The ship itself and facilities were magnificent.
Also the serving staff and steward were excellent.
This being the maiden voyage we were expecting a few bugs but the service for the first 3 or 4 nights was awful.
The first night we were due to eat at 8.30 but it was nearer 9.30 and we did not leave until 11.10.
The service did gradually improve over the week but we did not get out of the dining room any night to be able to go to a 10.00 pm show in the theatre.
The system the waiters were using (computerised tablets) was either too complicated or the waiters had insufficient training, It was taking the wine waiter 2 minutes to enter an order for each glass of wine.
The dining room was understaffed.
Our waiter was almost running between the serving station and tables.
His assistant waiter was actually bringing the food from the kitchen to the servicing station.
On our previous Cunard cruises they have been serving bread, water and coffee etc.
Although the quality of the food in the Britannia restaurant was good, the range of food offered was limited.
Lamb was on the menu 3 nights out of the seven on board an lemon sole on two consecutive nights.
Again the food in the buffet an lunchtime was reasonable but most days the English food section was fish and chips.
The cabin steward and bar staff were extremely helpful, friendly, always said hello on the corridors.
Very few of the senior staff acknowledged us.
Drinks were good but compared to other cruise lines seemed expensive when converting to GBP and adding the 15% gratuity.
There were understandably many shipyard staff on board to rectify problems but why were they allowed to eat in the ship’s buffet ? They took up tables that we had paid for, were in their working clothes and some of their table manners left a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately my wife broke a tooth on the second day of the cruise.
The service from the doctor and medical team was excellent and the pursers office were extremely efficient in organising a dental appointment and transport for us in Lisbon in conjunction with the ship’s agent.
The Captain appeared not to acknowledge the problems on board until the last evening when we received a letter of apology and a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine.
It would have been better to communicate earlier to explain the situation and that steps were being taken to put things right.
Overall we enjoyed the maiden voyage, but compared to other cruise lines, when adding the daily service charge and cost of drinks with gratuity we found that Cunard were not great value for money.
We would seriously consider whether or not to use them again as they seem to be living on their past reputation and other lines have caught them up.
