Dr. Albert Leung

Age: 65
Occupation: Medical doctor
Number of Cruises: 30
Cruise Line: Cunard
Ship: Queen Mary 2
Itinerary: Southern Caribbean

My wife and I just came back from the Queen Mary II cruise to the Caribbean from New York, Nov. 26, 2004 to Dec. 6, 2004. We booked this cruise two years ago with many other doctors during another cruise convention. My wife and I have traveled on many cruises before including the Queen Elizabeth II many years ago; we go on cruises averaging about two or three times a year. Everything was well timed and planned. Unfortunately we were not too pleased and satisfied with this world famous cruise ship, which we were looking forward to enjoying very much.

Our first impression of the ship was at the embarkation in New York. We had to wait for the long line-up for 40-45 minutes to go through the security (they provided only two stations to check more than 2500 passengers and staff), and then another 40 minutes line up to get registered and checked in. Everybody lined up the same line unless you are disabled. They do not provide different desks for different decks as most other cruise liners do. So everyone was congested into one long line. And they take your picture on the check-in, and your picture goes onto the cruise card. That took up more time, in addition to the inexperience of many of the staff. (Princess Cruises take your pictures when you actually board the ship when you insert your card into the machine.) For QM2, when you board the ship, they scanned your card with a portable scanner from a laptop computer........ This gives the impression of improper fit for the biggest cruise ship to use one small laptop on scanning and checking passengers when they come on board!!! (Princess cruises use two computers that sit on the floor, and passengers insert the cards as they board or leave the ship, and the move is much faster!)

Then my second impression is the QM2 atrium. When I boarded the ship, there was the atrium. I didn't know that was the atrium. It was small, with staircases; it's called the grand lobby. (They haven't seen the atrium in Grand Princess, and even better in Golden Princess; and they haven't seen the grand Promenade in the many Royal Caribbean cruise liners "of the Sea"!) Many staff were lining up there supposedly to welcome its passengers, but they were just chatting and smiling, and no one directed us where we wanted to go. We had to ask for the place to eat, as we were all hungry after the hour and a half wait for check-in. Finally we arrived on Deck 7, a cafe for self-help buffet. It was crowded and again there were long line-ups for everything. Services from the staff were not too impressive. The food was not spectacular. Later on we discovered there were different sections in the cafe, for Asian food, Italian food, etc. But as the cruise went on, we found the food at lunch or breakfast was the same, or almost the same, everyday up there on Deck 7. At one of the grills, it was observed that the cook used a gloved hand to place the raw beef pattie on the grill and then used the same gloved hand to hold the hamburger bun before giving the cooked burger to the passengers.

The interesting part of this cafe is, at night, it is converted into different restaurants, the Lotus for Asian food, La Piazza for Italian food, and the Carvery for steaks. We tried the Lotus and the La Piazza a couple of times, and we felt the Lotus was the best in food quality and dining service especially compared to that in the formal dining room. Then there were other restaurants, the Queen's Grill, Todd English, and others where one can go with extra payment of $20 for lunch and $30 for dinner. Some of us tried the Todd English and praised its service and the quality of its food.

Apart from these restaurants, the Britannia Dining Room is where we go for all our formal dinners and regular meals. The food is average, not as good as Princess or Royal Caribbean. There is no personal service like in Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean, or the Celebrity, or the Norwegian or Holland America. Every meal we had to tell the waiter what we want for drinking, or else we won't get it. They only served you one piece of bread and one piece of butter. They don't leave the basket of bread on the table. Many of us and our friends are frequent cruisers. When our friend ordered more than one entree or appetizer, the waiter came with a sarcastic remark, "are you sure you have enough?" Maybe he was joking. But the dining room service was snail paced. One time at lunch in the dining room and another time at dinner in the special La Piazza Italian restaurant, both my wife and I almost fell asleep..... Maybe we were very tired, but certainly the wait for their food and service was the prime hypnotic factor. Even on the second day of the cruise, I complained to the table captain about the slow service. His attitude was far from pleasing; he was not apologetic at all, but explained that their service was not slow; it's the kitchen that was slow. He asked us if we know they had to serve over 2000 passengers. Of course we know; but that did not explain why our table was served the last when all other tables had been served; we did not even have our entree when other tables were finished with their dessert! That night, when we left the dining room, the second sitting were already lining up outside to come into the restaurant. We have never found such slow service and such condescending attitude from a Table Captain in other big cruise ships which are just 10,000 tons lighter.

Maybe we had a high expectation of QM2, since it is posted as the best cruise liner; we, and majority of other passengers, were not happy or satisfied with the trip. The service is the one area that needs a lot of improvement. I was amazed at some of the conditions of the ship: public washrooms can be quite dirty, and wet. Some of our friends had problems with their cabins: one cabin had a leaked ceiling for two or more days and could not be fixed. Another cabin had backup flow from the shower drain every time they drained the swimming pool. The ship is only 10 months old and should not be in that condition. I don't like the management of the ship: their disembarkation arrangement failed badly in my mind. Most cruise ships will give out colour cards for sequence of disembarkation, in accordance with your flight time. But not so on this ship. Passengers disembark according to the deck, from the top down. Except those who take their airport transfer!!!! (They want you to take their transfer which is $39 per person and our taxi for four people to the airport cost $37 including tips). We were on Deck 5, and they started from Deck 12 down. According to their schedule we won't be out of the ship till 10:30. We need to be at the airport by 11:15. It will take time to leave the ship, look for your luggage, and get a taxi. We know we will be late if we follow their schedule. They suggested we leave the ship at 7:30 in the self-help group, which means you have to carry your own big and small luggage yourself, even though I told the purser office staff and the Tour office staff that we could not as my wife has a hip problem and was going back for a hip replacement! But too bad, they couldn't help us! We also don't want to wait for a few hours in the cold, plus with my wife's hip, she could not manage carrying her own luggage. Finally we were fortunate enough to find a friend on Deck 12, and brought our luggage to them to be carried out earlier, and we disembarked with them at 9:30. We got our luggage without too much trouble, and we had to line up and waited for 30-45 min. for a taxi to the airport. We made it to the airport by 12 noon. We could be in big trouble if we disembarked at 10:30.

There are many good points about the ship that other cruise ships do not have. They have a good area for meetings and conferences, and for computer use and training. There are 7 meeting rooms many of which can be joined together to form a big conference room. They have over 30 computers for passenger use, and for teaching computer related seminars. You can check your emails and surf the net. They have many hotspots for wireless internet use too if you have your own laptop. For internet use they charged 50 cents a minute use. And if you use their email address, it is an additional $1.50 per email sent or received!!! The computer seminars are run by Mr. Mitchell, who is very good and very helpful. He gives both introductory and intermediate levels seminars of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and other seminars.

They have a grand ballroom called Queen's Room, which has a large dancing floor, a rarity these days as most modern cruise ships have very small limited dance floor and not big enough for ballroom dancing, except the Crown Princess. The Queen's Room dance floor is almost filled every night we were on the cruise. The problem with the Queen's Room is that it can easily accommodate over 500 guests, but there is only one ladies and one gentleman washroom outside, only for one person use!!! This is very poor planning, and I have seen long line-ups waiting outside both washrooms. The QM2 gives free dance classes by two young teachers, who are very good. They give performances a couple of times during the cruise. They can also give private lessons at $50 US for 45 minutes. They sell two CD's for dance music for $15 US. These are of good quality.

The QM2 also has a unique planetarium called Illumination, where the central ceiling can come down and give you the illusion you are watching the stars. It gives four shows during the cruise, each about 20 minutes. Its seats are all reclining and very comfortable. The first time we arrived on time, but we were not allowed in as the show just started. So next day we arrived 10 minutes earlier and we got in. Altogether we went to 3 shows, two were repeats. Personally I have to admit I don't know how good the shows were, as the situation and the reclining chairs were so comfortable I fell asleep three quarters of the time.

Then there is the Royal Court Theatre, which is two levelled as most cruise ships are these days. They have a good wide stage, with different rising and lowering platforms. But unfortunately there are many big pillars in the theatre, which obstruct the views of many seats. The shows in general were very good; the last one was excellent as the dancers danced all ballroom dances.

They have a good photography department with many staff and a large area to show your pictures. But each 8x10 picture costs $27.50 U.S. while other cruise ships charge much less!!!! Except for the portraits, most of the 8x10 pictures were mainly 3x5 plus some advertisements for the ship around the side. They also sell a cruise DVD, which is in most parts a video description of the ship and its features, and some ports it visits, plus a few scenes of the passengers of this cruise. It costs $34.95 US. I bought it as it contains two scenes of us dancing, though each was only for 2 seconds. It could have included more cruise functions of its passengers like the pirate ball, the deck party, etc. It could have shown people doing line dances, taking dance lessons, or other talks and activities. It would have sold more if it contains more passengers taking part in more functions.

It is well worth noting that QM2 uses tender service in all ports except Barbados. It is observed that there was a huge line-up for those not using excursions offered by the QM2. This is particularly problematic on the last port, St. Thomas, where one would have to wait for at least an hour or so to board a tender, as almost everybody wants to go ashore to do shopping. The ship did not foresee this and did not provide more frequent tender service.

I did not find the different classes obvious. Maybe I don't even know where the first class is!!!! Some of my friends who reserved on higher classes cancelled the reservation when they found out there is class distinction and that they would not be able to sit with us at the same dining restaurant. But I have friends who are in balcony cabins, and they still use the same dining room as we do. I was told the suite passengers have their own elevators up in the front of the ship, not allowed to use by other people. I did not verify this. But the elevators are another point that is very annoying. It is much smaller than other cruise ships. It said it allows 12 people, but very often, 9 people would make it full. And they use the same passenger elevators to transport luggage, so that on the days of embarkation and disembarkation, half of the passenger elevators were put out of service for baggage use. That even cut down the service of these elevators and made the line up for elevators longer and more congested. Another point I discovered later was that the elevator buttons were not consistently marked in at least 25% of the elevators. Majority of them have their "open door" button on the left bottom and the "close door" button on the right bottom. I found 25% of them at least were reversed, so that many times, I pushed the wrong button when people were entering the elevators. Again this is poor planning and poor inspection, and it can easily cause some accidents to its slow moving elderly passengers.

All in all, most of the people we talked to, and also overheard, were not happy with the cruise. If this is the first time I cruise and if I have not been to other cruises, I would be very happy with this experience, as I would not have any comparison. I find this experience quite similar to that on QE2 which we took many years ago. But for a lot of people who have cruised before with other cruise lines and who know how to compare, all said they would not come back to the QM2 for a second time!!!!

In summary, the ship itself is big and great except for the atrium, which is out of proportion for such a big ship, and the small elevators which are not adequate for passenger use especially during embarkation and disembarkation times. The one urgent area they should improve is their service, especially service in the dining room, which failed poorly in my viewpoint. Improvement should also be directed to the purser office and staff for their knowledge and general helpfulness to passengers. The one very important drawback is their administrative arrangement of their disembarkation procedures, which again failed bitterly in my scoring. They should not discriminate against those who do not take their own transfers and who have early flights. They should be willing to help those who need help to carry their luggage off the ship, even in the self-help group.

Until they have made good improvements on these, I will not be going with the QM2 again, may not even be thrilled to try their next ship the Queen Victoria. I would rather stay with my favourite Princess and Royal Caribbean cruise ships.