First Cruise Trip on the Queen Mary 2

December 22, 2009 | Article Posted By - Travel Great, London

Having travelled the Atlantic on QE2 3 years ago, i decide to go with Cunard on the Queen Mary 2 in August. Cunard's cabin and restaurant staff were impeccable, however, the new liner, despite all the hype was a considerable disappointment. The ship is large.

She feels like an oil tanker fitted for passengers and on first site in port looks clumsy and unattractive with two exhaust pipes at the rear. On board, one felt that you were on an oversized ferry. The staircases felt like service stairways just covered with carpet and clunked noisily; the Kings Court buffet was appalling - was like the Dover to Calais ferry however the food here on QM2 was substandard, the cabins and their bathrooms were prefabricated, the public rooms were soul-less and somehow the whole thing smited of bad interior design and decor.



There was a feeling that everything was laminate or immitation, and indeed this seems to concern the folk at Cunard who every step of the way go to great lengths to tell you that this is a liner on a Transatlantic crossing and not a cruise ship. The Cruise Director was a holiday-camp red-coat and had no understanding of what the Transatlantic experience should have been, and the restaurant food was only so-so, the staff were excellent until on the last night they asked me to mark excellent for service on a questionnaire.


 
At every step, it felt like a virtual reality version of a classic Transatlantic crossing, and while it was a good attempt it wasn't the real thing. In comparison, the cuisine on the QE2 was flawless, her buffet a work of art, her public rooms cosy, and every inch of her graced in beautiful polished timbers with beautifully fitted bathrooms. In comparison, QM2 is a rather large ferry which boasts some QE2 design features but they are sadly cosmetic, even down to the windshields around the lower stern decks.

Take a look at the evening menu - simply amazing! QM2Menu_evening.pdf

The Commodore Club was the only room on board to capture the real Transatlantic experience. On top of this, I had safety concerns about the vessel when she mysteriously had a catastrophical power failure at 1am one night, leaving us drifting in the Atlantic in the dark for several hours.

Take a look at this amazing videos of Queen Mary 2 and New York.

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