Queen Mary 2 - Initial Impressions

Cruise Review - Queen Mary 2
4 Night Sailing from Brooklyn to Princess Cay, with 2 Days at Sea.

Initial Impressions..

Ship

Knock down dead gorgeous. Very classy. No glitz what so ever. The lobby
is very understated, with lots of reds and white marble columns. Very
attractive. Very classy looking. Lots of beautiful ship paintings. Lots
of artwork featuring Cunard passengers over the decades. The most beautiful
library I've seen on any ship, with an adjacent book store. The Britania
Dining room is lovely. comparable to the one on Century. We saw the Grill
Class dining rooms from the outside promenade deck but didn't go see them on
the inside. Mostly tables for 4. The ship has 4 banks of elevators and
stairs, designated A, B, C and D, basically dividing the ship into 5
sections. Deck 7 is the Promenade deck with the lifeboats above. Deck 7
also houses the main buffet restaurants, and the Grill restaurants. Decks
4, 5 and 6 have cabins. Most of the cabins on those decks are balcony
cabins called "protected balcony" cabins. The balconies are cut-outs in the
hull, similar to the balconies on the Sun Class Princess ships. Decks 8
through 12 have balcony cabins with plexiglass balconies. These are all
recessed inward of the main hull, and look down at the lifeboats (which you
look past to see the ocean). Deck 8 has a lot of "obstructed view" balcony
cabins, with life boats in the way of your balcony view. Most other public
areas like the 2 theaters, reception desk, shops, the ever present "Turkish
Bazaar tables with junk" and such, are located on Decks 2 and 3. There is a
beautiful library, book store, and several lounges near the front windows,
overlooking the bow. There is a very nice, albeit too small, solarium pool
area, with a small pool and 2 hot tubs. The aft pool, along the tiered aft
of the ship on Deck 6, is the kids' pool. There is a very large teak deck
area up on Deck 13 which is pretty much a total waste. It has a tiny pool
near the back, but no deck chairs or anything else. just a massive expanse
of empty teak decking. Not sure if they ever make use of the area, but didn't
on our sailing. The art auction was on Deck 7. The promenade on Deck 7
goes fully around the ship and has wooden deck chairs on both sides. There
is a nice observation area just below the bridge. The bridge has a "peek a
boo" viewing area from the back.

Food

Food overall ranged from what you'd get on Celebrity on their best days,
maybe even better... to what you get on an average day on Royal Caribbean
(so-so). Sea Bass and Haddock the first 2 nights were outstanding. So was
the extra lobster brought to our table (I took one even though I had the Sea
Bass). Crispy and firm, not mushy at all. Nut crusted Mahi Mahi the third
night was so-so. Steak and lamb the last night were pretty bad. like on a
poor night on Royal Caribbean. Buffets were decent. Comparable to Princess
or Celebrity for breakfast and lunch. Lots of fruits and even a number of
"British" breakfast and lunch items.

Brooklyn Terminal

Easy to get to directions-wise, although traffic is always horrible in that
area (on the BQE - Brooklyn Queens Expressway). The terminal is only 3
blocks once you get off the highway. It's the highway that's the problem.
The BQE and the Staten Island Expressway are always bad.

Passenger Demographics

Here's where it gets interesting. Since Carnival built the terminal in
Brooklyn. Guess what? 95% of the passengers are from Brooklyn. About 50%
were former cast members (or could have been cast members) of the Sopranos.
They walked, talked and dressed like people from the Badda Bing Club.
Another 40% were Russians from Brooklyn, wearing their blue jeans and 4 days
worth of un-shaven beard stubble. They could be heard all over the ship
yelling at their wives, and shouting in Russian. The Russian ladies came
dressed up for formal night in their best fishnet stocking outfits. I don't
recall seeing this same passenger demographics in the old photos of Charlie
Chaplin, Queen Elizabeth, Winston Churchill on Cunard ships. Maybe this is
the new "Brooklyn version" of Cunard. We had 2700 people on our sailing
including quite a few poorly behaved kids, which might have overwhelmed the
crew. Many of the passengers were rather rude to the staff. But then some
of the crew were a bit snippy as well.

Service

Service ranged from outstanding to abysmal. Apparently they recently moved
over half the staff from the QM2 to the new Queen Victoria. This led to a
great deal of chaos. It could take you 90 minutes to get a Coke refill
AFTER you asked. Your water glass could go 45 minutes before refilling in
the main dining room. Our waitress was outstanding. Our cabin steward was
ok.it was his first ever day on any ship. You think they'd make him an
assistant first. so he learned the ropes. But no. He never even bothered
giving out comment cards - I had to get them from the pursers desk. They
don't give you much space to write comments. good thing.

Entertainment

Overall I'd rate it pretty bad. I did a "Charles" (for those of you who
know the term) a few nights. fell asleep (some call it meditating) during
the shows. The featured entertainers were a piano play / banjo duo.
Something right out of the Red Skelton show. It was so bad we left after 15
minutes. The singing dance shows. I pretty much hated them. One show was
a rock/opera tribute to Queen/Freddie Mercury. I'll take an hour on the
computer reading e-mails any day.

Cabin

Our cabin was a "protected balcony" cabin on Deck 6. Number 6252, aft on
Port Side. The balcony is cut into the steel hull (below the promenade deck
and the life boats). The balcony is from deck rail height up to ceiling
height. The balcony had 2 chairs and a small table. In addition to the
queen size bed, the room had a sofa, a mini-frig, desk and chair. The
bathroom was very nice. It had ceramic tiles instead of the typical plastic
wall material. The shower had a traditional shower curtain. There was a
safe, and more than enough storage space. The cabin was very nice. Top
marks for the cabin.

Restaurants

The main dining room, Britania is a 2 story dining room on decks 2 and 3.
Like the design on Carnival Destiny the dining room is located midship, and
cuts off both ends of decks 2 and 3. To get from one end to the other you
have to climb up to passenger Deck 4, or take the side photo gallery on Deck
2. The Britania is very comparable to the dining room on Century, though
without the windows overlooking the ship's wake. I really liked the dining
room.

The King's Court is a series of buffet restaurants on deck 7, that have
Chinese, sushi, Italian, carvery, sandwich, and traditional buffet dining.
You get your tray/food at any of the sections, and then take seats along the
outside area, with windows overlooking the promenade deck. The buffet is
lovely and works very well, and. They don't have the buffet up on the top
pool deck like many ships.

The Todd English specialty restaurant was sold out before we even boarded
(and we got there around noon). Never even bothered looking for it.

Spa

The Spa is run by Canyon Ranch. All of the spa times were sold out before
we even boarded, other than some off times (like when we were at Princess
Cay).

Theaters

There are 2 main theaters. Royal Court and Illumiation (which contains the
planetarium). Movies and the planetarium shows are shown in Illuminations.
The evening production shows were done in the Royal Court Theater. The
design of the Royal Court was such that they had permanent seats so far
apart that temporary-moveable seats were installed between each row of
permanent seats. this caused the rows to be extremely tight. people stepped
on your toes walking in and out of the isles. Rather a poor design. I don't
know what they were thinking.


Ballroom

There is a Grand Ballroom in the aft, on deck 3. They held a Black and
White Ball there, as well as the daily Bingo.

Bars and Lounges

There were a number of bars and lounges all over the ship. With a 4 night
sailing, we didn't see most of them. We did attend karaoke one night in the
Golden Lion, which is on Deck 2.

Dress Code

We were a 4 night sailing. 1 Formal night (second night), 1 semi-formal
night (third night), and 2 casual nights (first and last nights). Almost
everyone on the ship had a tux or gown for formal night. And most kept them
on all evening. Semi formal was jacket and tie for men. Casual also was
designated jacket for men, but no tie required.

Shops and the ever present "Turkish Bazaar"

The Mayfair Shops have ships logo merchandise, as well as merchandise such
as Harrods, Hermes and Armani, and just outside the doors you will find
tables full of $10 watches and 3 for 1 tee shirts piled up high on table -
like something out of a "Turkish Bazaar". This caused a true feeding frenzy
for the Sopranos Badda Bing Club cast members and the Russians. Enter at
your own risk. It gave quite the cheap feel to an otherwise lovely ship.

Casino

The casino is located on Deck 3. Seemed subdued and elegant. nothing like
the blinking lights you usually see in ship casinos. I didn't go inside to
make any contributions.

Overall

I love the ship. But the service and food were too varied (good vs. bad).
They just didn't have their act together. One lady was telling us she
convinced her friends to come on the ship after raving about Cunard for so
long. she said she had to sit and "eat crow" the entire sailing. It had
potential. It was there at times. but missing way too many other times. It
was like taking Michaelangelo's St. Peters Basilica in Rome and selling
Bingo Cards in it. The ship deserves better.

More comments aligned to our sailing, dialy activities and day at Princess
Cay to come.

--Tom

"Tom K" <tkanitra.RemoveThis@optonline.net> wrote in
news:47bb60b1$0$15173$607ed4bc@cv.net:

> Cruise Review - Queen Mary 2
> 4 Night Sailing from Brooklyn to Princess Cay, with 2 Days at Sea.
>
> Initial Impressions..
>
> Ship
> Tom we were on in December, (right after the crew was gutted) the aft
pool was quite popular in the caribbean
> Knock down dead gorgeous. Very classy. No glitz what so ever. The
outside pools were all busy, but the deck 13 space is pretty eerie.

> Food
>
> Food overall ranged from what you'd get on Celebrity on their best
> days, maybe even better... to what you get on an average day on Royal
> Caribbean (so-so).

We had a longer cruise but the same ups and downs

> Brooklyn Terminal
>
> Easy to get to directions-wise, although traffic is always horrible in
> that area (on the BQE - Brooklyn Queens Expressway). The terminal is
> only 3 blocks once you get off the highway. It's the highway that's
> the problem. The BQE and the Staten Island Expressway are always bad.

The problem as we experienced it was that the Manhattan cabbies didn't
know how to get there, and no body came for disembark so we took a limo.

> Passenger Demographics
>
LOL
>
> Service
>
> Service ranged from outstanding to abysmal.

Yes, I had to actually get up and find the wine steward the first night
and tell him bluntly, We buy a bottle a night wait on us.

>
> Our cabin was a "protected balcony" cabin on Deck 6. Number 6252, aft
> on Port Side. The balcony is cut into the steel hull (below the
> promenade deck and the life boats). The balcony is from deck rail
> height up to ceiling height. The balcony had 2 chairs and a small
> table. In addition to the queen size bed, the room had a sofa, a
> mini-frig, desk and chair. The bathroom was very nice. It had
> ceramic tiles instead of the typical plastic wall material. The
> shower had a traditional shower curtain. There was a safe, and more
> than enough storage space. The cabin was very nice. Top marks for
> the cabin.

This is one ship that I would go for an outside cabin without balcony
because they are the same size as yours was but the balcony area is
inside.
>
> Restaurants
>. They
> don't have the buffet up on the top pool deck like many ships.
Actually they did have a hamburger grill up there out by the expanse of
teak.
>
> --Tom
>



--
Joseph Coulter, cruises and vacations
www.josephcoulter.com
yourvacation.RemoveThis@comcast.net
877 832 2021
904 631 8863 cell