Queen Victoria Canary Islands Christmas Review

I thought I'd review our recent holiday on the Queen Victoria to the Canaries over Christmas. My wife was actually ill for half of the holiday, but I'll do my best to be objective here, and will try not to let that impact on my review, except where I feel it's relevant.

We're both platinum members so have been on a number of Cunard cruises, but this is our first time on the revamped Queen Victoria. I have to say my impressions are generally favourable. I was worried about the Café Carinthia (one of my favourite spots to sit) being replaced by the Chart Room, but really it's no different during the daytime. The décor hasn't changed too much, and there is now a Godiva chocolates trolley parked outside, but that's about it. Incidentally, Cunard made a big thing about their partnership with Godiva, but I don't think I saw the trolley used once. We do now get Godiva pillow chocolates instead of the Cunard ones. I liked the new gin bar above the Chart Room (Midships Bar?), and had a very nice gin cocktail from there, and also the changes to the lido deck at the back, though the ship now looks a bit uglier from ashore. There's much more comfortable seating out the back now, including a lot of sheltered sofas. The only real negative was that they've replaced the general shop with a future bookings office, and crammed the shop products in the book shop, thus effectively ruining two shops in one stroke.

This was our first Christmas cruise, and the ship was very well decorated. Christmas music played constantly throughout the ship, but after a couple of days it became pretty unbearable. There were additional Christmas events such as the officers singing Christmas carols, and the visit of Santa Claus on Christmas Day. However, the latter event was ruined for us by my wife being ill - as we had our teenage daughter with us, we'd been invited along to meet Santa Claus, for her to get a present, and to have a family photo with him. But we arrived at the last minute, found nowhere to sit because a large number of the other passengers were also present, and my wife actually got shouted at by another passenger for daring to lean against a pillar and block her view. (This was before my wife had seen the doctor and was confined to her cabin.) This upset my daughter and we all had to leave before Santa arrived. The staff were very good though, and sent our daughter's present up to our cabin - she received a very nice portable Bluetooth speaker for her phone, and speaking of presents, everyone got a really lovely Wedgewood plate from Cunard as a Christmas present, which was much appreciated. I just feel the Santa Claus encounter could have been arranged a bit better - for example, reserving seating for the families that were actually invited there over those who came along to watch.

On the food front, there was a traditional Christmas dinner which was very nice. It didn't really differ from any other formal night though apart from the addition of crackers, and a couple of carol singers at the start. We were also presented with a menu in a folder that tied in with the design of the Wedgewood plate. Throughout the trip there were additional Christmas themed desserts, in the main restaurant and in the Lido. However generally I do think the standard of food has declined a bit, and I really think it is time for the dinner menus to be updated - they've been unchanged now ever since we first started cruising (and probably even before then), and I quickly became quite fed up with what was basically a fairly bland roast dinner every day. There are always alternatives, but they tend to be quite uninspiring. I think you get much more interesting choices on the lunch menu and in the Lido, so I wish they'd extend this to the main dining room. A few years ago we also thought the food standards were slipping, but they improved after that, so maybe the same will happen again. We were on a table for ten, but three of the people never turned up (or maybe it was always a table for seven set for ten - we never found out) and my wife missed half the meals so the table was half empty most of the time. Luckily the other diners on our table were great company. The waiters were as great as usual, though I think there are fewer of them. There are definitely fewer sommeliers, but this isn’t a new thing. In the Lido they've got rid of trays (to prevent people taking too much food and then wasting it, I think) and now seem to have more waiters available to fetch drinks and cutlery. I think generally it's a good system, but it does mean you make more trips to the buffet and so run the risk of having your table cleared away and losing your seat.

We don't usually go in for the on-board entertainment, but I need to mention the flamenco guitarist who was on board - Adam Westcott - as he was amazing! He played several sets in the Queen's Room during the daytime, gradually building a larger and larger crowd for each performance. He was also often to be seen around the ship and was very approachable. The first time we got quite poor seats so couldn't see him that well, and you really want to be able to see his hand movements, so the second time we went, we turned up very early and got front row seats. However, just before he was about to perform, the crew got a load more seats and put them in front of ours. We weren't really bothered, as we would still have a great view, but then, the staff asked us to move our seats forwards, as there was a large gap between the original front row (our row) and the new front row. We were happy to oblige and the staff helped (though I winced at them dragging chairs across the dance floor), but then we had a confrontation with a very angry man who said our chairs had been placed in his spot, and therefore they were now his chairs. We pointed out there was no way they could be his seats since we'd been sitting on them for the last half an hour and they still had our books etc. on them and after unsuccessfully attempting to grab them from us, he stormed off.

The captain (actually commodore) was quite visible throughout the voyage, would approach people and speak to them, so this was very positive - we have been on cruises in the past where the captain is virtually invisible. On the evening of Christmas Day, he had decided an oncoming storm could be a problem so we set sail at full speed all through that night and Boxing Day heading for La Coruna, which we arrived at a day early, missing the storm. He kept us informed of the change of plans throughout, and we were able to overnight in La Coruna. It was a bit bumpy leaving La Coruna the next afternoon, but not for too long.

Our final adventure was on disembarkation. We were due to disembark very early (8:15) so went straight to the theatre at 8:00. (We could have waited in the restaurant as platinum members, but didn't see the point for 15 minutes). However, due to bad weather, the ship broke free of its mooring and damaged the air bridge. The crew had to rig up two alternative gangways, but this took several hours and we were quite fed up by the end of it. It was clearly announced one of the gangways was very steep, so passengers who weren't so sure-footed should use the other gangway. This didn't seem to stop people risking life and limb by staggering down the really steep gangway with huge suitcases.

This is our second Canaries cruise with Cunard, and we've found on both occasions that the demographic is much older than usual. We're actually in our late forties, so generally we expect the majority of passengers to be older than us, and we don't have a problem with that. However, on both Canaries cruises, I would say the average age was a lot higher than other Cunard cruises we’ve been on. This is something you should bear in mind if you're planning to cruise to the Canary Islands and you prefer a younger demographic.

So although our holiday was somewhat spoiled by my wife's illness (actually her holiday was pretty much completely spoiled!) I think we would have had a good time had she been well. We did find that we missed other family members more than we thought we would at Christmas, so I don't think we'll go on another Christmas cruise in the future. The recent refurbishment of the ship has mainly improved it and I would recommend cruising on Queen Victoria, though I do think we're now going to take a break from cruising for a few years!

Thank you very much for such a comprehensive review, I hope your wife is feeling better.

Thank you very much for such a comprehensive review, I hope your wife is feeling better.

Thank you. She's still not great - whatever is was, it's pretty nasy!