Britania Balcony vs Britania Club Balcony

[Goofyisme]

Other than the dining room what are the differences between the Balcony and the Club Balcony.

Seems like a large price difference for just the dining room so I must be missing something.

Any information would be much appreciated.

TIA

[D&N]

1 minute ago, Goofyisme said:

Other than the dining room what are the differences between the Balcony and the Club Balcony.

Seems like a large price difference for just the dining room so I must be missing something.

Any information would be much appreciated.

TIA

On QM2 cabins are identical. But on different decks. Think that's same on others but no experience.

Club gets bottled water included and replaced as required. A pod coffee machine that we plan to put under the bed on our next crossings to give more worktop space.

You can also join the priority check in queue and board the ship after grills etc and before Balcony.

Otherwise it's the dining room and the fact that you have the same table and wait staff for breakfast, lunch and dinner, at whatever time you choose to arrive within opening hours.

There is an ALC section at dinner if you don't fancy the daily menu.

It's a cabin on deck 12 near staircase B and the restaurant flexibility that swings it for us. We don't eat main meals anywhere else on the ship. For someone that uses buffets and pubs and alternative restaurants they might take a different view.

[reeves35]

6 hours ago, Goofyisme said:

Other than the dining room what are the differences between the Balcony and the Club Balcony.

Seems like a large price difference for just the dining room so I must be missing something.

Any information would be much appreciated.

TIA

It is a steep increase in pricing (around USD1500 per room on a 7 day sailing) for what is actually added.  I guess it depends on how much you value the same table, same waitstaff, all meals but I really can't see that I'd ever go for it and would prefer to just select a Britannia balcony room in a location I liked.

[vieux_carre]

Unless, on QM2, a glass shower door and possibly sliding balcony door also tips the scales for you…

 

For the upcharge, you could eat in the Verandah every night and still save…

[Winifred 22]

3 hours ago, reeves35 said:

It is a steep increase in pricing (around USD1500 per room on a 7 day sailing) for what is actually added.  I guess it depends on how much you value the same table, same waitstaff, all meals but I really can't see that I'd ever go for it and would prefer to just select a Britannia balcony room in a location I liked.

I can never justify the additional expense. I can buy sparking water if I want it and not fussed about a coffee machine. The locations wouldn’t suit me I like mid and low. I get priority boarding from loyalty. Don’t eat breakfast or lunch in dining room so not needing a fixed table just for the evening which I get in Britannia anyway. 

[Host Hattie]

The difference was more significant when there was only fixed dining in the Britannia restaurant. 

 

[ElmaLee]

12 hours ago, reeves35 said:

It is a steep increase in pricing (around USD1500 per room on a 7 day sailing) for what is actually added.  I guess it depends on how much you value the same table, same waitstaff, all meals but I really can't see that I'd ever go for it and would prefer to just select a Britannia balcony room in a location I liked.

We booked a guarantee Britannia Club balcony, got a free upgrade from A2 to A1 and it was at lot less that $1500 extra for a week.  It will depend on how sales are going, what the price is.  We like the idea of a table always there for us.

[Beagle5]

We recently did a week on QA in club.

You get the flexibility of my time dining, but you get the certainty of the same table and the same waitstaff that you might get with fixed dining.

 

We had a lunch in the Main dining room just to experience it, and we found the service  there to be more perfunctory and the atmosphere more hectic.

 

Also note that the 2 tops in Club were about 60cm apart whereas in the Britannia our table was only 10-20cm from the adjacent!

 

bottled water in the cabin was nice, but I only used the coffee machine once.

 

Priority boarding was useful for us as we have low status and there was still a big crowd when we arrived at 2pm.

 

So we will probably pay the premium to go club again.

 

Edited to add. We also really enjoyed the a la carte rack of lamb and the flambé deserts (especially the peaches!)

Edited September 1 by Beagle5

[irvington]

Than

39 minutes ago, Beagle5 said:

We recently did a week on QA in club.

You get the flexibility of my time dining, but you get the certainty of the same table and the same waitstaff that you might get with fixed dining.

 

We had a lunch in the Main dining room just to experience it, and we found the service  there to be more perfunctory and the atmosphere more hectic.

 

Also note that the 2 tops in Club were about 60cm apart whereas in the Britannia our table was only 10-20cm from the adjacent!

 

bottled water in the cabin was nice, but I only used the coffee machine once.

 

Priority boarding was useful for us as we have low status and there was still a big crowd when we arrived at 2pm.

 

So we will probably pay the premium to go club again.

 

Edited to add. We also really enjoyed the a la carte rack of lamb and the flambé deserts (especially the peaches!)

Thanks. That is really helpful. 

[Kynance]

The club dining room on QV is a lovely, light, elegant room - much nicer than the club dining rooms on QM2, though I don’t dislike them but they do feel darker and don’t benefit from the high ceiling of the main Britannia dining room.  Club balcony cabins on QV are identical to the Britannia balconies but are midships on decks 7 & 8. There is allegedly a “pillow concierge” menu but I have never seen it - you have to ask if you want a different sort of pillow (and we have had success with that when it “ordinary” Britannia balconies. 
 

I really like the QM2 deck 13 Club cabins. None of them have connecting doors. Much nicer shower rooms and cabin decor too.  There is also a better hairdryer (hidden in the wardrobe. It’s larger than those in standard cabins but still nice and light). We tried the coffee machine and it was a comedy of errors. It only makes espressos so was next to useless for us. No one has mentioned the “enhanced” biscuits yet - so I will! Assuming they are the same as we had this June, they are the Walkers brand - we had about 4 different varieties on rotation - oat crumbles, salted caramel something, stem ginger and chocolate chip. Absolutely worth the successful upgrade bid on their own! 🤣

The price differential between Britannia and Club is much smaller on a short cruise, so it’s a good way to try Club out. 

 

 

[exlondoner]

3 minutes ago, Kynance said:

The club dining room on QV is a lovely, light, elegant room - much nicer than the club dining rooms on QM2, though I don’t dislike them but they do feel darker and don’t benefit from the high ceiling of the main Britannia dining room.  Club balcony cabins on QV are identical to the Britannia balconies but are midships on decks 7 & 8. There is allegedly a “pillow concierge” menu but I have never seen it - you have to ask if you want a different sort of pillow (and we have had success with that when it “ordinary” Britannia balconies. 
 

I really like the QM2 deck 13 Club cabins. None of them have connecting doors. Much nicer shower rooms and cabin decor too.  There is also a better hairdryer (hidden in the wardrobe. It’s larger than those in standard cabins but still nice and light). We tried the coffee machine and it was a comedy of errors. It only makes espressos so was next to useless for us. No one has mentioned the “enhanced” biscuits yet - so I will! Assuming they are the same as we had this June, they are the Walkers brand - we had about 4 different varieties on rotation - oat crumbles, salted caramel something, stem ginger and chocolate chip. Absolutely worth the successful upgrade bid on their own! 🤣

The price differential between Britannia and Club is much smaller on a short cruise, so it’s a good way to try Club out. 

 

 

I believe the only people who have true success with the coffee machines are those with Italian ancestry or relatives. 😀

[Planning to cruise]

Price differential between B and BC depends on which Britannia cabins you look at. The step from Britannia "from" price, entry level, to BC is steeper than from the most expensive Britannia room, BA.  For years we usually booked BA rooms but decided that the upgrade difference to Club was not so great and we found it to be worth it.

 

I agree with post #10 re QV and QM2 and QE is the same as QV.  The QA club rooms are smaller than those on the other ships and feel more cramped.  The Club dining room is much larger without the intimacy and "Club" feeling of the other ships.   

 

At the end of the day, as with most things in cruising, you pays your money and takes your choice.  

[Caipi]

2 hours ago, exlondoner said:

I believe the only people who have true success with the coffee machines are those with Italian ancestry or relatives. 😀

 

We are hungarians, we drink 'short' coffees too. 🙂

 

But first we had to 'repair' our coffee machine, because it gave only very short shots (you had to press, say, 8 times for an espresso = 25-30 ml!!) and it could not be reprogrammed, because it was blinking for descaling. (We downloaded the manual.) 

So I asked our steward Aris whether he has something for descaling, and he laughed, and said, oh yes, this coffee machine only gives very short quantities, but he gave us a sachet for descaling anyway and assured us that the machines are descaled every 2 weeks. But I suppose they don't do it the way Illy writes to do it, so at first some guest who did not know how to use it reprogrammed the amount of coffee and it could not be reprogrammed again because of the blinking lights. 

By the way, it was an Illy E.S.E. (easy serving espresso)-pod machine, and they gave Illy Classic and Illy Decaffeinated pods. It has 2 buttons, and normally one is for a small cup and the other one for a big cup, maybe they have Illy Lungo pods as well. 

 

[Caipi]

We were upgraded to a Britannia Club Balcony stateroom, and it was very nice experiencing it, because we definitely won't pay that difference for a different restaurant, a choice of, say 8 more dishes at dinner, - which by the way were the same ones on all 8 days, and some of them should have been preordered -  and for some water, espresso and cookies. 🙂

(And we won't book higher than deck 10 anyway, we did not like those vibrations.) 

[Caipi]

2 hours ago, Kynance said:

The club dining room on QV is a lovely, light, elegant room - much nicer than the club dining rooms on QM2, though I don’t dislike them but they do feel darker and don’t benefit from the high ceiling of the main Britannia dining room.  Club balcony cabins on QV are identical to the Britannia balconies but are midships on decks 7 & 8. There is allegedly a “pillow concierge” menu but I have never seen it - you have to ask if you want a different sort of pillow (and we have had success with that when it “ordinary” Britannia balconies. 
 

I really like the QM2 deck 13 Club cabins. None of them have connecting doors. Much nicer shower rooms and cabin decor too.  There is also a better hairdryer (hidden in the wardrobe. It’s larger than those in standard cabins but still nice and light). We tried the coffee machine and it was a comedy of errors. It only makes espressos so was next to useless for us. No one has mentioned the “enhanced” biscuits yet - so I will! Assuming they are the same as we had this June, they are the Walkers brand - we had about 4 different varieties on rotation - oat crumbles, salted caramel something, stem ginger and chocolate chip. Absolutely worth the successful upgrade bid on their own! 🤣

The price differential between Britannia and Club is much smaller on a short cruise, so it’s a good way to try Club out. 

 

 

I did mention the cookies in my review :), and I've already looked them up, but unfortunately I cannot buy my favourite, the salted caramel one, in Hungary. I suppose they had lots of this on board:

 

[Kynance]

@Caipi - thank you, those are exactly the ones! My favourites are the stem ginger. I’ve seen the Walkers biscuits in a couple of UK hotels I have stayed at this year as well. 

[Winifred 22]

2 hours ago, Kynance said:

@Caipi - thank you, those are exactly the ones! My favourites are the stem ginger. I’ve seen the Walkers biscuits in a couple of UK hotels I have stayed at this year as well. 

You can buy boxes of them on Amazon.