ceilidh1

IMG_8404.mov

Cula IMG_8306.mov

Entertainment Like food, I feel that entertainment is somewhat subjective. While I appreciated the pure talent of every entertainer on this ship, the offerings were just not my style. That's not to say they weren't excellent. I just don't want to listen to classical music, pianists, violinists, or harpists every night and I don't have any interest in ballroom dancing, so I felt like I was always wondering what to do. Luckily for me, the pub and the Garden Cafe had the Irish Duo Cula each night and they were fantastic! Have I mentioned how much I loved the pub? I should also say that the production shows we watched were excellent and I really enjoyed them. However, overall, the lack of things that I, personally, am interested in would likely make me think twice about cruising on Cunard again - this trip was great in that it served its purpose of me just relaxing and doing nothing. Most trips I like to go-go-go and experience everything. I didn't feel as if there was enough for me to experience.

Pictures of some of the amazing food we had

Food Food is obviously subjective and, after the first not-very-impressive, impression at the buffet you might think I'm here to say the food was awful. Not at all. Hands down, this was the best cruise line food I have ever had - and I've been on my fair share of cruises. The buffet is never my favorite place, but the buffet on QE had some great options - afternoon tea was outstanding, as was the pizza station. I didn't love breakfast, simply because it never changed. The sushi station was wonderful. The food in the dining rooms was consistently great, and don't even get me started on the pub lunch - awesome! We did the Lido specialty - Frontier and Coriander - and loved both. So good and so worth the upcharge. We also enjoyed some good food on deck at the Lido Grill and had some nice pastries at Cafe Corinthia. The room service menu was outstanding - and complimentary. Honestly, I would have been happy to just to have every meal off there! The only problem we had was deciding where to eat as we didn't want to miss anything! I really can't say a bad thing about the food on this ship. Service in the dining rooms was hit and miss - it often took forever to get drinks (if you were even lucky enough to have a drink server come over). Which leads me to another observation - as two females, we found that we were largely ignored in terms of drink service. It started out amusing but by day three I was mad! We would sit in a lounge and get completely ignored, while a male/female couple would sit on the next table and get approached immediately. In the dining room, I asked our waiter and the food server to send over someone to take a drink order - never came. Is this normal? It became kind of embarrassing having to constantly flag down someone to get us drinks - I felt like they thought I had a drinking problem. The only place this wasn't an issue was in the pub, so we spent much of our time in there!

Apologies for the upside down pictures....

Sailaway By the time we were done eating and exploring, it was around 4:30pm and time for sailaway...or so we thought. We found a place at the aft of the ship (this quickly became our favorite hangout) and settled in to watch the sailaway. My kiddos texted while we were there to say they were coming down to wave us off (we literally live a 7 minute walk from the port). It was so nice to see them and say a final goodbye...except we didn't actually go anywhere. We sat. And sat. And waved. And waved, Then it became awkward, and the kids wanted dinner so they left. We didn't. I'm not sure what the hold up was but we didn't end up leaving until close to 6pm, by which time we had headed in to find dinner!

After dropping our bags and checking into the muster station, we headed off in search of lunch. I was hoping to find the pub open, or at least a dining room, but it seemed the only option was the buffet. And, like all buffets on embarkation day, it was madness! The food looked great but was lukewarm at best. There were no tables and, if one was vacated, there were no staff to clear them. We ended up standing next to a newly vacated table, with plates in hand, for a good 5-10 minutes hoping that someone would come clear away the remains from the last guests. No one did. In the end, I ended up holding our plates of food while BFF cleared the table and walked the dirty dishes up to the counter. Only then did someone approach and wipe down the table. Not a great first impression, especially after we had been so wowed up to this point! Not surprisingly, no one came to ask if we wanted drinks, so BFF headed off the the drink dispenser and came back with...pineapple juice!? Huh? No lemonade, out of cranberry juice, so pineapple it was. Not that I have anything against pineapple - just seemed kind of random.

Cabin We were delighted to find our cabin was available to us to drop our bags, so that was our first stop. We had an oceanview on deck one. I was initially concerned that this would be a problem as it seemed so low and it was midship next to guest services. The opposite was true! The cabin was so convenient for everything and so quiet. We felt no movement and it was a great set up. I loved the fact there was a sofa in the room!

First Impressions From the first step onto that red carpet, seeing the staff decked out in their cute red outfits and hats I knew this ship would be classy. I was right! The ship was stunning. So tasteful and elegant. I loved the fresh flowers, the art, the decor, and the feeling that you were on a traditional ocean liner as opposed to an amusement park at sea (I'm looking at you RCCL)!

I recently sailed on the QE, roundtrip Vancouver-Alaska, and figured I would share some thoughts. Ordinarily, I do live reviews from the ship, but the wifi was SO bad that it had to wait until I got home! As a first time Cunard cruiser, I was quite anxious and not sure what to expect - hoping this will be helpful for other first timers! Background While I have never sailed Cunard before, I am a seasoned cruiser with well over 40 cruises under my belt - almost half of which were to Alaska. The reason being - I live within walking distance of the port in Vancouver, so anything that I can do without flying is a win! I primarily sail Princess, but also enjoy NCL and my new favorite Virgin Voyages. Usually, I sail with my kids but this time it was just myself and BFF. Pre Cruise I did a lot of research and video watching to prepare for this sailing, since I really had no idea what to expect. I'm not one for dressing up and I was very worried about having to dress for dinner each night. Luckily, my thoughts on what it mean to "dress for dinner" were way over the top - no, you don't need a full on ballgown each night! We had two gala nights - Ice White and Masquerade - so I treated myself to a nice white dress and a cute black dress and accessories. The other nights, we just dressed in either a cocktail type dress or nice pants and blouse. I typically like to buy a drink package, simply because I don't want to worry about having a bill when I disembark. Sadly, Cunard priced me out of this - $70USD per day and both guests had to buy. That's $1400USD for drinks. Nope. We ended up deciding to just pay-as-you-go and it was definitely the right choice. We did purchase the thermal suite for both sea days. The way it is set up online is that you choose a day and a 2-hour time slot. This is not the way it works once you board - the booking is actually for the entire day, rather than two hours, and it was much more to purchase on the ship than to purchase ahead of time. This worked out in our favour! We also did the two Lido specialty dining, which we pre-purchased online for $25USD per person. I believe it was more to purchase once on the ship. We did not book excursions since we had both been to Alaska many times and planned on either just walking around town or enjoying the empty ship. Given that we had pretty crummy weather all trip, this turned out to be the right choice! Embarkation Anyone that has ever sailed from Vancouver will know what a gong show this port can be. I used to work shoreside at the port, so know the process like the back of my hand. I still hate it. We were fortunate that there were only two ships in for our embarkation - Disney and QE. We were assigned a 2pm check in time, but decided to arrive around noon (having worked there for so long I know that it's better to arrive right around boarding time). As is the usual process at Canada Place, we dropped our bags at the terminal level, took the escalator up to street level for check in, took the escalator back down to terminal level for security and US CBP, and then boarded the ship. It really is an awkward process! There was a line for check in, but it seemed to move quickly and we were headed back down to a much longer line for security. Once again, if you have sailed from Vancouver, you will know that to go through security and US CBP it's every man (or woman) for themselves. All passengers, regardless of ship or status, go through the exact same lines. It was pretty easy to tell who were on Cunard and who were on Disney - lots of frazzled parents, kids melting down, and the vacation hasn't even started. I'm always amazed at the security points when, after standing in line for half an hour, the person in front of me suddenly realises (or not) that they need to empty their pockets. Then the line gets held up even more as we wait for that person to either proceed through the metal detector with their cell phone, money, and keys in their pocket or hold up everyone behind as one by one they empty every pocket they have. Despite the line, we were still in good spirits and got through in around half an hour. Next up is US CBP - they have the same machines they use at the airport but if you aren't travelling on US or Canadian passports, you have to line up to see an officer. That line was pretty significant, but we got through to the machines quickly, punched in all the details and were on our way. This is where the ships branch off - Disney went to the left and Cunard to the right. The ship had just started boarding at this point and the rep asked if we were priority - nope. We were told to take a seat. There were a bunch of empty rows (I assume folks who had been sitting there had been called to board) and then 5 or 6 rows with people sitting in them. We asked the rep where we should sit and my BFF jokingly said "Can we sit in the first row" - to which the rep said, "Of course!". Huh? Well, we sat there and then were told to come on aboard...but all the other rows were still sitting and waiting. Confused? Us, too! From arrival to stepping foot on the ship was one hour and fifteen minutes. Not the best but definitely not the worst at this port!

OMG - I would never leave my balcony if I could sit and stare at the ships like that. I spend WAY too much time at Canada Place staring at the cruise ships.

In case you’re homesick, this was the sunset here a couple nights ago (granted it’s because most of BC is on fire, but still beautiful!) Finally got rain today!

It almost looks as if it were dropped and scooped back up. I'm glad you refused to accept it.

So is a reindeer the Norway equivalent to a Canada Goose?

I had two future cruises in the pipeline - an 8 day on Valiant in December and a 15 day on Princess in March. Final payment for Valiant was due and I needed to decide whether to keep or cancel (chances of doing both sailings are slim...). I was leaning on cancelling, since it's more expensive for me to fly to Miami than it is to LA. When Princess announced the changes they were making to packages, etc. my mind changed. I made final to VV and, though I haven't yet cancelled Princess, I likely will do so prior to final. I loved my VV cruise last year and would make them mu number 1 line if they had ships on the West Coast. Princess had always been "my" cruiseline but I really don't love the way they are going and their product is not what it used to be.

You can't come home until we have a polar bear sighting. That's the rule. Everyone knows it...

The menus I posted with pricing on the original thread were from the TA site, added to the information regarding package change. I have no way of knowing their accuracy, but if incorrect it's on Princess Corporate as opposed to me, the poster.

Dad will understand this pic....

I was hoping to see a polar bear...

Welcome to my city! I assume you are back here in 2 weeks - would love to meet up if you have time and repay the kindness G showed me on the Ruby back in December! I almost missed that you were cruising as I just got back from a 10 day on QE2...