Telephone calls to Cunard before the voyage never got me the same answer twice. At one point laughter broke out in the background and unable to hear the customer service rep.

Bar service was bad everywhere and waited 5-10 minutes for a drink. The Brittannia Dining Service was worse than my QE2 Mauretania service of 6 months ago which was unfit for a Dairy Queen much less a Cunard Queen.

THE CONNSUMATE SCREW UP:
I was in a party of 4 and had us sitting separately on the first night. The other 2 were mistakenly assigned to a table for 6 with 8 people. The assistant Maitre ‘D idiot got officious, the Maitre D’ Neville saw what was going on and chewed out the assistant Maitre d' idiot. We finally got our table together, but were upset about missing the first night. They offered no compensation or apology letter at all. We had good waiters, but the kitchen was slow. One day at lunch it took 40 minutes to get an entrée of grilled trout, I skipped desert to get to an activity on time. Britannia service was never consistent and other passengers were near mutiny.

Conversation with Maitre D” ineffective

Me:I sailed the Rembrandt with Premier a budget line and had flawless service
MD: I was the Maitre D’ in the last season on that ship
Me: that was when I cruised her
We then recognized each other
Me: That ship did not have the high tech state of the art galleys the QM2 does, there is no excuse
MD: We worked hard to make it happen on the Rembrandt.

QE2 December 2003

Problems began with getting me my tickets only 6 days before my flight out, and this required 3 phone calls and a promise to post the idiocy on all the message boards. The service in the Mauritania restaurant was not fit for a Dairy Queen much less a Cunard Queen. It is the WORST I have had of any cruise. The dinner service had well meaning but incompetent waiters. On the first night I was asked to share a menu with a table mate. One waiter had BO on occasion. Lunch and breakfast service was abysmal and made NCL and Regal look really good. Orders would get screwed up, courses arrive out of sequence, and they would run out of basic items. I do have to say the food was tasty, especially the desserts. The cuisine however was not very imaginative.

If this same QM2 Maitre d’ on the Rembrandt provided flawless service, then working on the QM2 with the bottom barrel we received, and bad service on the QE2 6 months earlier, I deduce the problem comes from Cunard management.

Any other stories and corroboration?

[ 07-06-2004: Message edited by: desirod7 ]

Every cruise line I take has a customer questionaire you get at the end of the voyage, Cunard does not.

quote:

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Originally posted by Willem H. van der Leek:
Did you sent your 'complaints' to Cunard and did you receive their reply ? ?

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quote:

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Originally posted by desirod7:

Every cruise line I take has a customer questionaire you get at the end of the voyage, Cunard does not.

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Cunard most certainly does, but apparently not on your short cruise (which is not an excuse). I had a questionnaire on both my QM2 and QE2 voyages. I'm sorry you did not have a better time on QM2, but frankly I don't think the ship or Cunard are well suited for short cruises (again, not an excuse but a reality). I know July 4th cruise was not cheap, so certainly things should have been top notch.

Too many people continue to have a less that satisfactory experience on QM2. Enough time has passed now that a "new crew" is no longer an excuse.

quote:

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Originally posted by desirod7:
The other 2 in my party who suffered the table screw up humiliation is writing a very strong letter.

Every cruise line I take has a customer questionaire you get at the end of the voyage, Cunard does not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by eroller:

Too many people continue to have a less that satisfactory experience on QM2. Enough time has passed now that a "new crew" is no longer an excuse.

Ernie

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Aren't those people expecting too much ? ?

Bottom line is these ships are not designed for "mini cruises" and the staff generally never preform well on them. My advice to anyone is to avoid ANY so called "sampler cruises" as the ship and staff just never seem to impress...might be different on the mass market brands but I have yet to have anyone come back from any luxury lines sampler cruises and have much more to say than "I don't see what the fuss is all about".

[ 08-03-2004: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

David

Nice seeing you on the QM2 Independnce day Cruise out of NYC. It's been a long time, I think 2001. Anyway. I'm sorry to hear you had such a poor experience on board. As I told you onboard, my wife and I had poor table service our first day out of NYC. We didn't get our dinners till 10PM and we were seated around 8:30. The only thing that was good was we had nice table mates to chat with.

My recommendation when you receive poor service is to complain about it as soon as possible. The next evening I spoke with Bryce Clarke, the Senior Maitre D'Hotel, Restaurant Britannia Reasturant. I told him about the service we received the previous evening and he assigned us to a new table. From then on we received excellent service. Every night he came by to see how things were going and even took care of a bottle of wine for my table to ease the trouble of the first night.

Cruise lines want you to bring this to their attention and for the most part they are reasonable and want to help you. My suggestion is that you should have complained to Bryce as soon as you had a problem.

And Dave that's a strong statement "bar service was bad everywhere" what were you doing ordering drinks and then hiding on the other side of the ship so they couln't find you? I had great service from the bar. In fact I wish I was there now on the Todd English Terrace ordering a cool drink.

It's too bad that so many of you on this board have had negative experiences on this ship. I guess I've been lucky. Last week's cruise was the second time on QM2, my first being the maiden westbound transatlantic voyage. At the end of this voyage I was so pleased that I booked another trip for 2005.

I wish all the best for others travelling on QM2 in the future

[ 07-06-2004: Message edited by: Sky Room ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sky Room:
"
David

Nice seeing you on the QM2 Independnce day Cruise out of NYC. It's been a long time, I think 2001. And Dave that's a strong statement "bar service was bad everywhere" what were you doing ordering drinks and then hiding on the other side of the ship so they couln't find you? I had great service from the bar. In fact I wish I was there now on the Todd English Terrace ordering a cool drink.

[ 07-06-2004: Message edited by: Sky Room ]

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Doug, good to see you too, 4 years since Rembrandterdam. The Golden Lion, Lookout, Sir Samuels, were the guilty party's. Regatta, Commodore and G32 were better

another opinion: it aint just me
The menu was not inspiring. The only entree which appealed somewhat was the double pork chop. I cannot remember anything else about this meal that was memorable food wise (We were not given copies of each night’s menus as on QE2’s Caronia/PG). I had a déjÃ* vu feeling of my cruise to Halifax on RCCL’s Serenade of the Sea’s during which we found the food in the main restaurants to be mediocre. We did have an excellent Riesling with dinner for a bargain price of $18.00. There are some excellent wines at very good prices on this ship.

We had arrived at the appointed time of 8:45 to discover a long line for dinner that eventually backed up from the restaurant door to the mid ship spiral staircase. We found a table in Sir Samuels which is across from the Chart Room and had excellent Martini’s. At 9:25pm the doors finally opened. Seated at our table was a family of four: parent’s approximately 75ish, daughter our age (late forties) with her 8 year old daughter. Although they had requested early seating, they were seated late, and then put on a wait list by the maitre d’hotel after complaining. By the time her pasta course was served, the poor child was asleep. She was woken up, ate a little, then went back to sleep. We felt terrible for them.
As the family – with a child - we has dined with yesterday were able to switch to early seating, we anticipated having new table mates, however, nothing could have prepared us for what awaited at our table. We arrived after most everyone had already been seated in the dining room to find our table fully occupied with three couples. We explained this was our table and was told by one of the men: “It’s not anymore.� Lorraine produced our card with the table # written on it, while asking if perhaps they might check their card. The reply from one of the women: “Its not your table anymore – first come first serve.� Then someone chimed in: “The early bird gets the worm� and “if you cared enough about your t-a-b-le you would have gotten here first, so sue us.� I told them that my wine was already ordered to be sent to the table to which one of them said: "We enjoyed it, but could you have selected white zinfandel next time."

It was then that Lorraine and I left to find the Maitre d’hotel (and located his assistant) who just shrugged his shoulders. He said that he could not ask anyone to leave – “please do not make a fuss miss – I seat you elsewhere.� Elsewhere turned out to be a table for 2 on level 1 adjacent to the galley doors whereby we were treated to the sounds of waiters rushing to and fro laden with heavy trays. We could feel the rush of air as each whizzed by. It was even worse than the original table we had been assigned upon embarkation. We had asked for another table and were told there was nothing, so by this time, hungry upset and frustrated, we just sat and ate. After repeatedly explaining to the wait staff and sommelier about the bottle of wine we had ordered, it came to our table already opened with about one quarter of it missing: “I saved your wine miss� the sommelier beamed, to which I said very slowly. “Please get me a new bottle of wine now. Take this already opened and partially consumed bottle away. If you do not do this immediately I will send an email to the CEO of Cunard and the Director of Guest Relations in Miami, Frank Sansone and tell them how you purported to sell and serve a half consumed bottle of wine.�

Needless to say, the dinner was not memorable. The chateaubriand was ok; the béarnaise sauce was good though. We also had lobster as an appetizer (the main course). It was tough.

Originally Posted by ramorpa
I just returned from the QM2 July 4th cruise. This was my 20th cruise and I would rate it as the worst. I too have read the good and the bad and went on board with great expectations. It is very large but there is really nothing that is outstanding about it other than the size. The service was poor and the food was mediocre, at best. I hoped that my reservation at the Todd English would be better but as it turned out it was nothing exceptional. The most evident problem with the cruise was the attitude, or lack of positive attitude throughout the entire ship. Very few of the crew would acknowledge you around the ship. Many of the people who also were not happy with the cruise stated that the QE2 was far superior and that the QM2 was not in the same class. It looks like the QM2 experience is just marketing hipe.

[ 07-08-2004: Message edited by: desirod7 ]

[ 07-16-2004: Message edited by: desirod7 ]

You can't please everyone all the time, let alone 2500 odd. QM2 is far superior in every way imo to QE2, only QE2 lovers disagree.

Eagerly awaiting to see what ChrisCunard thinks of his trip

I agree with Pam that, for every complaint, there's probably a heck of a lot more folks who did have a good time. Our group of eight couldn't have been more pleased. I think, for the most part, most passengers had a good time and loved the experience. I didn't hear grumbling from hoards of disgruntled passengers and, because of the switch to Newport, I thought I would. You can tell when a cruise is going sour, you can just feel it.

David's (and his Brother & Sister in-law's) table snafu is a valid complaint; let's face it: someone screwed up. But from what I understand, they fixed the problem (albeit not without frustration).

Again, the foul ups were never consistent, which makes it even harder to solve.

It was such a good cruise due to the many wonderful people I met and reunited with on board.
The 2 other cruisetalkers sharing the voyage with me made it ever so special

I truly love the Cunard experience. My QE2 voyage of 6 months earlier was also very siginificant.

It is within my interest not to bash Cunard, but to fairly identify problems and Cunard solve them so we can all have a better cruise.

quote:

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Originally posted by linerguy:
The only thing QE2 has (or at least HAD) over QM2 is the British atmosphere and that comfy, worn in shoe feeling. Other than that, at least as far as my experience goes, there's no justification for ripping apart QM2 in comparing QE2.

I agree with Pam that, for every complaint, there's probably a heck of a lot more folks who did have a good time......................... David's (and his Brother & Sister in-law's) table snafu is a valid complaint; let's face it: someone screwed up. But from what I understand, they fixed the problem (albeit not without frustration).

Russ

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quote:

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Eagerly awaiting to see what ChrisCunard thinks of his trip

Pam

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Me too pam it will be nice to see which one he likes better QE2 or Qm2! Personally i LOVE QE2!! She is an Amazing ship and looks WAY!! better than QM2 more classic! I think the things that gets peopel about QM2 is the Size of her!

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr_Cunard:

Me too pam it will be nice to see which one he likes better QE2 or Qm2! Personally i LOVE QE2!! She is an Amazing ship and looks WAY!! better than QM2 more classic! I think the things that gets peopel about QM2 is the Size of her!

cheers

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I don't think it is only size.

Don’t forget that QM2 and QE2 are not only exterior objects but most importantly are interior objects, Unlike cars (which for most part are bought for states and exterior looks) ships are mostly judged for their interiors and onboard service and not their exterior looks. I have seen marine vessels that exterior wise looked even better and more nautical then some of today’s new builds, but that doesn’t mean I would want to spend a week on a navy ship.

I can’t see the point in comparing QM2 with QE2, it is like comparing the Mona Lisa with a Andy Warhol and which piece of art is better simply because they are both art.

I couldn’t imagine at the time Mauritania was new that people compared her with Cunard’s first Britannia.

I see QM2 as a natural progression; she looks exactly how a modern liner should look. And, when compared to other ships of similar size, she outshines them all; especially anything Princess operates.

It's true that QM2's interiors are, in many ways, very retro. It would have certainly been interesting to have seen interiors based on new, ground breaking designs. But I do love her modern interpretation of the classic '30's ocean liner style and I don't think she suffers at all because of it.

Clearly I am talking about the ships themselves and not things like service, food, etc.

quote:

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Originally posted by linerguy:
For me, I like to compare ships within their own time frame. It's a bit unfair to place QE2 up against QM2.

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I know what you are saying, but of course they operate in the same market place and are both in the same brochure. People are able to compare and choose how they spend their pound/dollar.

While the Cunard EXPERIENCE can be compared between QM2 & QE2, comparing the actual ships is like mixing oil and water ... they end up separate no matter how much you shake them.

All my opinion of course.

Best,

That was totally uncalled for and an unprovoked jab.

You obviously haven't learned much from your many years of travel.

Glad to see it was yanked.

[ 07-15-2004: Message edited by: linerguy ]

Onno

[ 07-16-2004: Message edited by: Onno ]

I understand that balcony cabins are a sign of the times but, as far as appearance goes, the Howard Johnsons that runs the length of QM2's port and starboard open promenade is the only thing about her exterior that I don't care for.

Another difference is cabin size. QM2's smallest (and least expensive) cabin category averages about 194 sq. ft.; in order to get a cabin similar in size on QE2, you have to book an outside Caronia category cabin.

Damn, I think I just caught myself comparing the two ships!

Russ

[ 07-16-2004: Message edited by: linerguy ]