Queen Mary 2 Review - Transatlantic Crossing

(hope there aren't too many typos... but here goes - kinda long)

--Tom


Cruise Review
Queen Mary 2
6 Night Westbound Transatlantic Crossing
June 2, 2008
Southampton to NYC

--Why.

Last August, Linda and our 2 kids did a Transatlantic Crossing on the Queen
Mary 2, and they all loved the ship. When they got back, Linda said that
since I love ships so much, I needed to try the QM2.

In February 2008, I booked a 3 day/4 night mini sailing on the QM2. We had
2 days at sea and 1 day at Princess Cay in the Bahamas.

The QM2 isn't a traditional Caribbean type cruise ship. She's as much a
history and art museum. There are a lot of exhibits on the ship detailing
the history of Cunard, of transatlantic crossing in the past, and of ocean
liners in general. Spending 2 days on her wasn't enough time to explore
much of the ship. So I decided to do a Transatlantic Crossing on her and
invited some friends.

--Who.

I invited fellow r.t.c.'r Charles and my co-worker Bill. Bill brought his
son Michael, who had just graduated from college (Elon University in NC).
My son Jonathan, who attends NYU, spent his spring semester in Berlin. His
classes finished a few days before our sailing, so I asked him if he'd
rather fly home or go with us. He opted to sail with us.

In addition, we met r.t.c'r Mark(SF) and his friend Steve on board. They
had actually joined the ship immediately after completing a sailing on the
QE2. We had lunch and pre dinner drinks with them a few day.

--Logistics.

Our sailing departed on Monday June 2. Since it's kind of difficult to
catch up with the ship at the next port if you miss the departure of a
Transatlantic Crossing, we decided to fly in a day early, on Saturday, and
then spend Sunday enjoying London.

We booked a morning flight from Newark to Heathrow on Saturday. That would
put is in London around 8:00 pm Saturday Evening. I had done that before
for another cruise, and think that it helps reduce the impact of jetlag. We
searched the internet for one way flights, and ended up getting them (on
Virgin Atlantic) through Cunard. They were actually about $300 cheaper
through Cunard ($500 vs. $800). We did pay an extra $75 (deviation fee) to
ensure non-stops and the morning flight. We also purchased transfers from
Cunard to get us from Heathrow to Southampton. It's over an hour ride.

Since we would arrive late in the evening on Saturday, and had to catch the
bus from the airport early Monday, we chose to stay at the Crown Plaza hotel
near the airport.

--Airport Check In... (uh, oh, this ain't good)

Upon arriving at Newark, we immediately learned that our 8:00 am Virgin
Atlantic flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems. They were
scrambling to get everyone re-booked. At first they talked about taking us
to JFK for a 9:00 am flight, but ended up putting all 4 of us on another
8:00 am flight from Newark on British Airways. We ended up on the last row
on a 767. But we got on. Many others didn't. Some went to JFK for evening
flights. Our plane actually had 5 empty seats, so they could have gotten
more on. Upon arriving in London we got our luggage, and promptly waited 45
minutes for the shuttle to the hotel.

Checking in, we did have some problems getting no smoking rooms. but in the
end, after a few trips to the check in desk, we all did. We caught a light
dinner and went to bed. Jonathan would bring his luggage (4 months worth,
including his computer and printer) and meet us at the hotel on Sunday. I
packed formal wear, a second jacket and slacks, bathing suit, and other
clothing for the ship for him, and brought it in a second suit case with me.
Between us, we had a lot of luggage.

The next morning, Charles and I headed off to London early. Bill and
Michael stayed in bed longer and headed into town later. Charles and I took
the underground to Tower Bridge, and then took a Thames River boat from
there to Westminster. From there we walked up to Covent Garden. We hit one
pub for drinks, and another for dinner. We even found a cell phone store
that sold unlocked cell phones (Motorola) for £14 British (about $28). We
also bought SIM cards for £5 that we used to call home with. We'll be able
to use them on future trips to Europe by purchasing new SIM cards with
minutes included. At least, that's the plan.

Getting back to the hotel in the evening, Jonathan met us there (though
originally I didn't see his luggage in my room so I panicked thinking he
wasn't there - but they wouldn't let him put is luggage in my room for
"security reasons"). We had drinks that evening in the lounge and went to
sleep.

Monday morning we met for breakfast and caught the shuttle to the airport
around 9:00, where we met the Cunard representative. We waited almost an
hour for the bus, and spent another hour or so going to 2 other terminal
building before driving to Southampton. Upon arriving at Southampton, we
saw glimpses of the QM2 as we made turns around the small streets near the
pier. You never really get a good view of the ship, either in Southampton
or NYC, like you would in ports in the Caribbean, Alaska or Europe. When he
did his first crossing, Jonathan commented that. "it never felt like a ship,
because you never really get to see the ship, as a ship". In Bermuda,
Barbados, Antigua, and other ports around the world, you walk off and back
onto your ship. It looks like a ship. But with a crossing you never really
get to see your ship as a ship, since you never get off it.

Boarding took less than 20 minutes to check in. They took our obligatory
embarkation photo and we were off to the ship.

--Ship layout, Cabins, etc.

The Queen Mary 2 has a somewhat different design as far as decks from most
other ship. Since she is primarily an ocean liner, they were able to get an
exemption allowing her life boats to be located higher up (in terms of feet
from the water line) than allowed per regulations. This allows for 3 decks
of cabins with balconies to be placed below the life boats / promenade deck.
These are called sheltered balconies. They are "inside the hull" like on
the Sun Princess class ships and the early Voyager class ships. They look
down to the ocean. There are also 5 decks of balcony cabins above the life
boats, 1 of which has balconies partially obstructed by lifeboats. The
balconies above the life boats have glass facings, and extend out from the
super structure, like on the Grand Princess and newer Voyager class ships.
Since the superstructure is indented from the lower hull, these balconies
look down at lifeboats, not directly down to the ocean. Jonathan and I had
a balcony cabin on Deck 5.

Cabins are nice size. They seem about a foot wider than similar balcony
cabins on Voyager Class ships (the only other ships comparably sized), most
noticeable when walking around the beds. Also noticeable are more closet
space than Voyager ships, and the bathrooms are larger - and nicely tiled.
Showers are also more spacious.

Deck 7 is the Promenade deck. There is a full wrap around promenade, with
some access to the front of the ship (though not the tip of the bow). The
promenade has no steps like on some ships. 3 Times around equals 1 mile.
There are several spare propeller blades mounted like artwork out by the
bow. The promenade has hundreds of "steamer lounge chairs" with green
padding. However, our sailing was much too windy and wet to use them until
the last morning in NYC after we had docked.

The top decks 13 and 12 are primarily teak decking and have a solarium pool
area, a large helicopter landing area, and a small outside pool. There are
hot tubs in the solarium and near the outside pool. Near the front are
basketball courts on both sides of the ship. Aft of the funnel (which
incidentally was supposed to be much higher in the original design, but had
to be shortened to allow it to fit under the Verrazano Bridge - it has 15
ft. of clearance) is more open decking. The ship doesn't have the
traditional large pool area with hundreds of deck chairs. With 40-50 knot
winds the entire sailing the upper decks were closed off for almost the
entire crossing. There are aft pools on the tiered stern on decks 6 and 8.
We saw kids on one of the pools the day we embarked. That was it. The only
pool and hot tubs that were used were the ones in the solarium.

In addition to the outside promenade, Deck 7 has (from front to back) the
Canyon Ranch Spa , the large Winter Garden lounge (where the art auctions
are held), the buffet restaurants and the Grill Class dining rooms.

Decks 2 and 3 are the major public decks. They contain the lobby, the
shops, the Golden Lion Pub, the Chart Room lounge, Wine Bar, Champagne Bar,
Coffee Bar, Casino, Computer Center, the Britannia Restaurant, and the 2
large theaters, Royal Court and Illuminations. The planetarium is located
inside Illuminations. Aft of the Britannia restaurant is the Queens Room -
the large ball room, and behind it, the G32 night club, named after the hull
number that the ship was assigned at the Chantier de L'Atlantique ship yard
in France where she was built.

While most of the ship is knock down dead gorgeous, Decks 2 and 3 have areas
where the most hideous (but how do you really feel about them?) plastic
paneling was installed. It depicts the 4 seasons. but the paneling is
totally out of place, in my opinion, and made out of cheap looking plastic.
To me, it almost looks like Joe Farcus sat there and held his breath unless
they would let him have at least one small area on the ship to design. and
that's what they gave him.

In the front of the ship on Deck 9 is the Commodore Club (for martinis). On
Deck 8 is the Library and Book Store. Deck 11 has an outside observation
area overlooking the bow, and the small inside Atlantic Room.

There are oil paintings of famous Cunard ships all over the Queen Mary 2. I
love the artwork on her. There are a number of paintings by Stephen Card,
but I like those by Gordon Bauwens more. Especially his painting of the
Caronia in Stairway A.

--Maritime Quest.

The ship has 4 elevator / stairway banks, designated A, B, C and D. In the
open areas of the elevator banks, and along the outside areas of the bow on
decks 2 and 3 there are panels depicting ocean liner and Cunard history.
This is called Maritime Quest. There are panels showing famous former
Cunard passengers like Laurel and Hardy, Helen Keller, Jackie and Bobby
Kennedy, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall,
General Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill.

There are also panels showing old Cunard advertisements, topics of history.
like in the early days when they had live cows and live chickens on ships
for fresh milk and fresh eggs prior to refrigeration. You can spend days
reading about the history of Cunard and Transatlantic crossings.

--Food and Dining.

In our cabin categories (low level balcony for me, insides for Charles and
Bill), we were assigned the Britannia Dining Room. We had a table for 6
(for the 5 of us) on the upper level, overlooking the central area. We took
late dining, but in the end, it didn't work out for all of us. Bill and
Michael eventually switched to early dining - Bill didn't want to go to bed
with a full stomach. The Britannia has open seating for breakfast and
lunch. The Britannia club offers open seating in one section of the
Britannia restaurant for dinner.

On two nights we made reservations for the specialty restaurants, one night
at Todd English, and one night at Chef's Galley (which is kind of like
"Emeril Live" at sea).

The buffet dining room (King's Court) is actually comprised of several
sections, each devoted to different types of foods. Lotus features Asian
cuisine. La Piazza is for Italian and Pizza. There is a Carvery. Chef's
Galley is also in the King's Court area. These are open for breakfast,
lunch, dinner and midnight snacks. Seating is along the sides with large
windows providing views of the promenade and the ocean.

The Gold Lion Pub offers British Pub style lunches (bangers and mashers,
shepherd's pie, steak and mushroom pie, fish & chips, etc.)

For the hoity toity, there are the Princess Grill and the Queen's Grill.

On our Presidents Weekend sailing in February, Todd English was totally
booked by the time we got on the ship. So this time, as soon as we boarded
I did a reservation for both Todd English and Chef's Galley. Chef's Galley
is done as a sort of Emeril Live at Sea. They do a cooking demonstration
each night at 7:00, and the 6 or so tables are served the same meal as the
chef prepared in front of you (though chefs in kitchens behind prepare what
is actually served to passengers). The nights have different themes. One
night was Asian, another was French, and another Italian. We chose the
Italian night.

I think the food in the dining room was as good as the food in Todd English.
In fact I thought the dining room had better fish - I had the sea bass in
Todd English, and wasn't crazy about it. Though the crab cake in Todd
English was the best I've had, and the mandarin orange crème Brule was
probably the best dessert that I've ever had. Charles and Jonathan gave
high marks to the fillet mignon and the veal at Todd English.

As I previously said, we chose Italian night in Chef's Galley. Attending
the live cooking demonstration was one of the big highlights of the sailing
for me. The chef prepared a shrimp appetizer, a pasta course of linguini
and meatballs, and a main course of stuffed chicken on polenta with a beef
stock & red wine sauce. I think the chicken on polenta was the best entrée
I had all week.

Some of the better entrees I had in the dining room were the cod the first
evening and the beef Wellington the 5th evening. Jonathan especially loved
the Caesar salad that you could get each evening.

At the end of the sailing in the dining room the waiter/waitress give you a
souvenir set of dinner menus for the entire week. Nice touch.

I've read and heard that Cunard doesn't have good service. After 2 sailings
I couldn't disagree more. Our 2 waitress in the dining room have been top
notch. In fact Nina, our waitress from February has been promoted to Queen's
Grill.

--Dress.

Cunard is Dress. If you don't like dressing up. Don't Go. Out of our 6
evenings, the first and last were elegant casual - requiring jacket (but no
tie). 3 Were Formal. 1 Was Semi-Formal - jacket and tie. Most people
stayed dressed up for the entire evening. I even saw people in tuxes in the
computer center at night, and in the buffet for midnight snacks.

--Shops.

In addition to the Logo Shop (which includes some items from Harrow's) there
are a number of high end shops on board, including Armani, Hermes, etc.
They had a nice "QM2 Transatlantic Crossing 2008" logo golf shirt. I got
one in white. Lots of other QM2 merchandise as well.

--Route / Voyage.

Obviously, the route is from Southampton to New York. But not so simple.
Ships are a bit limited in terms of where they can go. Looking at a
navigation chart, there are places in the ocean with banks that are too
close to the surface for ships to safely navigate across. The English
Channel and Celtic Sea are such places. So are The Grand Banks of
Newfoundland and George's Bank off Cape Cod.

Sailing from our pier in Southampton, first we sailed past the QE 2 at her
dock. We exchanged greetings with our horns. Then the ship sails down the
Solent heading south-west and around the west side of the Isle of Wight. It
then heads south east toward and into the shipping lanes, and then sails
eastward out past Lands End (the south east tip of England) and the Isles of
Scilly.

Once into deep water it begins the first of the two "Great Circle Routes".
They use this term because the shortest round viewed on a globe looks like
an arc when depicted on a flat map or chart. The first "Great Circle" ends
at the south tip of the Grand Banks, where the ship passed 15 miles south of
the location where Titanic sank in April 1912. From there the ship begins
it's second (smaller) more easterly "Great Circle" ending at the entrance to
the shipping lanes south of Long Island/Nantucket into New York Harbor.

For our sailing, we had 4 calm days, with seas in the 4-10 ft. range. But
we had one day sailing through a storm. While I didn't hear the noon
announcement, I would guess the waves were in the 15-25 ft. range.

I got the following coordinates from my GPS:

Southampton:
N 50' 54
W001' 25

Beginning of First Great Circle (south of Ireland):
N 48'58
W010'54

End of First Great Circle (at southern tip of Grand Banks), and beginning of
Second Great Circle:
N 41' 30
W048' 51

End of Second Great Circle (entrance to shipping lanes into NYC):
N 40'52
W066'46

NYC (Brooklyn Pier):
N 40' 41
W074' 01

--On-Board Activities.

Ok. so you have 5 days and 6 nights at sea. what to do?

The outside decks have 40-50 knot winds. The North Atlantic tends to be
cool and rainy. So you're not going to spend 6 hours by the pool getting a
tan. Even the promenade deck was virtually useless the entire sailing. Too
windy. Too wet. Too cold. This isn't sailing 4 knots between St. Thomas
and St. Maarten. You're doing 25-30 knots on the North Atlantic. Some days
are calm and other days you're looking at 15-25 ft. waves.

So. since the outside areas of the ship are off limits (due to the weather).
everything has to happen inside the ship.

There are lectures. On our sailing, John Maxtone-Graham, noted maritime
historian spoke each day between 11:15 and 12:15 in the Royal Court Theater.
He was great. We attended is talks each day. There were other lectures by
noted authorities on forensics (they talked about the JFK assassination, and
the OJ trial), and on World War 2 history.

Inside Illuminations they hold theatrical performances, but the most popular
activity there is the planetarium. There is a large dome that is lowered,
and 150 seats totally recline. Shows last about 25 minutes, and are
repeated every 30 minutes in the afternoon. Performances in German and
French are also given.

Other activities include: wine tasting, single malt Scotch whisky tasting,
afternoon tea in the Queens Room or in the buffet (with English scones,
raspberry jam and whipped cream), piano recitals, trivia, bingo, art
auctions, and the ever present bazaar type tables with inches of gold, old
tee shirts at half price, 50% off watches, etc.

The casino tends toward the quiet side. One night was smoke free.

The computer center has things like Excel training, and Rosetta Stone CD's
if you wanted to start learning a foreign language.

There is a lot to do on board. but to be totally honest. after about 2 days.
I wanted a Port. I'd have taken even one of my less favorite ports. like
Jamaica or Trinidad. Oh, well.

Next time on the QM2. I'm thinking Northern Europe. Maybe the Fjords - my
favorite itinerary. Maybe the Baltic's - love Copenhagen. Maybe the
British Isles (golfing in Ireland and Scotland). I did a future booking to
get a cabin credit, but left it as an open booking, not picking a date or
itinerary.

Have to study the brochures. see what we come up with for next year.

--Odds and Ends.

Tipping is handled automatically by adding $11 per day per person onto the
shipboard account.

The upstairs section of the Royal Court Theater doesn't have a wrap around
aisleway. you need to climb over people to get to the top and far rows. not
a good design.

The downstairs section of the Royal Court Theater has temporary seats
between the permanent rows of seats. Not a very good design IMO.

The upper deck has a lot of wasted space. I'd like to see them add another
covered pool. The solarium is too small.

The care of the ship it top notch.

Announcements are kept to a minimum. The commodore does a noon
announcement.

Internet out in the middle of the Atlantic can be a bit "iffy" at times.
Initially they use British satellites, and later English satellites. Even
the TV programming changes at that point.

Candles - several evenings in the dining room, we had lit candles on our
tables. First time I've seen that.

There are Self Service Laundry facilities on board. In fact, most decks had
an inside cabin with washers, driers, and ironing boards.

Photographs and Cruise DVD's are more expensive than or Royal Caribbean, but
alcoholic drink prices seemed cheaper. The ship has Stella Artouis, Becks,
Bass Ale and Guinness on draft.

I'm probably missing a hundred things, but Charles and Mark(SF) will most
assuredly provide more insight than I've given here.



.

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