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Cunard Line

Queen Elizabeth 2

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: John Bowman
# previous cruises: 2
Date of Trip: June 29, 2003
Itinerary: Scandinavia

QE2 to Edinburgh and on to the North Cape, Norway. A poor choice of cruise due to poor itinerary, an elderly passenger list and a number of gripes, of which more anon.

The public areas of the QE2 are, generally, impressive. The lounges are comfortable, but on this cruise, with every cabin sold, they got full. In particular, the lounge and lido for afternoon tea - pensioners had staked their seats for the 4 o'clock serving by 3 - and the show lounge in the evening. Oh, and one serious flaw, the public toilets stank. They reeked. You could smell them walking past, and the smell inside knocked you off your feet.

I crossed the Atlantic on the QE2 in 2002, with about 1300 passengers. This time it was full, at over 1700 passengers, and the service suffered. In terms of specific service my waiters on the Atlantic crossing could not have been faulted. This time one was over-familiar and in too much of a hurry, the other was described by a fellow passenger as "the robot". The former forgot what you'd ordered, the latter took so long to come back and take your order, you forgot what you wanted. Both apparently paid for tea, coffee and water out of their own pockets - getting more than one cup/glass of each became a war of attrition, which sometimes we won, sometimes we just gave up.

The food is good, sometimes excellent. Breakfasts are geared to the US market, and are superb. Dinner is usually superb. Lunch is not so good, with a basic burger lunch repeated every day. Afternoon tea, taken in the Lido, was spoiled by an insistence on having everything cleared away by 5pm. One afternoon I and several others had gotten tired of waiting for a chance at the cakes and got up to help ourselves from the trays on the waiters table. A young man hurried over crying "no, no, you can't do that, we bring them to you" at which point we sat down, and watched the waiters clear the trays away ... I commented on this to our restaurant manager and she said that if you arrived before 5 you should be served until YOU had finished. That lesson had not been learned in the Lido, but give our waiters their due, they served with little sign of annoyance however late our table sat.

C3 - two beds and a sofa for two of us, on 4 deck. Plenty of wardrobe and drawer space, bathroom a little tight, but OK. Everything spotless. Cabin steward did a splendid job.

Variable. One singer was so full of himself he was impossible, and sang "unchained melody" at full on opera level. Murdered it! Other shows were fine, but there was an "entertainer/magician" who emptied the lounge!. There was a party of Spanish people on board who, apart from generally being the rudest people I have ever met, smoked and talked through all the shows.

The Yacht Club should be fine. It is a nice place and on the Transatlantic run I enjoyed it very much. ON this cruise, due to the age of the passengers, if you went to the YC at 11:30pm, you might find 25 passengers, listening to the band play the same set they had played for the last 8, 9, 10 nights and the DJ play the same 4 CDs (some at the right speed, some not, some while he got up and went to talk to his friends) Some nights we were down to about 8!

Oh, and the cruise director. I know it must be a hard job, but this guy was like some Butlins reject. It's the QE2 for goodness sake!

Edinburgh = well, it's Edinburgh, isn't it.
Geiranger = absolutely magnificent

North Cape = did not land because of rough seas. We'd sailed 36 hours to get there, then spent 24 hours going back and forth so we could see the midnight sun (saw it on the way up, not that night due to clouds)

Trondheim = because of 24 hours spent @ north cape, it was Sunday, and Trondheim was closed. Quite pleasant looking, but closed.

Aalesun = pretty.

Bergen = at last, a bit of life. I'll be going back to Bergen, but will probably fly! Lots of shops, beautiful harbour, compact city centre.

We spent too many days at sea. And I mean AT SEA. I'd pictured the QE2 sailing up the Norwegian coast, watching waterfalls cascade into the sea, mountains, villages ... In fact, if you could see Norway at all, it was that grey smudge on the horizon.

At 45 I was without doubt in the youngest 20 on board. And I include kids. My partner was probably the youngest adult on board. We were very lucky with our table assignment, sitting on the Engineer's table with some very nice people. One couple about 40, two retired ladies, plus the 2-i-c Engineer's wife and, 6 nights o/0 12, one of the engineering officers.