Four of our friends had sailed on the Queen Mary 2 in the last few years and these two couples had been encouraging us to do the crossing (New York to Southampton) ourselves. In fact, one couple wanted to do it again so we took them up on the offer to sail with us and are very happy we did.
The ship is beautiful. It was refurbished last year so everything about it was new and fresh. We upgraded to the Club Balcony level in order to have a more flexible meal time and eat in the special dining room for club level travelers. We received exceptional service from Nahveet, Brendo, and Radolfo and the Sommelier. They treated us like VIPs and they seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as we were. The food was wonderful and the variety of offerings could not have been better.
Our cabin steward (Ronuel) was very accommodating. It almost seemed like he was right outside our door all day. No matter how late we slept in or how irregular our mealtimes were, Ronuel had cleaned and made up our cabin by the time we returned. When we needed something, all we had to do was call Ronuel and either he or another steward was at our door almost immediately.
Our cabin was on the 13th deck with an unencumbered view of the ocean from our balcony. Although “cozy,” it was very efficiently designed with adequate storage. We were able to put our hard-sided, maximum (airline size) suitcases under the bed and out of our way. We were also able to arrange to ship home the luggage we no longer needed when we arrived in England and began our land tour.