Tremendous ship.
Elegant without being ostentatious, wonderful sweeping decks at the stern and a wide promenade deck.
Spacious dance floor to complement the theatre, and planetarium as well.
The buffet eating area is much better that most cruise ships as it looks out on to the promenade deck rather than being perched on the top of the ship.
The ship was also spotless and hardly showed its 10 years of service and the crew took pride in its appearance., Its a Liner after all and not a cruise ship, better and more substantially built with high topsides, thicker steel plates and an unbelievable power station on the top deck to compliment the diesel engines below.
Produces enough power to satisfy Southampton and cuts effortless through a force 10 storm.
Having been on P&Os Arcadia, where we couldn’t hear conversations at the dinner table, the QM2 is quiet and generally vibration free.
Our balcony door on deck 5 rattled when the weather was rough and I would be inclined to take an upper deck balcony next trip, but that’s just a small point .
We were a little apprehensive about the class system on the ship, especially as we were traveling steerage, well the norm as opposed to the Princess and Queens grills.
I would love somebody to explain to me why they have three class segregations as opposed to maybe two, strange marketing but I assume it must work for Cunard.
It wasn’t noticeable in practice and in fact we broke the rules and sat on the upper class deck.
I’m not sure what would happen if the decks were busy.
So the segregation was not an issue for us The food was excellent and better than other cruises we have been on, although we did notice that its not a full “silver service” at the dinner table, but that didn’t matter.
Our only criticism was the disembarkation in New York.
We got off at the Brooklyn pier and had to wait an hour in the rain for a taxi to take us into Manhattan.
Hardly Cunard’s fault, but some liaison with the port authorities needs to take place to sort out the shortage of taxis and poor pick up logistics in the dock.
The QM2 is a must if you enjoy ships and cruising, it is truly a classic ship and very reasonably priced if you book late and take an inside cabin.
