QM2 Christmas cruise trip report

Having thoroughly enjoyed reading other CC members write-ups over the years, I thought would I would write about my experience aboard QM2’s December22 to January 3 Caribbean cruise. Warning, this will be a long post, I apologize in advance if this is too rambling.

This year, we parked our car at the Brooklyn Cruise terminal, which was convenient for boarding the ship, there was ample parking available, and traffic entering the terminal was relatively light. The security screening and passenger check in process went smoothly and seemed better organized than last year, when the security line was backed up out the door.

Upon boarding, the ships photographers were less aggressive abouttrying to take embarkation photos than on most departures, which was a welcome surprise. The Grand Lobby was nicely decorated for Christmas, with a large Christmas tree secured in the center, flanked by the characters from the Wind and The Willows, and Christmas lights and garland along the banisters. As my cabin was aft of the D lifts, I cut through the unoccupied Britannia Restaurantto get to the D lifts bypassing the massive queue of passengers waiting for theC lifts, and as I expected there was no one queueing for the D lifts.

I was disappointed to see that the stateroom passageways and staterooms received no Christmas decorations at all this year. Having sailed QM2’s Christmas cruise the past two years, previously the stateroom number plates had a bit of Christmas decorations attached to them, and each stateroom had a red poinsettia placed onthe table for decoration, creating a nice festive atmosphere. Greeting me in my stateroom was only the standard Welcome Back card and full bottle of Pol Acker. It seemed that this year’s Christmas decorations throughout the ship with the exception of the Grand Lobby, had been scaled back compared to the last two years, which was something I heard many other passengers commenting about.

A portion of the passenger bags were loaded quite late from the terminal on this cruise. My bags and my dining room table mates bags did not arrive in our cabins until moments before the lines were thrown. I later heard that supposedly there had been a problem with one of the X ray machines for screening baggage which slowed the loading process considerably.

Chris Wells was captain for this voyage and Paul O’Loughlinwas the entertainment director. I always enjoy Captain Well’s updates, as he brings his sense of humor to them, such as while we were traversing the “Bermuda Triangle,” he said that he would put our chances of being abducted by aliens as “extremely remote.”

Christmas onboard was very festive as usual. Captain Wells gave a reading of “The Night Before Christmas” for the kids onboard in the Grand Lobby, and they had the senior officers singing carols. The chefs had made a large gingerbread village which was on display in the hallway of deck 3near Sir Samuels.

We enjoyed our three sea days en route to St. Thomas, and arrived in St. Thomas on the morning of the 26 th. We took an excursion to visit Magens BayBeach, which was very relaxing in spite of a few rain showers that passed through. They have done a good job of clearing theroads on St. Thomas following the hurricanes, but the damage to trees and buildings remains extensive. Many buildings on the island have major roof damage, and Captain Wells said that much of the island still has no electricity. As the ship departed St. Thomas after dark, there was hardly any vehicletraffic on the streets, and much of the island was dark, it was almost eerie sailing away from the mostly unoccupied island. Someone on board said that the island is to remain closed to non-cruise tourism throughout 2018.

While departing St. Thomas, I observed something I’ve neverseen aboard QM2, a bunch of unruly unsupervised teens on an upper balcony were throwing food down onto deck 7. Later in the cruise, I overheard a parent lamenting to another passenger that they and their kids had been called in to appear in front of Captain Wells, and that Captain Wells said they had better shape up their behavior, or they would be banned from sailing on the ship in the future. I was pleased to hear that Wells laid down the law on them, but can’timagine how parents could be so hands off in the discipline of their kids while onboard that it could get to the point that the ships captain would have to discipline them himself. In my opinion, the parents should have been ashamed.

The ship anchored just outside English Harbor in Antigua onthe 27 th. They lowered a tender boat, but after measuring the rise and fall of the tender against the loading platform on the side of the ship at a height in excess of 1 meter, Captain Wells determined it unsafe to conduct tendering operations in those conditions. So, we spent the 27 th as an extra seaday. I overheard some passengers grumbling about the missed port, but I think Captain Wells made the right call, as I cannot picture the average QM2 passenger safely boarding a tender that is bobbing up and down as much as a meter or more, compared to the side of the ship. I overheard some crew talking about how they never successfully tender in Antigua because of the typical wave conditions there, but that for some reason Cunard management keeps scheduling it as a port.

On the 28 th the ship had a beautiful day in St. Kitts. Having previously explored most of St. Kitts itself, we chose to take a boat excursion over to visit Nevis Island, where we enjoyed a beautiful afternoon on the beach.

On the 29 th the ship docked in Bridgetown Barbados, where we shared the port with 4 other large ships and one smaller ship. I recalled reading a CC report by a passenger about the Queen Elizabeth’s most recent visit to Barbados, describing the situation of getting to and from the ship within the port as “chaotic.” That statement proved very accurate due to the design of the port. The gangway sticks out into a lane of traffic, such that as vehicles are passing it is not safe for passengers to be stepping off the gangway. They also had a chaotic setup of busses to take passengers to the main port building. Alternatively, passengers could choose to walk the 1/4 mile distance along a narrow raised sidewalk barely wide enough for two people to pass in opposite directions. The busses are impeded by forklifts loading and unloading provisions from other ships, and the walkway is crowded with passengers from multiple ships. It is by far the most ill-equipped port I have visited. We did an excursion called “The Best of Barbados.” While our guide was very kind and informative, the tour used, used Japanese tour busses which had seats far to narrow and close together to comfortably accommodate most averagesized US and European passengers, also the a/c barely worked, so it was sweltering hot in the bus. This was by far my least favorite of all the Cunard sanctioned excursions that I have ever been on. Returning to the ship, I took the narrow walkway back while the rest of my party waited for the busses. They saw an American and a Scottish guy pumping their fists at each other almost coming to blows after one accused the other of cutting ahead in the queue. We were all glad to sail away from Barbados after that day.

Our last port day was Amber Cove on New Year’s Eve. Having read a lot of negative things about Amber Cove from other CC members, I was prepared for the worst, but the port itself is nearly brand new and was much nicer than I expected. We shared the port with a Costa ship. Having said that, our experience went downhill after our “Monster Truck Adventure” left the port. Just after leaving the port, the guide made everyonesign a waiver, which no one could recall Cunard informing anyone about. From the description of the “Adventure” one would think the vehicle would be going on off road trails to remote areas. In reality it is just an ancient former military truck with seats in the back and no suspension that takes an unmaintained road along the coastline to a remote beach. The beach where we ended up was nice, but the guide warned people that while visiting the Dominican Republic if you are stopped by the police, be prepared to pay the police a bribe to be let go, he said that all the police there are corrupt and stop people to get bribes. Based on my experience in Amber Cove, if Iever return I would probably not leave the secured port area.

New Years Eve was very festive on board as always, they celebrated UK new years in the Chart Room at midnight London time, and had balloon drops in the Queens Room and Grand Lobby at midnight ships time, which was 1 hour ahead of NYC time. At midnight ships time they opened up a special New Years buffet in Kings Court which wasan unbelievable spread of food. It was alot of fun to watch the chefs get the Kings Court spread set up and theychanged a 2017 ice sculpture to a 2018 one at midnight.

Our last day on board took us back into wintery weather, asthe ship passed through freezing rain and sleet. It was a harsh welcome back to reality as we approached NYC.

All in all, we had a wonderful time spending Christmas andNew Years aboard QM2 for the 3 rd year in a row!

It sounds as though overall you enjoyed your festivities. Thanks for sharing.

Great report, thanks for posting.

Thank you for sharing your voyage with us. Such a well written report could never be too long.

Frank

Thank you for posting your experience of your Christmas cruise. Makes interesting reading, especially Capt Wells taking the unruly family to task. I share your disappointment re no Poinsettia in the staterooms,however, thank your lucky stars Cunard still offers 'all categories' of staterooms a bottle of chilled sparking wine, when most cruise lines these days get by with offering you half a glass of something, whilst still trying to juggle your carry- on luggage ! By the way, I do believe those 'Stateroom Door Decorations' are the effort of the individual guest.;)

Thank you for the delightful, detailed and positive review. Sounds like a wonderful voyage but still so sad about St. Thomas and other islands.

Thank you for your very detailed report.

Very much appreciated.

Keith

On the Queen Victoria Christmas cruise there was a small floral decoration by all cabin doors.

A beautifully written and informative report. Thank you for it!

Sounds like a great time. The way you write, the ship was as much of the experience as the islands. Great report.

Perhaps an odd question:

Assuming you were in a Britannia stateroom, what was the total Daily Service Charge on your bill?

We had prepaid gratuities and the total DSC (charged and then refunded) was either applied for 11 days or was counted at around $10.50 for 12 days.

I'm working from memory since I don't have my detailed bill in front of me.

As is typical it was applied in one charge rather than 12 daily charges.

Seemed a bit low to me. I tipped in cash (steward, waiters and sommelier) to more than cover the difference, so its just a latter of understanding the "usual."

Perhaps an odd question:

 

Assuming you were in a Britannia stateroom, what was the total Daily Service Charge on your bill?

We had prepaid gratuities and the total DSC (charged and then refunded) was either applied for 11 days or was counted at around $10.50 for 12 days.

I'm working from memory since I don't have my detailed bill in front of me.

As is typical it was applied in one charge rather than 12 daily charges.

Seemed a bit low to me. I tipped in cash (steward, waiters and sommelier) to more than cover the difference, so its just a latter of understanding the "usual."

Off hand, this sounds like it might be another case of the rather interesting accounting Cunard used for 'included gratuities' as reported in the following thread from last August.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2537121

Regards, John

Off hand, this sounds like it might be another case of the rather interesting accounting Cunard used for 'included gratuities' as reported in the following thread from last August.