caronia restaurant on QE2

[sweep]

We are booked on the QE2 for October 15th and will be dining in the Caronia restaurant. Can someone please tell me how the single sitting works? Are you allocated a table? If so what happens if people choose to eat at different times? If it is open seating, how easy is it to get a table for two?

 

Has anyone tried the C5 cabins?

 

Any information gratefully received as we have not been on this ship since 1993!

 

Thanks

 

Sweep

[eatsallinsects]

If you are scheduled to dine in the Caronia restaurant, we have always found a card with our table number on it in our cabin when we boarded. If you check out the restaurant and don't care for your location, you might be able to talk to the maitre de' and request another location.

For the evening meal, I "think" I remember from this past January, the hours of serving are from 6:30 to 9:30 and you can just go in any time between those hours and be served. Your whole party does not have to come in at the same time. Hope this helps?

[deck chair]

HI!

 

 

In additon to the previous poster, I can tell you with great confidence that C5 cabins on QE2 are very poorly located and are not laid out well. C4 and C3 are almost as bad. If I were you, I would book at least a C2 or C1. Cabins on one deck are nicer because the portholes are larger. Find a travel agent with detailed deck plans and you'll see what I mean about location and layout.

 

I think the Caronia on QE2 is the most beautiful dining room on that ship. From my experience (15 voyages) you can eat enter at 6:30 until 9 pm. Most people seem to get there around 7-7:30. I like the Caronia because you have the same table/servers for breakfast lunch and dinner. None of this open seating business at breakfast and lunch you find in the M classs dining room with who knows who serving you. Good luck.

 

Deck chair

[jbailey]

Open seating in Caronia is very nice. If you sit at a larger table with 6 or 8 people, which I always prefer to do, you could all be coming in at different times. When I traveled with my elderly mother, we tended to come in earlier than the other people at our table, but often stayed as long as they did so as to enjoy the conversation.

 

It is especially nice to be able to adjust your dining time, depending on what you have been doing in the daytime and what you plan to do that evening. Some evenings you can eat early and some late. Two-sitting Mauretania does not give you this option.

 

I agree that some C5 cabins are laid out very poorly. Some in the very front of the ship are also much larger than others, so if you are going somewhere there is not likely to be much wave action, you might try one of those. My mother and I were in 4145, which was convenient to the E stairwell, it was very long and skinny with much space wasted by a long hall and closets. The cabin next door was much larger but the same C5 class. Also, beware of C5 cabins where the beds are near the door and the porthole at the end of a long hall and connecting cabins which tend to be more noisy.

 

We had been offered either 4005, 4006, 4007, and 4008 are located in the front of the ship, but turned them down because it was a transatlantic crossing and I was afraid my elderly mother would have been seasick, but I wished we had taken them! I'd go up to a C3 or C4 if you can manage it.

[Jeanne S]

Any cabin on Deck 4 near the E stairwell or amidships as long as the bed in configured by the porthole would be fine. There are not all that many tables for two, you may request one and you might get lucky. This used to be the Columbia 1st Class Dining Room when the ship was really a 2 class experience and really is what a dining room at sea should be.

 

In 2002 (last time I dined there) they had International Night with a Baked Alaska Parade sung to Auld Lang Syne. The flags of countries are hung on the walls. Is very impressive.

 

You will be able to dine anytime within the prescribed hours. So if dinner is say 6:45-9, you could arrive anytime in between and that table will be yours for all meals which is very nice.

 

Caronia shares the same Galley as the Princess and Britannia Grill, so even if there is not an a la carte or alternative menu, you can ask for something else and usually get it. Do try the wonderful cheese trolley.

[CREPIDULA]

When I dined in Caronia on the 2002 World cruise at a table for 8 we had an officer with us initially. Some of the other pax were annoyed that I came and left before the officer arrived around 8PM. So I stayed late enough and for enough dinners to see the officer replace himself with his junior until he left on his vacation. By the end of the first 14 days, most of my original tablemates has disembarked, the officier never came back and my new tablemates all came and went when we liked but with an agreement that we would all try to be present sometime between 6:45 and 7:30PM. It worked fine.