Sunday, 28 April-Friday, 3 May 2024

Life on Board QM2

Rather than giving a day-by-day rundown of our travel on Cunard's QM2, I will present this summary of the highlights (some) and lowlights (many) of our transportation across the North Atlantic.

Highlights First:

The QM2 is a beautiful and well-maintained ocean liner, with many large spaces more like a resort on land than a ship at sea.

There are umpteen bars and eating places from which to choose.

The staterooms are taken good care of, with cleaning and maintenance twice a day.

The cost of transportation, in a stateroom with a balcony, is significantly less than flying Business Class.

Our regular dinner servers in the Britannia Restaurant are excellent and take good care of us.

One day has been almost warm enough to venture out on deck for a short walk. But most days the ship has been wrapped in heavy fog. Sometimes the sky and the sea are invisible.

See Description in Photo Below

Lowlights Next:

The ship is very large and walking from one place to another is lengthy and difficult.

There is a rigidly-enforced class system (although not identified as such). If you haven't booked a more expensive stateroom you are forbidden to eat anywhere other than in the Britannia Restaurant--the other three main restaurants are off limits.

The food is very bland and although the menus contain some pretty wild beyond-the-normal imaginatively named courses, none of them are especially interesting. Occasionally, something good appears on the table: the pita chicken sandwich I had for lunch today was quite good, but Will's lentil soup came with a hair in it. The server and the manager tried to explain it away as a food tendril that drifted from one preparation to another, but neither Will nor I are convinced. The Spanish Chicken last night was tough and pretty awful.

At meals and in the bars all drinks, except water and juice, cost money, including coffee at the Barista's.

I sent out a bag of laundry on Monday morning. It was delivered on Tuesday evening well serviced--except that my light blue dress shirt was torn to shreds by the laundry machinery. I know that accidents like this can and do occur on busy ships. But the way the incident was handled was abominable. The person returning the laundry said that he would report it to the manager. When talking with the Purser's Office several times over the next two days I was told to make a claim on my own insurance. I absolutely refused: I did not cause the damage and did not want to wait the several weeks for insurance to respond to the claim. Later, I am told I have to fill out a damage form. I do that and write a note on it saying that I expected Cunard to cover the damage immediately and that I wanted the shirt back, or at least a photograph of the damage.

Two days later and I have had absolutely no response. So I march down to the Purser's Office again and demand to speak to the manager in charge. Of course he is apologetic about the lack of response, but he had not seen my note, blah, blah, blah. But he does credit the $75.00 to my account and says he will send a photo to my email. I haven't received it yet.

On Thursday there was no hot water in all of the staterooms for several hours. Of course, I was already standing in the shower when the hot water went off. Trying to get information about the problem and when it would be resolved was impossible; no one was answering phones and the cabin stewards knew nothing.

Shall I continue? Sorry, I don't have the energy for more complaints. But as I wrote in an email to our friend Anita:  "after our previous two cruises, traveling on Cunard is like taking a Trailways Bus."