cruiseluvva Posted February 8, 2023 #1 Share Posted February 8, 2023 We have booked our first Christmas 27 night voyage on QM2, although we are long time Cunard loyalists. I’d be interested in any info about Christmas on board. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PORT ROYAL Posted February 8, 2023 #2 Share Posted February 8, 2023 26 minutes ago, cruiseluvva said: We have booked our first Christmas 27 night voyage on QM2, although we are long time Cunard loyalists. I’d be interested in any info about Christmas on board. Thank you. Plus… The ships are decked out wonderfully Cons…Could be many babies, prams, pushchairs, young children etc... As this particular cruise is very popular with crew and land side Cunard employees as an employee benefit cruise, where the whole family can cruise together. Tried once, never repeated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemarble Posted February 8, 2023 #3 Share Posted February 8, 2023 I'll link to this thread I created while on the November QM2 Caribbean cruise this year when they started putting up the Christmas decorations. They do a wonderful job of decorating the ship for Christmas. You can also expect Christmas related activities including Christmas carols in the Grand Lobby on Christmas Eve and a visit by Santa Claus in the Queens Room on Christmas Day with presents for the children. There also will be a gift from Cunard left in your cabin. The year we did the QM2 Christmas cruise we received a Wedgewood mug. This year I understand the Christmas gift was a twilly incorporating the design they used on their Christmas card this year. And of course you will be on board to ring in the new year, so you can expect a New Year's Eve party in the Queens Room. They used to do a balloon drop but they have dispensed with balloons for environmental concerns. I'll conclude with my favorite photo from Christmas on QM2 showing the Wind in the Willows characters beneath the main Christmas tree in the Grand Lobby. As you may be able to tell from the carpeting, this photo is from prior to the 2016 remastering. It is in fact from the 2013 Christmas cruise. Cunard continues the tradition of including those characters in the decorations each Christmas. I learned this year that Rebecca Graves was commissioned by Cunard to create those characters for QM2 in 2012. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfred Posted February 8, 2023 #4 Share Posted February 8, 2023 This is QE, not QM2, but the following two photos from 21 December 2019 might give an idea of Christmas carols in the grand lobby, and a visit from Santa. Photos taken on a short two-night break from Adelaide to Melbourne. It was a toasty 43c on the afternoon we departed Adelaide. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiseluvva Posted February 9, 2023 Author #5 Share Posted February 9, 2023 Thank you all for the comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starquake Posted March 2, 2023 #6 Share Posted March 2, 2023 We have tried once (with some friends + children) , repeating this Xmas (minus the friends as they are booked on 2024). Fair to say given BOTH of us rebooked albeit for different years it was enjoyable. Agree many of the more senior crew will ALSO have their families onboard, so will many of the guests. Children were plentiful compared with a normal Cunard sailing (we had been on 3 prior, this was most!). However all were well behaved as a general rule, however some older cruisers didnt like the children having fun in the Queens room in the evening, and complained resulting in a strange children under 11 must dance with a adult rule for part of the cruise. (We actually thought the kids were great, and better at ballroom dancing than some of the adults!). In summary lots more family groups who keep mostly to themselves than a non-christmas cruise. The atmosphere was great with some great shows flown in for the cruise throughout the 19 nights we had on board (we only done the first 2 of the 3 segments), including a first time a full west-end play ("Best Exotic Marigold Hotel") was performed at sea over 2 showings on 2 afternoon matinees. The regular performers and show team were also excellent. Food wise, we were treated very welll, as we had a full table of 6 "filled" effectively, we got to know our head waiters as well as our own waiting team (wife is intolerant to certain ingredients) so we had lots of interactions with the chefs and had a table of our choice reserved for both lunch (on 2nd floor) and dinner (on the balcony above the middle of the dining area)-> which they even managed to move to a different sitting for the single (port) night we moved to late dining to accomodate a sailwaway. (This was because technically we despite not being on open-dining were seated in the open dining part of the restaurant alongside a 8 table next door, so us moving to late didn't require anyone else to be displaced).. The lectures on board were also varied, and interesting. World Politics/Economics, Astronomy, Naval history, and Cyber threat landscapes were all topics of interest to myself. My wife enjoyed the famous (female) racing driver Lyn St James doing a presentation, as well as the West end show the "most". The main negative I would say is fitting everything in, we struggled making/doing all the things we wanted to see on many of the sea days, as quite often 2-3 items clashed at same time, alongside some "annoying scheduluing" on the lectures meaning quite a few times the first lecture in a series would be promiently at 10am so easy to attend, future elctures in the series clashing with Lunch at 12. This made things difficult as we could not see the next days program before booking lunch menu (12-1:30pm) with the chefs (wife having special diatary requirement) to know if we'd miss a lecture, so had to catch up on TV. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberal_Baggie Posted March 2, 2023 #7 Share Posted March 2, 2023 We are on from Southampton for 19 days in Princess Grill this time I’m veggie wife is vegan be pleased to dine with you at some point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Solent Richard Posted March 3, 2023 #8 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Nice one @cruiseluvva. We have a number of Queen Mary 2 full Christmas cruises under our belts and all have been excellent. The last occasion we did a Christmas crossing was in December 2016 though we didn't do the full cruise: we used her as a ferry to get us to New York where we stayed for Christmas. As it was post the remastering I've attached here my review: should give you a 'pictorial' feel however. https://solentrichardscruiseblog.com/2017/01/02/queen-mary-2-remastered-trans-atlantic/ Meanwhile, Cunard go the extra mile with the usual Christmas and New Year decor... ***** 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiseluvva Posted March 3, 2023 Author #9 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Thank you for the recent comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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