Rare We_like_to_cruise Posted July 12 #1 Share Posted July 12 Still waiting nearly a month for the credit on our cancelled transfer from NY port to LGA. According to our TA, they are "still working on it" Anytime I return an item in a store the credit appears within a day or so. We were on the June 9 TA and due to "power problems" were 4 hours late to Brooklyn. Cunard decided to put us on an 11:30 am shuttle for our 2 pm flight out of LGA. Hmm, let's see, wait on the queue to disembark at 11:30 am, find our luggage, go through immigration/customs, locate the bus, wait for all of the passengers to get their luggage and themselves on the bus, drive 30+ minutes to LGA, wait for passengers to get off the bus, wait for luggage to be offloaded, check-in and find our gate. NO WAY this will work out. And of course the airline recommends that you be at the airport two hours before your flight! Forced to wait nearly an hour online at the excursion desk to cancel the shuttle and were assured we would receive our credit card credit in a few days. Many of us were inconvenienced by this 4 hour delay and Cunard did almost nothing voluntarily to assist. A fellow passenger - nothing from Cunard - advised me to ask at Guest Services for internet access. (The first cruise we ever took without a package!) We were anxious to check what our options might be if we missed our flight. They refused to help and told us to come back the next day where, after again waiting in a long line, we were eventually given 24 hour access to the internet. Gee thanks - nice of you to help after we spend thousands of dollars on this voyage and YOU are screwing up our plans. Still, waiting for that lousy $100 was just the icing on the cake of a very disappointing cruise experience on QM2. We would have to agree with much of what was said on the "Cruise with Ben and David" Youtube video. Their too-long video could use some judicious editing but to our minds we agree service and food were at best a 2/5. Here are some examples: Inexperienced wait staff in Britannia Dining Room, incorrect orders delivered to us, food not hot, a sommelier who lazily reached over my wife's head to hand me a glass of wine instead of walking all the way around (!) to the other side of our table for two, a staff member who said "The water dispenser is over there" when we asked for glasses of water in the buffet, a shockingly rude and unfriendly staff encounter and unfortunately more. Pitiful. Food was just ok in the MDR with limited choices and lackluster service. The buffet - nothing was hot and not much variety. Same old stuff day after day. The only really nice meal we had was at the Verandah Restaurant. Yet at the end of the meal when our check was presented we were advised (three different times!) that the gratuity was not included. A little excessive and not appropriate for such a lovely venue. Yes, so disappointing. We had such high expectations for QM2 anticipating an upscale experience. I brought my tuxedo and suits to wear for dinners. My wife dressed up each evening. We were ready to be wowed, but Cunard did not deliver. And, the planetarium - something we looked forward to - was still inoperative. When I queried a staff member for thoughts on when it would be fixed, he just laughed and shrugged his shoulders. Our room was adequate, with a fantastic cabin steward, but marred by the extensive rust on the balcony. Don't they have any paint on this ship? We have been on dozens of cruises on most of the major cruise lines with voyages ranging from three days to over one hundred. Were excited to finally try Cunard, but now will cross it off our list. 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ratflinger Posted July 12 #2 Share Posted July 12 Okay then. Sorry it didn't work out for you. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exlondoner Posted July 12 #3 Share Posted July 12 Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln. Rust again? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare D&N Posted July 12 #4 Share Posted July 12 Think I'd be changing my travel agent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare NE John Posted July 12 #5 Share Posted July 12 It seems from time to time that there is a cursed voyage that hits QM2 (2023 Independence Day QM2 and the funnel issue at the end of the World Cruise comes to mind) when one bad thing snowballs into an avalanche of problems. Unfortunately OP was on one of those cursed voyages that affected the OP and others via reviews and some vloggers. The Cunard experience is usually quite nice, whether on an Ocean Liner or cruise ship. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covepointcruiser Posted July 12 #6 Share Posted July 12 Looks like we should now plan for a delay heading to NYC. Weather will cause the ship to deviate and/or delay arrival. She must enter the port at low tide to sail safely under the bridge. Should you stick to air travel, they never have arrival/departure issues? On our next transatlantic we have made sure we have a fully refundable ticket so we won’t worry about arrival times. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare *Miss G* Posted July 12 #7 Share Posted July 12 Sorry you had such a disappointing experience and that your refund has been delayed. I was on the same sailing and had a wonderful time. The part I don’t “get”, though, is that “after dozens of cruises” there were no plans made for a possible late arrival, let alone Immigration and passport control. I’ve done enough travel to know not to plan an early afternoon flight. (Which I could have done, but didn’t.) Perhaps I am missing something? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Germancruiser Posted July 13 #8 Share Posted July 13 (edited) As " Miss G" I also was on this voyage with the four hour delay. I wrote a little review myself- and I too, experienced the worst Britannia Service ever. Well saying the least it was a hit and miss. Cunard line has it´s loyal fans- loyal cruisers and rightly so. I sailed Celebrity for many many years- and still switch over to them from time to time. Never- ever in any of my 19 cruises with Celebrity did I experience such bad and such lackluster staff in the Main Dining Room. I just yesterday compared the prices for a Transatlantic ( both 14 days) on board Celebrity Apex and Queen Victoria - same embarkation port- almost identical ports of call. Asked for the price of a balcony cabin on both ships. The fare on board Queen Victoria is almost double the price of Celebrity. That is all well and good- if you want the " Cunard feel" one is prepared to pay more. But for that service of Cunard in June- I am no longer willing to pay so much more for the same itinerary. I am not decided as of yet.. but Cunard has to be very very carefull to maintain their Service level or bring it back up to scratch. I am sure there is a reason I never get any comment cards from Cunard to fill out, neither online nor otherwise. So - yes I quite understand the OP - esp. since it was the first Cunard experience. Edited July 13 by Germancruiser 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbie202020 Posted July 13 #9 Share Posted July 13 It's a pity that you had a horrible experience. I thought, from feedback on this forum, that there are no extra gratuity charges with Verandah and other alternative dining options? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stan01 Posted July 13 #10 Share Posted July 13 The two Brooklyn arrival "problems" in June 2024 have been six night Westbound crossings. The ship appears to be unable to make it in six nights if there is a slow down for any reason (winds, weather, mechanical, medevac). She can't go fast enough to recover even if the delay is relatively early in the voyage and can't get off Long Island soon enough to come in early to catch the low tide. If someone is on a six night crossing I'd have to recommend going with the assumption the ship will be late; there are often strong winds on a crossing. If you do that you won't be surprised if she is late and your travel plans won't be disrupted. Plan a flight after 4 PM or the next day. To Cunard's credit they did handle the June 29 late arrival reasonably well (including helping CBP understand they needed a full complement of 14 agents). 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classiccruiser777 Posted July 13 #11 Share Posted July 13 21 hours ago, We_like_to_cruise said: We were on the June 9 TA and due to "power problems" were 4 hours late to Brooklyn. Cunard decided to put us on an 11:30 am shuttle for our 2 pm flight out of LGA. Hmm, let's see, wait on the queue to disembark at 11:30 am, find our luggage, go through immigration/customs, locate the bus, wait for all of the passengers to get their luggage and themselves on the bus, drive 30+ minutes to LGA, wait for passengers to get off the bus, wait for luggage to be offloaded, check-in and find our gate. NO WAY this will work out. And of course the airline recommends that you be at the airport two hours before your flight! We were on the same cruise and we, too, had a 2:00PM flight out of LaGuardia and we also had booked the Cunard transfer. I'm happy to say it all worked and we did make our flight but just barely. I agree with some points made by the OP. After the QM2's mechanical problems we should have been able to get into Brooklyn on time if the ship had utilized the gas turbine engines, brining the speed up to 30 knots. Cunard didn't, either because they didn't want the high fuel burn or the gas turbines were not working properly. With regard to complaints in Britannia, I think reviewers should specify if they had fixed seating or "anytime dining." We were also in Britannia and found the food to be good to very good, occasionally excellent. We had first seating and had about the best waiter we've ever had after around 30 Cunard cruises. Disappointingly, the ship still has a fair amount of rust, particularly compared to pre-COVID cruises. I suspect maintenance has been cut back in an effort to reduce debt. However, the ship looks far better than it did last October prior to its overhaul. We're still happy with Cunard and have two more lengthy cruises booked on QM2. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitkat343 Posted July 14 #12 Share Posted July 14 can you dispute the charge with your credit card? I understand Cunard should refund you but this might. be a backup option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Jones Jnr Posted July 14 #13 Share Posted July 14 I can't believe that they expected you to serve yourself in the buffet... 3 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Ray Posted July 14 #14 Share Posted July 14 Thank you and goodbye. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rj1227 Posted July 14 #15 Share Posted July 14 I keep reading "six-night westbound" crossing. I am sure that the crossing was only six nights, but I did not know Cunard offered such crossings. Every westbound crossing going forward on the Cunard website is seven or more nights--I do not see a six-night crossing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Host Hattie Posted July 14 #16 Share Posted July 14 There were some date changes this year after MSC started using Brooklyn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Amo Posted July 14 #17 Share Posted July 14 I think we should all be cognisant to not dismiss a negative experience, even if some of the examples given suggest unrealistic expectations. Everyone's voyages are slightly different, with different touch points with different staff at different times, and it doesn't take much for a bit of a snowball effect that makes your tolerance level and understanding drop. Much has been said about the Ben and David videos, but if you combined some of the clear issues they experienced - they were on video, so you can't really deny them - with the context of them having moved house that very morning, their conclusions of their experience were fair. Likewise with the original poster here, there was clearly a build up of issues that ended up with a lower level of tolerance than I suspect many, including on the same trip, would have under similar circumstances. I'm very interested to see for myself how things are on QV in a few weeks, and of course will report back. If it is below par I will say so (and hopefully will have recognised and provided any context to help explain how circumstances came to be), and if it's great, likewise. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionEverything Posted July 14 #18 Share Posted July 14 20 hours ago, stan01 said: The two Brooklyn arrival "problems" in June 2024 have been six night Westbound crossings. The ship appears to be unable to make it in six nights if there is a slow down for any reason (winds, weather, mechanical, medevac). She can't go fast enough to recover even if the delay is relatively early in the voyage and can't get off Long Island soon enough to come in early to catch the low tide. If someone is on a six night crossing I'd have to recommend going with the assumption the ship will be late; there are often strong winds on a crossing. If you do that you won't be surprised if she is late and your travel plans won't be disrupted. Plan a flight after 4 PM or the next day. To Cunard's credit they did handle the June 29 late arrival reasonably well (including helping CBP understand they needed a full complement of 14 agents). Thank you for your excellent post. I was on the June 29 late arrival in NYC. Half way through the crossing, the generators went down and QM2 went from 24.7 knots to 8 knots for numerous hours. The port side propeller was working, but barely - very differential wake that was remarked on by many passengers. Spoke with the 3rd Officer when I was at the bridge observation area, he was about to enter. I said I noted the loss of speed and the differential wake and he was rather forced to say something. Also had very strong head winds. So, we missed the low tide at 4 am and did not arrive until after 10 am at the dock. The 6 day crossing does not seem to be working out too well in June! __________________ This was our 5th crossing on QM2 and the food and service in Britannia was definitely worse than our last crossing. We also did 2 nights in the alternative dining and it was not close to the previous quality of food and quantity. I was most disappointed in the high tea which included manufactured scones that were dry, tasteless and each scone looked the same, yuck. Also, the choice of teas is gone - all the same tea poured out of a container - a huge downgrading of high tea. On the positive side, the fish and chips in the Golden Lion was great. I am generally moving away from cruising/crossings as the downgrading across all the lines in the past year (Cunard, Celebrity, Oceania) is very noticeable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exlondoner Posted July 14 #19 Share Posted July 14 7 minutes ago, QuestionEverything said: __________________ This was our 5th crossing on QM2 and the food and service in Britannia was definitely worse than our last crossing. We also did 2 nights in the alternative dining and it was not close to the previous quality of food and quantity. I was most disappointed in the high tea which included manufactured scones that were dry, tasteless and each scone looked the same, yuck. Also, the choice of teas is gone - all the same tea poured out of a container - a huge downgrading of high tea. I know this is a losing battle, but what Cunard offer is afternoon tea. High tea is quite a substantial early evening meal, such as kippers or fish and chips, with bread and butter, and pudding, accompanied by tea, such as my uncles would have eaten after a day working in the shipyard. Aren't all scones manufactured, one way or another? 9 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Host Hattie Posted July 14 #20 Share Posted July 14 20 minutes ago, QuestionEverything said: Also, the choice of teas is gone - all the same tea poured out of a container - a huge downgrading of high tea. Did you ask for a different type of tea ? We don't go to afternoon tea very often but peppermint tea has always been provided when I ask for it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david63 Posted July 14 #21 Share Posted July 14 28 minutes ago, QuestionEverything said: tea poured out of a container What else would it be poured out of? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare D&N Posted July 14 #22 Share Posted July 14 54 minutes ago, rj1227 said: I keep reading "six-night westbound" crossing. I am sure that the crossing was only six nights, but I did not know Cunard offered such crossings. Every westbound crossing going forward on the Cunard website is seven or more nights--I do not see a six-night crossing. Going by bluemarble's various works on this topic .... I think there is just one more, M422 from Southampton on July 21st arriving July 27th. If I was on M422 I wouldn't expect to arrive on time in New York, and if on M423 I'd expect to be boarding late on July 27th. Perhaps with experience from the last two, Cunard should warn passengers of that likelihood. If the other sailings affected by rescheduling, one is coming from Canada and should have sufficient time and in the last case they were able to advance the sailing from Southampton. I don't know if there are any in 2025. As you'll have read, those this year were caused by MSC getting regular access to the Red Hook berth. I'd hope they knew what dates they needed to avoid before the 2025 schedule was released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare D&N Posted July 14 #23 Share Posted July 14 6 minutes ago, david63 said: What else would it be poured out of? Reminds me of a study I read a report of. Some US university had concluded that tea was being made in the wrong way and people were wasting far too much water and power. They concluded that boiling a small amount of water in a kettle and pouring it on a tea bag in a cup would save valuable resources. They obviously hadn't a clue what tea should taste like, as no self respecting tea drinker would do anything other than pour their efforts down the sink. I'm not sure how they would produce a refill from their efforts either. I don't normally drink the stuff myself but if I tried giving that to my wife I'd expect her to spit it back at me. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bell Boy Posted July 14 #24 Share Posted July 14 30 minutes ago, Host Hattie said: Did you ask for a different type of tea ? We don't go to afternoon tea very often but peppermint tea has always been provided when I ask for it. Or Earl Grey for me the other month in the Queens Room (QM2) No problem, one only needed to ask. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemarble Posted July 14 #25 Share Posted July 14 (edited) 1 hour ago, D&N said: Going by bluemarble's various works on this topic .... I think there is just one more, M422 from Southampton on July 21st arriving July 27th. If I was on M422 I wouldn't expect to arrive on time in New York, and if on M423 I'd expect to be boarding late on July 27th. Perhaps with experience from the last two, Cunard should warn passengers of that likelihood. If the other sailings affected by rescheduling, one is coming from Canada and should have sufficient time and in the last case they were able to advance the sailing from Southampton. I don't know if there are any in 2025. As you'll have read, those this year were caused by MSC getting regular access to the Red Hook berth. I'd hope they knew what dates they needed to avoid before the 2025 schedule was released. That's correct. The last of the scheduled 6-night crossings is M422, July 21-27, 2024. They've scheduled all the 2025 crossings to avoid Brooklyn on Sundays which is when the conflicts with MSC Meraviglia have occurred. That said, there is one Sunday date in New York on QM2's 2026 schedule. That's January 18, 2026, one of the dates on the QM2 2026 world voyage. We're booked on voyage M604N from New York to Los Angeles (through the Panama Canal) departing New York on Sunday, January 18, 2026. MSC Meraviglia's schedules aren't published that far out yet. Hopefully that Sunday date for QM2 in New York in January 2026 won't have to be adjusted. Edited July 14 by bluemarble 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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