Cruising demographics

We’re booked on on short cruise on the QE out of Southampton and wondered if the demographic differs between short, medium and long cruises and whether there is a noticeable difference of demographic when cruising out of Southampton on a short cruise.

This is mainly aimed at the number of ballroom dancers as that’s what we’re looking forward to the most having not cruised with Cunard before but have been on several RCCL cruises where dancing is hardly catered for.

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As a rule the longer the trip the older the people. Even on a short cruise you will find plenty of dancing in the Queens Room.

There is live music each night but also recorded music. You will find a lot of the serious dancers take advantage of the recorded music as the dance floor is quieter.

I did my first Cunard trip in 1991 when I was in my early 20s (a TA on QE2). It was during term time and I was definitely one of the youngest but not the youngest (my brother was younger!) Twenty seven years later and whenever I travel I am still one of the youngest!! :)

My partner and I normally travel during the school term so I think that naturally tends towards an older age demographic overall. However, we have done a 2 week western Mediterranean cruise during the height of the school summer holidays and there were quite a few families with children and teenagers on board. We've also done a short break at the start of school Christmas holidays and there were some families with kids then (but not as many).

As well as the length of the voyage and the time of year, I think the itinerary might be a factor in the age profile of passengers: I haven't done a TA on QM2 but I wonder if a cruise from the UK in August might attract an overall younger group than a TA, due to having ports of call.

We don't spend much time in the Queens Room of an evening but whenever we have glanced in during the balls the dance floor has seemed busy with energetic people of middle age and upwards.

Big time.

Shorter the cruise, the lower the average age.

And vice versa.

Two recent cruises on QV and QE had over 1300 Australian passengers on each ship - and over 1000 on a transatlantic QM2 voyage.