exlondoner

Yes, you can. Quite a lot of the QG chefs are Indian, and will be happy to contrive you an Indian banquet, given suitable notice. Or you can ask for the speciality restaurant version.

The QA is a bit different and does not have pop-ups. It has distinct speciality restaurants, Sir Samuels, a steak house, and three ethnic ones (Italian, Indian, Japanese) the names of which I can’t remember, at varying prices. These were heavily booked in advance on our voyage, but that might soon wear off, especially as service issues in the MDR are ironed out.

Why pay for a speciality restaurant when you’ve already forked out for the QG? Just to expand further: there are two sections of the alc: one that lasts forever, with things like chateaubriand and lobster Thermidor on it, and the one that changes every few days, which also has some starters on it. The latter now includes three choices for each course, I think, down from five a few years ago, and four recently. If these don’t suit, you can ask for anything else.

One other thing I liked was that the senior people in the restaurant seemed to be on the lookout and ready to step in to protect the waiters from unnecessary carping.

And one hears the equivalent of that quite often. A bit like the poster who complained that the Grills Lounge was a hellhole and probably not really big enough. 😀

I think, perhaps particularly on our cruise, there were a lot of really rather difficult passengers in the QG, because they all seemed to have travelled on Cunard since the days of the Carpathia, and were disconcerted by anything unusual, and indeed not everything was perfect, because everyone was finding their way around a new ship. I thought the restaurant staff were lovely and very patient. As, in fact, were many of the passengers.

I’ve just had a good idea. Could they possibly have found her a window in the PG with the Covid carriers, assuming they are really there?

Sorry I meant only man. I don’t know what came over me.

l thought the celebrity speaker on our cruise who appeared to be the only person in QG without a tie on formal night was showing very bad form, but this is far, far worse. Really unspeakably vulgar.

There is a splendid picture in the paper of QA passing the Perch Rock lighthouse, as she arrived.

At the risk of emulating the arch complainers, I am included to say ‘Food Hall, pah. Call it the Lido’. As in fact everyone seemed to, including a couple of crew, one of whom corrected herself with rolling eyes. 😀

I would hope that the failure of the accessible cabin to be properly accessible is something they can remedy fairly rapidly. Remember they spent QV’s first world cruise, which was about her second voyage, retrofitting drawers into most of the cabins. So proper rails in a comparatively few cabins really shouldn’t be beyond them.

The other amusing thing is how often the people who spend their time complaining about the many iniquities of the ship then sidle off to the Booking Office and book a couple more cruises. This happens on all the Cunard ships, not just QA.

Never been on Celebrity, so can’t compare. The same with P&O which seems another object of comparison. Don’t they tend to play a lot of loud artificial music on Celebrity? Incidentally don’t you think the dress of the five Liverpudlian women yesterday, (which was criticised by many) was in part chosen to reflect the Cunard colours?

But you might reasonably have expected a more helpful cabin than you have.

What I haven’t really figured out is what there that makes people say QA is so different from the other Cunarders?

I must say that, as a group, Cunard passengers seem to me to include a rather high percentage of people who are looking for something to moan about, as is evident from some of the reviews. What could there be not to enjoy yesterday (unless of course one were trying to watch from the Grills Lounge😀😀)? Even the weather seems to have been cooperative. Did you get a nice celebratory meal?

How can that possibly be so given the relative population densities of Northern and SE England?

I think the fact that so large a proportion of the potential passengers (as well as Heathrow Airport) live within three hours of Southampton is crucial.

I imagine because they get a lot of passengers.

Sorry, what has that to do with Hamburg?

And now a lot of TAs actually begin in Hamburg with a lot of German passengers, which makes Southampton more convenient.

We were once berthed at Piraeus, along with lots of other cruise ships and ferries. I remember thinking how much they looked like blocks of flats - which they did. It gradually dawned on me however, that quite a lot of the things I could see actually were blocks of flats. Hmmm.

I think (most of) the interior is gorgeous. I’m afraid they all look like blocks of flats, even QM2, if you can’t see the hull. It is the price you pay for giving people balconies.

I agree that the black hull is amazingly beneficial aesthetically, but I remember people being equally rude about QV when she appeared.