Jim_P

I was on the QM2 a year or two ago during its world voyage. I heard the story from some other passengers that during the Asian leg of the voyage prior to Australia she was being shadowed by two Chinese warships. Cunard contacted the Admiralty about the situation who gave Cunard the directions to outrun them and show that if needed Britain had access to a very large and very fast troop carrier. I don't know the full veracity of the story, but it was the story doing the rounds on board, and it was at the same time that the QM2 met up with the HMS Spey in the Gulf of Thailand. Makes me wonder if there was a little more to that meeting than a publicity photo op.

She was a UK navy ship (HMT Queen Mary).

True, but a lot of those were cargo ships. It would be interesting to compare Cunard's passenger capacity then to now. I think 1958 would be in front, though Queen Anne with her 3000 capacity may have tipped the scale.

Who knows, with all this anti cruise ship tourist stuff, perhaps the age of the ocean liner might return where people will go on cruises that have no shore days to travel to destinations. I'd love to be able to travel by cruise ship rather than flying. Given how increasingly horrible flying is, as well as increasingly expensive, is I could see that being an emerging market. Cunard's TA crossings only seem to be getting more popular and selling out much faster.

That's almost every single cruise except some of the very expensive luxury lines. If anything the "exclusive" spaces on Cunard ships make up much, much less of a footprint than the spaces on other cruise lines.

You dont have to be concerned or plan, about the only "off limits" areas you'll stumble across are the two Grills restaurants, which are easy to stay out of, and a small terrace at the back of the ship that is out of the way and signposted that its for Grills passengers.

It's as bad in Australia. Logging into My Account does literally nothing and gives you access to nothing, other than it remembers your email address and CWC number if you make a booking.

Yes, a lot of people miss the Chefs Galley completely (on my first trip on QM2 I never ventured in there). I think a lot of people think its one of the ones you have to book or pay for as its right next to one that you do. But you just show up and they seat you. In the evening its an Italian pasta and pizza restaurant. Only a basic menu, but I loved the food and the service was always excellent. During lunch it serves hamburgers and gourmet hot dogs. I generally went there when the menu in the MDR didnt have anything that really appealed to me.

Thanks. We actually found that we got far better service in the Chefs Galley, and didnt even have to pay for that. The guys and girls in there were great, that became a favourite of ours.

I enjoyed the food in the Verandah on the QM2 in February, but sadly agree about the service and maître d’. I had booked the time and date for lunch months before the cruise. I had done it for then as it was my partners birthday. We showed up at our time and were taken to our seat. Once sat a waiter came up and asked us something about what wine we wanted and how we wanted our steak - apparently that day it was some kind of wine and steak event which we were completely unaware of and were not informed of. We informed them that we had booked and paid for lunch on that day months ago, not any wine and steak thing. And even though there was only about three other tables being used we were asked to leave. We explained the situation to the maître d’ at the front and he offered no apology or any kind of compensation for our birthday lunch being ruined, all he said was we could come back tomorrow. Which we did, and when we showed up he asked us if we had a booking and acted like he didn't remember so I explained what happened and again no apology, he just acted like we were the ones in the wrong and was dismissive and just looked at his screen and said "ok we can fit you in". And that was it. And after that the table service was pretty poor and the whole thing felt rushed, we were never asked if we wanted another drink after the first one. The whole thing was a disappointing experience, outside of the food itself.

Perfect excuse for the cruiselines to further reduce the amount of ships they have in Australia.

I just use the ones they advertise on Ebay as being for Carnival. Carnival tags are wider but it doesn't make any difference.

Good idea, wish I'd thought to do that with my swimmers.

I was on during the Australian leg of the world voyage in February this year, and can confirm that there was an unexpected power loss during that trip that left the ship drifting and without air-conditioning for about four hours in the middle of the night. The captain made an announcement in the morning that they had to turn everything off and reset the system. It does seem a little unusual that the exact same thing happened again so soon.

Cunard does pretty well. The buffet has a gluten free section (including deserts) and I've heard that the main dining room is good at catering to guests with specific dietary requirements.

Covermore define a domestic cruise as one that goes from one Australian port to another.

Theres not a big enough market to support a ship homeporting in those states.

Has anyone heard any updates about RC's South Pacific private island (Perfect Day at Lelepe)? I guess logic says it will be canned, but what a shame.

Wifi has always been available for me as soon as I've boarded.

The same thing happened during the Australian leg of the world voyage a few months ago. They just shut everything down and drifted until about 6am and told us that they had to reset the electrical systems.

They're just generic brand questions on a survey made by a third party, that question has been in it for at least the last few years that I've done the survey. It's pretty much the same questions on surveys I've done on cruises on other lines.

I read somewhere that by 2026 Australian cruising capacity will have reduced by 30%. Worse still is that that particular report didn't even include the loss of Cunard and Virgin, so it's even more than that. Given the popularity of cruising in Australia which has only been growing, much higher prices and less deals are inevitable.

Having been on both the QM2 and QE in the past few months I have to say that in terms of service Cunard definitely needs to lift their game and from what I can see its definitely down to simply a lack of staff and the staff they do have being overworked. Thats not to say it had any real negative impact on my cruise, I still prefer to cruise with Cunard than anyone else and have rebooked two more cruises in the future and would certainly not suggest anyone not go on Cunard because of it, it was more of an annoyance but one that isnt really acceptable for a line that advertises its quality of service so hard. On both the QM2 and QE getting any drink service in the buffet didn't happen, not once on either ship. The only way I could have a drink with my meal was to go to a bar first and take it with me. The MDR wasn't much better, usually I'd have to tell my waiter I wanted a drink and he'd find a drink waiter. I also noticed in the outdoor areas there was usually no drinks waiters walking around, unlike when I'd been on the QM2 a year prior and there always seemed to be a few drinks waiters walking around areas like the pools. Its kind of odd, since drinks are such a big earner for cruise lines, usually there are drink waiters everywhere on cruise ships.

Not in my experience. $200 OBC for a $6000 cruise and the price otherwise the same as was on the website. Only real advantage was a low flat rate deposit for every cruise ($300).

I agree. The port fee thing was silly, per person it didn't equate to much, we already pay for the port fees with our fare, they could have added the difference to every fare and nobody would have noticed. Likewise Virgin using the Red Sea as an excuse to pull out of Australia, which is ridiculous since they could easily just do a repositioning cruise coming the other way from the US like most of the other cruise lines. I think it comes down to the weak Australian dollar on top of the cost of living crisis leading to people spending less on board. The issues with NZ as well as the shortage of passenger terminals in Sydney also probably helped them make the decision that we just aren't worth it.