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Queen
Mary II--A Review (QM2, Room, Dining, Entertainment, Planetarium, Shopping, Kudos/Complaints) She is a beautiful ship. There is no
denying that. Lots of wood paneling and trim accented with brass give
public
The Britannia, the main dining hall is
two stories with a center staircase reminiscent of the Titanic. It was
lavishly decorated with greens for the holidays and a large lighted tree
stood before a mosaic wall that rose to the second floor. I thought it was
a much nicer decor than the Princess Grill where the "upper class" ate.
The Grill was our muster station so we got a first hand look at it. It was
very plain, although peeking in the window from the promenade deck, you
could see fancier gilt-edged china gracing There were a lot of bars, clubs, lounges, and pubs scattered throughout the ship, including a disco (G32) hidden at the end of the Queen's Room. Our favorite became the Commodore Club on deck 9. It was in the front of the ship and we usually went there before dinner to watch the sunset and enjoy something to drink. They made great cappuccinos in large cups. The Golden Lion Pub was probably the
largest bar. It had it's own smaller version of a dance floor and served
great fish and chips at lunchtime. The Winter Garden was the largest
lounge area. It sat just in front of the buffet areas. With potted
artificial trees and plants and a faux trellis on the ceiling. It felt
like you were The Canyon Ranch Spa area was luxurious, as you would expect. A winding staircase leads from the reception area up to the hair and beauty salon. Their tour of the area was very thorough including models grabbed from the ship's crew to demonstrate the various massages and treatments. It was helpful to know what was going to be done to you especially if you've never indulged yourself in spa treatments before. A huge gymnasium completed the spa area. Lots of treadmills (half were programmable in metric), bicycles, ellipticals, weights, balls, and exercise ropes gave you variety and supplied most every need. The Empire Casino was tucked away off to one side across from the Lion's Pub. It was not as large as some I've seen but it seemed to be sufficient. Lots of nickel machines for the slot enthusiast and the usual game tables. A video arcade, the Zone and the Play Zone were available for kids and teens. I didn't get into the Zones but I have the feeling they are not well used. In talking to a few crew members, they mentioned that the few young people we saw were the most they had seen yet on the QM2. I suspect this cruise was younger because of the holidays and it being a Caribbean cruise rather than a transatlantic. Age-wise, the majority of the guests appeared to be over 55. Our room was very comfortable. We had a premium balcony room. While it may have been "premium", we were still in "steerage" as my husband referred to it. If you want to eat in the Princess Grill or the Queens Grill, you need to book a suite which includes bars and bathtubs and more as you go up the price/size scale. Our room had the usual amenities (see http://www.cunard.com/QM2/default.asp?Active=onboard&sub=accommodations1 ) including a small refrigerator which we appreciated. The Canyon Spa soaps and lotions were a treat in the bathroom.
We were surprised at how quiet the room was. You could hear the ship hum a bit but we heard no noise above us or beside us or even from the hallway. It was either a compliment to the passengers or to the design of the ship or both. The Britannia was no different than any other cruise at dinner time, bustling waiters and wine stewards and maitre ds standing about watching them. It was a bit noisy but not so much as to drown out conversation. We sat at a table of eight but there were usually only six of us and that dwindled to two on occasion when we spent nights at other dining venues. The food was very good. Canyon Spa Ranch choices were listed with calories and fat grams and were usually quite delicious although a couple of nights they got a bit unusual for my taste. The meats were always tender--especially the chateaubriand. Presentation was a special delight and food was served hot but desserts were a bit disappointing some nights. One night in particular, we were all excited about having pavlova (a great Australian dessert). The chef's interpretation that night was a scoop of strawberry ice cream placed on top of a disc of baked meringue. When our dinner mate complained, we were rewarded two nights later with the real thing--meringue topped with a variety of berries and sauce. The Todd English restaurant is a must-do
experience. It costs $30/person extra but my understanding is that it is The buffet area of the ship, Kings Court, becomes four different restaurants at night (no extra charge for three of them but you do need reservations). Movable walls that add to the decor are set up and the lighting is changed. Tables are set as you would find in a fine restaurant with linen and appropriate china. We ate in the Lotus one night and enjoyed a quiet dinner at a table for two sampling Asian dishes that were quite tasty. Another night (for $20 extra which covers the free wine) we enjoyed the show at the Chef's Galley. It is a small area off to one side of the buffets where you can sit and watch how your meal was prepared by the demonstration chef. The night we went, he fixed some salmon with a Canadian flare and an unusual custard dessert sprinkled with pine nuts.. The other two restaurants in the Kings Court feature grilled dinners (The Carvery) and Italian dishes (La Piazza). Breakfast was a bit disappointing for me no matter where we ate. It's my favorite meal and I enjoy trying different things. Their idea of a hot breakfast was always the same with eggs, meats, beans, and toast/pastry. There were waffles and pancakes too but again, with no variety. Omelets were available in the dining hall as well as Kings Court but the best way to get a hot omelet was to go to the Chef's Galley (in Kings Court) and have it made fresh. You could get omelets and waffles made fresh at different times in the other buffets but you had to search them out. The biggest inconvenience at Kings Court was trying to find what you wanted to eat. During the day, there were still 4 separate buffets even though they were not separated by movable walls. If we didn't agree on what we wanted, we would go our separate ways, get our meals, try to find each other again, and then try to find a place to sit. By the time we ate, often the hot food was lukewarm or worse. One interesting note in the buffets--at the beginning of each buffet line there was a machine dispensing hand sanitizer which you had to use before they would give you a tray. I can't advise you on how the wine list was. I'm not much of a wine connoisseur but given the continental makeup of the passengers and their bank accounts, I would guess that their collection of wines was excellent. There were two wine tasting opportunities during the cruise and one featured some very expensive bottles. The Royal Court Theater was two storied but you had to take care to sit where you could see around some rather thick pillars. The stage juts out into the lower seating area almost creating theater-in-the-round. The productions shows featuring the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers were the typical cruise shows with perhaps a little less emphasis on the Vegas look. Often the stage "upstaged" the performers. It rotated, rose to four different levels, rose and rotated, opened up and dropped, and was rigged for small pyrotechnics. Some of the individual entertainers, the
comedians, the jugglers, the ventriloquist, the flautist, and some singing
personalities from the UK were quite good. Part of the problem for the
entertainers though was trying to reach an audience made up of such
diverse backgrounds. Not only was there a problem "getting" the humor
sometimes, but often there was a language difficulty for those who didn't
speak English (and Americans who don't understand the real English). We
thought the ventriloquist (American) was hilarious but you could tell how few
Americans were on board. The rest of the world wasn't getting it or didn't
think it was funny. The lounges featured some great pianists and a harpist that we especially enjoyed. The band in the Queen's room that played for the scheduled dance hours was excellent as was the band who had to accompany the visiting performers as well as the regular troupe. (Commodore Warick at the Christmas Eve Caroling service) Illuminations, the planetarium onboard, was a large theater with a special dome set in the middle where the shows were projected. The designated red seats were very comfortable--too comfortable. I don't normally fall asleep during presentations, but I lost the battle to stay awake during the show. The seats reclined for a better view overhead. Those and the mellow voice of the narrator combined to relax me to the point of slumber. The speakers for the week did not have topics that grabbed my attention. I did attend one that was on creative journaling but the audience was quite small--maybe 10 people in the huge Illuminations theater. The last sea day I hoped to catch something else but didn't feel I wanted to spend my last day of vacation listing to someone talk about world globalization. In the past they must have had a few naturalists. They ran tapes on the TV of lectures about whales and other marine life. I was sorry we missed those. SHOPPING I'm not a big shopper. I know. I disgrace the image of my gender but I did force myself to look around the shops. Be prepared for sticker shock in most of them. They are designer quality clothes with designer quality price tags. There were interesting items from Harrod's--teddy bears and candies and Harrod's specialty accessories. One of the shops had reasonably priced shirts with the QM2 monogram which we purchased. I passed on the $17 T-shirts for my preschool grandkids though. They grow too fast. There is a wine shop, several places to buy jewelry and watches including H. Stern, a sundries type place and of course the designer clothing stores. The library also has a bookstore with a good supply of books about the history of the Cunard ships, some children's books, and stationery supplies. We had some concern before we left because of some of the reviews we read. We went with the attitude that often people's complaints are based on their expectations. We expected a good cruise. We had a good cruise. We enjoyed the ship, the crew, and the unique opportunity to be among such a diverse group of people. There are always little things you wish were different or better but none of them were disturbing enough to tarnish the wonderful experience we had aboard the Queen Mary 2. Beware the cost of the internet service. Connecting is a bit slow and eats up your time which is billed at 50 cents/minute. There are packages of time you can buy but they still average out to 40 cents or more per minute. While the in-room email service sounds appealing, the information you receive, including a personal email address, doesn't tell you that it costs $1.50 PER email, incoming or outgoing. So, before you hand out that email address be prepared to pay big bucks for the privilege. Photographers were not terribly pushy as we've experienced on some cruises. If you told them "no, thank you", they wouldn't press you. After looking for the initial boarding picture and finding out it cost $27 we passed on having anymore taken. I've never seen photographs cost more than $19.95 for an 8X10. TV programming was a little monotonous after the first week. Apparently they had enough shows and movies to provide a week's worth of entertainment. Unfortunately, the next week was all reruns except for the morning show produced, directed, and starring the cruise director, Brian Price. Hats off to him for getting up so early each morning and highlighting the day's activities by interviewing various staff involved. While the ship is beautiful, it is a challenge even for those who are not directionally impaired. The best way to find your way around it to be sure you know which stairway your destination is near. (They are all marked in your daily program.) If you use the wrong stairway you can find yourself in a blind hallway leading through the dining area. To add to the confusion there is a "1/2 deck"--3L accessed somewhere near the Queens Room, I think. It took us two days to find the library. We would have missed the art gallery if we had not made a wrong turn outside the Queens Room one night. It might be helpful to printout the deck plans from the website. They are flat layouts as opposed to the vertical map they give you on the ship. Our cruise was two weeks long and I still saw people studying the you- are-here maps at the elevator--and they weren't seniors. The pools on the ship are small. Hot tubs are the usual size. They finally got hot after the first week. There is not much room around the Pavilion pool where the roof can close over the top. More lounge chairs are available at the Terrace Pool but there is more direct sun there. It's fine if your husband doesn't burn in 2 minutes even with SPF protection. The average age of the passengers and the fact that the more comfortable loungers are on the Promenade deck could explain why most people congregated there. On sea days it was a challenge to find a lounge chair, especially ifyou wanted a cushioned one. It is a European-flavored environment (and our cruise had a large Japanese contingency) so be prepared to smell a lot of smoking cigarettes especially in the casino. The dining hall, I believe, was smoke free. Embarkation/disembarkation often depends on the ports but we've gone out of Ft. Lauderdale before and things were never quite so confusing. They left a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk waiting to get in while they set up for security checks. Once inside and through the security area, there was a huge waiting area where we sat until it was our time to check in. They hold hard and fast to your check in time even if there is no one else in line. We did see a place to make reservations for the specialty restaurants before boarding and took advantage of our wait to do that. There was a snack bar at one end where you could purchase something to tide you over if you'd missed lunch. Throughout the cruise, we rarely arrived and docked/tendered at the times we were scheduled. Disembarkation was no different except now it interfered with our flight schedules. This was one time during the cruise when being an American was truly an asset. Our line was shorter and quicker getting through immigration. Luggage was quickly IDed and the porters were efficient. The Ft. Lauderdale airport is only 10-15 minutes away but if you take their transportation offer, you must wait for the bus to fill. They advised that taxis were hard to get and more confusing. It was difficult to tell if that was the case. Note: those in the more lavish suites had private cars provided by Cunard pick them up. QUESTIONS? I'd be happy to answer a question if I can. Contact me and I will get back to you as soon as possible. HAPPY CRUISING!
©Karen Robbins 2005 All text and photos on this page are copyrighted in my name. Please obtain permission for use.
Page updated 08/24/2010 07:53 PM -0600
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areas a feeling of warmth and elegance. My favorite room was the Queen's
Room. It stretches almost the width of the ship and seems at least as
large as the main dining hall. The dance floor is centered in the room and
above it hang two huge and brilliant crystal chandeliers. Colored lights
shine on the crystals and slowly change from reds, to blues, to yellows
causing the crystals to sparkle without sunlight. Tables and a bandstand
complete the room which is often very busy with dedicated ballroom
dancers.
The library was outstanding. A beautiful
room with hundreds of books mostly in English but there were French,
German and Japanese as well. Lighted bookcases shelved topics such as
travel, nature, fiction, self-help, and history. There were also some
reference books. A couple of computers also allow you to log onto the
internet--for a charge, of course. (The larger internet lab, ConneXions, is located on
Deck 2).
the table for meal times. The
main hall leading into the Britannia was elegant red carpet with beautiful
depictions symbolic of the various continents in bas relief.
sitting in a well manicured garden. An unusual mural of fish adorned the back of a
fountain made up of water that poured down plastic strips from floor to
ceiling giving the impression of a summer rain.
The balcony was not the usual type you
expect on a ship. On the lower decks, the balconies are basically a hole
cut out of the hull of the ship. When you sit in the lounge chairs
provided, you look into a steel wall. They are very private, however. I'm
guessing that this configuration best fits for the transatlantic crossings
where the wind and waves could be a bit stronger than in the Caribbean.
The suites are on the upper decks and have the usual Plexiglas front
balconies that
you see on most ships.
less expensive to eat there on the ship than in one of his restaurants on
land. Portions were bigger than I expected. I should have skipped the bibb
lettuce salad. I had sea bass the first night preceded by the salad and an
asparagus appetizer. My husband had a lobster chowder that was
indescribably delicious but the item that brought us back for a second
night was dessert--Fallen Chocolate Cake. Picture a warm chocolate soufflé
without it's dish sitting in a pool of raspberry sauce accompanied by a
scoop of vanilla ice cream. Now picture cutting into the cake and having a
rich creamy chocolate sauce pour out and around your ice cream. We video
taped it the second night. 