Great Itinerary - Disappointing Ship

Very speedy and smooth embarkation at Southampton Ocean Terminal

Excellent dining, as always on Cunard. At the Britannia Club Restaurant they went particularly overboard to accommodate my dietary requirements, which I deeply appreciated.

Bingo, trivia and so on are always available on sea days. On port days, there’s less to do for those who decide not to go ashore for once.

This was a different experience compared to my earlier Cunard cruises. On reflection, it looked like some of the new staff were not properly trained for their job. Some could barely speak any English, especially at the buffet on deck 9, and it was clear that they had not been even taught the usual, cultural social cues that an Anglo-American passenger would normally expect. As originally from abroad myself, I know how important such cues are in the hospitality sector, especially when the company prides itself in offering a ‘White-Star service’. Astonishingly, I also came across a couple of instances of rudeness from a waiter towards other passengers. It also seemed that some venues were worse off than others: staff at the Britannia Club Restaurant was excellent, whereas some of the waiters at the Golden Lion Pub and Commodore Coub had clearly not been properly prepared.

This has probably been the most disappointing part of the cruise itself. Some of the ship’s decors are stunning, no question of that, but it is clear that there has been some lack of insight in the ship’s design. The most noticeable features were the following: - The Queen’s Room is definitely too small and is nothing comparable to its counterpart on the other ships; there’s barely any room for activities there. - For a ship this new, I was astonished at the poor state of some of its services: in some bathrooms I found cracks on urinal, cracks on walls, walls were the panelling had bloated up; in our cabin, the panelling on the ceiling also got indented at some point because of a draught. - The Buffet area on Deck 9 feels much narrower than its counterpart on Queen Victoria; this created some congestion problems during busy times. - Apparent lack of service lifts for staff. I’ve seen some of the staff with their cleaning equipment waiting for passenger lifts in order to move around. Moreover, the night before disembarkation, the waiting areas on every deck around the lifts were jam-packed with passengers’ suitcases waiting to be taken downstairs for disembarkation. - Lack of a continuous, uninterrupted open deck upstairs. You could not take a walk around the whole of Deck 10/11 as the Grills space is right in the middle and it’s blocked off. If you were aft and wanted to reach the Commodore Club, you would have to go through the buffet area and pavilion to do so; - In order to have balcony cabins with no obstructed views, the lifeboats have been lowered onto the promenade deck( Deck3). This means that sea views there are totally obstructed, especially if you fancy taking a walk there.

It felt smaller than a usual balcony cabin on other ships. It looks like space has been reduced in order to accommodate as many passengers as possible. The bathroom was new, and the shower with glass doors was a great addition. Admittedly, though, there’s barely any space to move around. More astonishingly, I’ve also visited a Princess Suite whilst on board and didn’t look any different from my balcony cabin - just somewhat deeper, but with basically the same features and bathroom.

Very speedy and smooth disembarkation process at Southampton Ocean Terminal