cruise ships." And those trying her out who have never sailed with Cunard which we keep being told is what makes her so wonderful, might come away and not know what all the fuss is about if she is "not dissimilar to other cruise ships."

Stuff occasionally happens with travel. I know, I had 42 years in the travel business and the scars to prove it. But it's how companies deal with it and their customers that counts... Cunard and everyone associated with them, including InterCruise (their transfer agents) and Cunard's Swedish agents... were simply outstanding. United was not. I have booked four cruises with Cunard since then and would never set foot on a United plane again.

Happened to me thanks to United en route to Southampton and QV to the Baltic last May. Not an issue... Cunard provided, gratis, with full formal attire (thank goodness I flew in a suit and tie and black shoes), lent me a perfect fit Next suit, shirts etc. (I was lucky a former cruise director was my size it seems) and other kit, too. My luggage finally caught up with me halfway through the cruise at Stockholm. Wish I had kept the suit.... I wouldn't fly United again in a month of Sundays and this reminded me why I value Cunard Line.

My cat would like the QG banquette seating but the rest of us...? But those wall facing seats opposite... I'd rather dine in my suite, thanks very much. Grill Deck... I think if you look at some the videos you can detect some metal framed glass dividers between the Grill area and the open decks so not sure if this key card activated. It seems like it would have to be. So far, the best thing I've seen is the putting green on deck.... so wish they had this on QE and QV. We loved it on Oceania. I do like the library... and hope they still have communal computers for those of us disdaining "smart phones."

Not sure if "fit in more" should figure in the design credo for Queen's Grill, do you?

Curious how much better Princess Grill at least appears... in size, space (including between tables) and general sense of occasion that Queen's Grill.. Even the chairs are far more suitable (with arms.. hurray!) than those c. 1958 Italian bedroom chairs in the QG.

"The slim wardrobe" appears to be the only full length hanging wardobe... the ones off the passageway are shelved or have half height hanging space. Of course, keeping up with the marathon runners filming these things makes it difficult to ascertain but the closet space seems.... constrained to say the least.

Looking at the full length hanging space in the standard cabin sure doesn't bode well for the dress code... surely this is not the extent of it. But it appears to be. There's more hanging space in an old wardrobe trunk than this. And how on earth is this going to work for anything over seven days? I count maybe eight hangers wide or what, room for four suit jackets tops. Sq. footage wise, the standard cabins are not smaller than QV/QE so what gives with the closets?? Send the missus to change the table and unpack before she gets back would be my advice...

True... who wants to get cherry sauce or jus spattered on their polo shirt? Not me.... As my mother said when they dropped me off at summer camp for two weeks, aged 7... "I just know you'll love it after the first few days."

Well... I hate to tell you "I told you so" so I won't... but QG on the QA is QED. I am not sure who one has to annoy to score one of the inner banquette tables but I won't wear my Greek flag lapel pin when convincing Osman I should not be so assigned. At least the banquette seats are big and upholstered... every single chair in the ship seems three quarter sized, thin padded munchin seating. But, no.. deck plans don't lie. If it looks narrow and an afterthought, it's because it is. I look forward to pix of the Grill Lounge. Or not. Oh well, in four days we will be off on our QUEEN VICTORIA and settling into our favourite overstuffed armchairs in the Commodore Club and hoping the crumbs are not ours from our last cruise in her.

Maybe they are designed to fit into the cabin wardrobes should the need arise....

That's the Queen's Room? Wow. And I have yet to see one... not one... comfortable looking armchair in the ship yet or a table that is not bare, spare and faux wood formica covered. But if you like sparse, bare and sterile... there's lots to savour here.

Yikes. If you book in the US, there is no insurance requirement.... booked in the UK, I think you're stuck. It's not your nationality, it's where the cruise was booked that counts. And why I will never book a cruise "in the UK." I always buy my OWN insurance of MY choosing but don't want to be ordered to do so by a third party i.e. the supplier. It's actually against the law to do so in the US I believe.

Yes, I noted they still say "atlas" on the website but I haven't seen one since 2019. One wonders just where all this "stuff" went anyway?? The Atlas was more illuminating that the instructions on how to work the coffee machine that's for sure... At least they still have rain panchos at the stair landings to hand out.

Nope.... not since the great "let's chuck out all the little niceties and use Covid as an excuse". Sewing kit, shoe cleaner, atlas (which we always used) and.. umbrellas. All gone. You might ask... I think our steward found a 10 year old shoe polisher for me that was dried out and one could only thank him for the effort. Not sure if what happened to the umbrellas fullstop. But no.. have not seen one in a PG cabin in four cruises now.

Easiest dress code I have ever experienced on a voyage was First Class in Costa Line's EUGENIO C., Rio to Genoa: it was formal dress every single night at sea (10 days across I recall) and for gentlemen, it was almost a "uniform" and what man doesn't like that? For the ladies, it was a challenge and I swear most managed to wear something different and distinctive every single night. The mountains of luggage that came off in Barcelona and Genoa showed how that was accomplished.

Well if anyone... in the English speaking world thinks a "polo" shirt is a "dress shirt" by any definition.. they would be wrong. It is not. Never has been. Everyone has the right to fudge, to obscure but to not to twist the English (be it British or American) language into a pretzel of his or her own making.

And just as selfishly I hope to see them still aboard QV in... 12 days time!

Sure is.... my favourite meal of the whole voyage since it's... well the first one. Thirteen days until ours... not that I am counting or anticipating.

It is curious that "pomposity" is a quality oft ascribed to those wishing to dress "over" the minimum (and it is, too) dress code while it is no less pompous to insist, as some do, that "it's my holiday" and I can dress as I darn please. It may be your holiday but you are sharing with it, in close confines, with others.... a ship is a community. Always has been. I am not sure, too, how one dressed for work has anything to do with the unique environment of a Cunarder... the only ships in the world that even aspire something to anything above "chinos" and "polos". If the dress code is so onerous, why there are 99.7 percent of the rest of cruise ships to sail on.

I would avoid QM2 Q1s for the nonstop noise of the canned "music" played around the pool and open deck during the day just below your "private" balcony. If you can hear this up on the Grills Deck if the wind is right (and you can), it must be very noticeable on the suite balconies. I would find it unbearable. I cannot imagine why this is even necessary with the myriad ways of listening, privately, to one's own music if needed. But to spend a Q1 per diem forced to listen to this... no way.

You do? Where did you read that? I do not believe her hull is any different from any of the other Pinnacle-class ships. That's a major, significant structural alteration of plates and framing too and for what reason would this be done? She is a cruise ship in design, purpose and profile not a liner by any definition of the word. And nothing wrong with that, either. But a liner is a lady as Kipling wrote and QA is no liner and I'll leave it others to determine if she's a lady.