QM2 Three Continents Cruise

[obriendan]

We returned from the Three Continents Cruise on the QM2 recently. A review follows. My wife and I are 71 and have been on seven other cruises, six on Holland America (Nieuw Amsterdam, Ryndam twice, Zuiderdam twice, and Volendam) and once on the QE2. Therefore, my point of reference for comparison is with HAL.

 

Embarkation: We arrived at Ft. Lauderdale the day before the cruise began and spent the night at Hyatt Pier 66. An attempt to get arrival photographs failed because QM2 arrived at about 5:45 am, well before sunrise. All passengers were assigned boarding times but few paid much attention to these assigned times. However, enough people did so embarkation ran very smoothly. We arrived at the terminal at about 12:45 pm and were in our stateroom at about 1:45 pm.

 

The QM2: We found the QM2 to be very beautifully decorated. We were in a balcony stateroom on deck 4. The stateroom was attractively decorated in light tones and the same size as the balcony staterooms we’ve had on HAL. Storage for clothing for a 17 day cruise was adequate. The bath, with shower only, though small, served us well. Although the view is somewhat restricted in the hull balconies, we found that it was well worth it because of the extra light it provides and the ability to relax privately outside.

 

The extensive artwork in hallways and stairwells adds greatly to the overall decor. The ship is easy to learn to get around. The four main stairwells with color-coded carpeting help keep one oriented and adequate ship diagrams are everywhere. The main public areas are located on decks two and three and are connected by very wide corridors that stretch from the Britannia Restaurant through the atrium to the Royal Court Theater. Frequently corridors on smaller ships become blocked on formal nights by photographers and their equipment. This never happens in the wide QM2 corridors. It is a little more difficult to learn how to get around the Britannia Restaurant to find the Queen’s Room and the G32 nightclub. Similarly, its hard to learn how the get around the Royal Court Theater to find the Illuminations Theater and the ConneXion lecture rooms. The library, forward on deck eight, is a wonderful place to relax and read and has an excellent view forward. However, I was surprised that the bookstore is more limited in the number of books for sale than the QE2 bookstore. We did not make use of the Spa but it is a very attractive space. The gymnasium is very well equipped with a wide variety of exercise equipment and is never crowded - even less crowded as the cruise progressed.

 

As others have already pointed out, seating in the Royal Court Theater is poorly done. Permanent couches are separated by too short a distance to accommodate two rows of movable, rotating chairs and the small round tables for drinks. Most of the time these small tables remained unused. When the theater becomes partially filled, it is very difficult to navigate down these ill-defined aisles to get to a seat in the middle. The Royal Court Theater is not very deep and many of the seats are poor because they give a side view of the stage. The balcony offers poor viewing also. The best seats should perhaps be in the center of the first row of the balcony (and in the center of the balcony is only one row deep!). However, a wooden railing runs just at eye level to obstruct the view. To get a good seat for the first show after the 6:00 pm first sitting, it was necessary to arrive before 8:00 pm. This was sometimes precluded by slow service in the Britannia Restaurant. The Illuminations Theater is much better and I found myself wishing that they would have the shows in this theater. However, the stage is smaller and inadequate for the production shows.

The ConneXion lecture rooms are adequate for small lectures of about 50 people. However, many of the enrichment lectures were so popular that even when three rooms were combined it was insufficient to accommodate the crowd.

 

The lounges and bars are all attractively decorated. We particularly liked the Commodore Lounge on deck 9 forward with the large QM2 model. Surprisingly, this lounge never seemed to be very crowded. We only wish it had been designed with larger windows for a better sea view. Our favorite bar was the Golden Lion Pub for its pub lunch in the early afternoon and for the music and sing alongs in the evening. Pub lunch is served from noon until 2:00 pm (I think. I’m not quite sure when it finished). Although the pub was always crowded, it was usually easy to be seated if you were willing to share a table. The hot lunches were always served within 10 minutes of placing the order. The menu contains six lunches: 1. Fish and chips with mushy peas; 2. Bangers and mash with Yorkshire pudding and onion gravy; 3. Steak and mushroom pie with potatoes and gravy; 4. Traditional cottage pie with minced beef, peas topped with mashed potatoes; 5. Chicken korma with basmati rice and mango chutney; and 6. Ploughman’s lunch with ham, mature cheese, onions, crusty roll, and Branston pickle. I tried two of these (1 and 2) and my wife had #6. With at least modest experience in various London pubs, we found these lunches to compare very favorably.

 

Food and Service: We ate at the first sitting in the Britannia Restaurant. We had a table #78, a table for six right next to the large Captain’s table at the entrance of the restaurant. Others have suggested that this is an ideal location. For people watching and for the view of the rest of the restaurant, it is. However, I found it particularly noisy and it was difficult to talk to the person on the other side of the table. A table in a more remote location would probably be better for conversation. The food quality, presentation, and portion size were excellent. The food was similar in quality to what we have experienced on our HAL cruises. The service was always friendly but at times painfully slow. We had a good waiter but he seemed to have little assistance most nights. He indicated that slow service was due to the kitchen not having some of the dishes available in a timely manner. As is customary, the menu items were replete with fancy French culinary terms and with words that seemed to have just been invented for the occasion. The waiter was not very good in describing some of the more mysterious items. It would be very useful if brief English descriptions were included.

 

We ate breakfast and some lunches in the Kings Court. We found the variety outstanding. It was easy to solve the problem of lines. If one serving area had a long line, usually the next one would not. Similarly, it was usually easy to find a seat with an ocean view if we were patient enough to walk a short distance looking. We ate at the Kings Court specialty restaurant in the evening three times, one in the Carvery and twice at La Piazza. The Carvery was only so-so, but La Piazza was worth returning to. We ate at Todd English restaurant once for lunch and it was excellent. One minor disappointment was that only soft-serve vanilla and chocolate, no “real†ice cream, was available in the Kings Court. One change we think would be very worthwhile. After 6 pm, only the Britannia Restaurant and the reservations-required specialty restaurants are available for dining. If one is returning from a tour, the only option for a casual meal is room service. It might be reasonable to convert the least popular specialty restaurant to a simple buffet dinner for casual dining.

 

 

Entertainment and Enrichment Lectures: We found the entertainment to be average to good, much the same as we have experienced on HAL cruises. Two of the production shows were excellent. We found that the enrichment lectures sponsored by Oxford University made an outstanding contribution to our cruise experience. The lectures by Ben Cameron on theater and by Angus Hawkins on current British affairs were particularly interesting.

 

The Cruise: We had not known before we sailed that this cruise was a President’s Cruise. Those that had sailed with Cunard previously were treated to five free events. Two events were cocktail receptions hosted by Pamela Conover in the Queen’s Room at the beginning and the end of the cruise. Pamalea Conover was also present at the other three events. In Barbados, the event was held in a large sports complex and lasted about three hours. We were bused to the complex and on the way given a short, narrated tour of Bridgetown. At the complex, hors d’oeuvres featuring Caribbean cuisine were served along with much rum punch. The highlight of the event was an hour and a half folkloric show. It was by far the best entertainment of the entire cruise and featured West Indian dancing and singing, and some of the most amazing dancers on very tall stilts. In Funchal, Madiera a full lunch was served at a beautiful restaurant at about 3000' altitude, with a stunning view of Funchal. Lunch was followed by a folklore performance. In Lisbon, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails were served in 15th century convent and we were entertained by a university choir. The three events in Barbados, Madeira, and Lisbon were a real bonus because they effectively replaced the basic city tour for many and were a very geed replacement.

 

Debarkation: The QM2 was five hours late because a bow thruster door could not be closed. This slowed the ship to about 8 knots until the problem was solved but five hour could not be made up. For this reason we arrived in Southampton at about 11:15 am, and general debarkation commenced about 1:00 pm. We were able to debark about 3:00 pm.

 

Overall Evaluation: We feel that we had a wonderful cruise experience, and it was a pleasure to be among the first to sail on the QM2. In the future I’m sure that the service in the Britannia will improve as teamwork in the kitchen improves. Will we sail on the QM2 in the future? Probably not because we feel that the ship is just too large and prefer smaller ships like the ms Ryndam

[MT Pockets]

Thank you for sharing your experience! I especially enjoyed the details of the Lions Pub lunch menu -- I hope we can work it into our short "cruise to nowhere".