Queen Mary 2 (QM2) Review
A Terrible and Expensive Disappointment
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Our 5th cruise on the QM2 and possibly our 40th cruise overall. The Queen has clearly lost her crown. The ship is aging and needs refurbishing. Seating in the Illuminations theater needs to be fixed so they stay upright, need to be reupholstered; the public areas need to be kept free of detritus and stray bits of food and/or personal effects; the food in the main dining room was absolutely abysmal with unimaginative menus and either over-salted, over spiced or overcooked depending upon the dish. The meat that was offered, no matter what form of meat, were cheap cuts of meat and the vegetables were of poor quality. Desserts were boring or bland and also uncreative. Specialty restaurant was excellent with wonderful choices, wonderful service and ambience but you do pay a bit for the meal, unlike the dining room where the cost of the holiday cruise is high but the food totally inedible.
The overall hotel service was poor. Day excursions which were planned well in advance were canceled at the last minute with poor instructions given on how to redeem the cost. Help was nowhere to be found once in port if you needed to find your way to the day excursion transportation and no recognizable shuttle provided to easily get back to the ship. people with disabilities were ignored or shoved out of the way when getting on to or near the buses; simply dreadful operation overall. Caribbean is less than thrilling now because of civil unrest on some of the islands, too many megaships in each port at each time and in our case, ship staff unwilling to assist or not knowledgeable enough.
As passengers we felt ignored or simply dismissed as being of any importance on the overall cruise. Only good thing about this ship is the well maintained well staffed and well stocked beautiful library. wish other ships had this as well, such as Celebrity Summit which did away with the library entirely.Shore excursions poorly handled with lots of misinformation by the staff and then corrected. Staff hard to find, rarely in their offices and never respond to any phone calls. Confusing directions for shore trips and shore vendors badly vetted in terms of their transportation. Staff on purser's desk very unfriendly and dismissive.
Cabin Review
Balcony, sheltered
Well maintained. Needs refurbishing, paint in the bathroom is coming off in spots, table in sitting area has major gouges in it, television does not have closed captioning, need brighter side lamps on the table for night reading. Room steward and room service was excellent except for wakeup calls which were hit or miss in the time selected. Position of the cabin was excellent,midships, near the elevator and perfect for easy access to major areas of the ship. Outside cabin noise nonexistent...balcony badly needs painting and re-doing, rust seems to be everywhere.