Homophobia on Cunard Queen Mary 2

I am a 62 year old gay man. I have traveled on the Queen Mary 2 six times in the last three years with my Husband. Each time there was an incident which we mostly laughed off.

We even tried to laugh off being insulted by the captain at a reception in front of more than 100 people.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1529219

[i sailed with Commodore Rynd in December through hurricane force winds and 50 feet waves. I found him to be quite rude. He actually said to me "I don't have to be polite to everyone." It was completely unprovoked.]

They were mostly not large incidents but were unexpected insults by the crew. We have always been nice to the crew. We have over tipped. We have bought them presents on shore.

Yet, we have always had a problem. I do not think it is a corporate Cunard thing. It is a prejudice by individuals employed by Cunard.

The ships hire the cheapest employees they can find to deal with the passengers. They, for a while, hired Europeans but now hire people from Asia,... Filipinos, Malasians, etc. Cunard and the hiring agencies train them to speak to people and how to clean themselves and the rooms but they can not erase years of local culture which includes them looking down on gays.

Most of the employees have been pleasant. Some of the employees are gay. They have stressful jobs with long hours and sometimes it takes a toll on them.

After all of these trips I can no longer laugh off these incidents. I would not recommend the Queen Mary 2 to gay friends because of the most recent incident.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1918715

I can spend my money in places that appreciate my patronage.

I'm surprised you posted the link to the recent Cunard discussion when people on your voyage, who were able to confirm or deny some of your complaints, chose to challenge your version of events.

You say that in the last 3 years each time you travel you experience incidents. Could it be that you are totally misreading others?

Not everyone is out to get gay people! Especially not on a gay friendly cruise line like Cunard.

My experience on QM2 was absolutely wonderful.

If the problem follows you once, then it's fair to blame something or someone. If it follows you every time then it's time to look inwards for blame. That's my philosophy.

I'm surprised that a post about homophobia appears to come from someone who makes sweeping generalizations about Asian countries and their populations. In reading the links, there are more sweeping generalizations about Catholics, not the Catholic Church, mind you, but all Catholics...

One might not be blamed for discounting the cries of homophobia when racism rears its head.

Andrew

I am a 62 year old gay man. I have traveled on the Queen Mary 2 six times in the last three years with my Husband. Each time there was an incident which we mostly laughed off.

 

We even tried to laugh off being insulted by the captain at a reception in front of more than 100 people.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1529219

 

[i sailed with Commodore Rynd in December through hurricane force winds and 50 feet waves. I found him to be quite rude. He actually said to me "I don't have to be polite to everyone." It was completely unprovoked.]

 

They were mostly not large incidents but were unexpected insults by the crew. We have always been nice to the crew. We have over tipped. We have bought them presents on shore.

 

Yet, we have always had a problem. I do not think it is a corporate Cunard thing. It is a prejudice by individuals employed by Cunard.

 

The ships hire the cheapest employees they can find to deal with the passengers. They, for a while, hired Europeans but now hire people from Asia,... Filipinos, Malasians, etc. Cunard and the hiring agencies train them to speak to people and how to clean themselves and the rooms but they can not erase years of local culture which includes them looking down on gays.

 

Most of the employees have been pleasant. Some of the employees are gay. They have stressful jobs with long hours and sometimes it takes a toll on them.

 

After all of these trips I can no longer laugh off these incidents. I would not recommend the Queen Mary 2 to gay friends because of the most recent incident.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1918715

 

I can spend my money in places that appreciate my patronage.

Hi Guys

Funny we have been on Q2 three times and never had these problems always been really good captain and staff, only one we in all the years cruising had was Fred Olsen Boudicca when it came to a photo with the old man. You can tell by his face in the middle of us the expression says it all, and he was Danish !!!!!!!!!!!

I am a 62 year old gay man. I have traveled on the Queen Mary 2 six times in the last three years with my Husband. Each time there was an incident which we mostly laughed off.

 

We even tried to laugh off being insulted by the captain at a reception in front of more than 100 people.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1529219

 

[i sailed with Commodore Rynd in December through hurricane force winds and 50 feet waves. I found him to be quite rude. He actually said to me "I don't have to be polite to everyone." It was completely unprovoked.]

 

They were mostly not large incidents but were unexpected insults by the crew. We have always been nice to the crew. We have over tipped. We have bought them presents on shore.

 

Yet, we have always had a problem. I do not think it is a corporate Cunard thing. It is a prejudice by individuals employed by Cunard.

 

The ships hire the cheapest employees they can find to deal with the passengers. They, for a while, hired Europeans but now hire people from Asia,... Filipinos, Malasians, etc. Cunard and the hiring agencies train them to speak to people and how to clean themselves and the rooms but they can not erase years of local culture which includes them looking down on gays.

 

Most of the employees have been pleasant. Some of the employees are gay. They have stressful jobs with long hours and sometimes it takes a toll on them.

 

After all of these trips I can no longer laugh off these incidents. I would not recommend the Queen Mary 2 to gay friends because of the most recent incident.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1918715

 

I can spend my money in places that appreciate my patronage.

We've been on the QM2 several times & never had any incident what so ever. This includes meetings with Commodore Rynd. I've seen a few pax that were rude(just rude in general),but never any of the staff. I can't say it never happens, but not to us or the numerous gay pax we've met on board. I usually find the Phillipinos to be most charming. My spouse is Chinese & we met more than a few staff who are into "Sticky Rice"(yeah, I know, it's a lame one isn't it?)

While there may be the occasional employee who is homophobic I find it does not became indicative of the crew itself nor of the cruise line. In fact, with Cunard, I found the culture very inclusive.

I met Captain Rynd and his wife at one of the ship's cocktail parties and found them both decent enough to talk to and respectful of the gay men that were at the party. So I'm a bit surprise at the comments being made by the OP over his experience. Not saying I don't believe him but saying this was not the experience I found.

We have travelled with Cunard four times in the past seven years and have not encountered anything similar to the OP's experience. We're back to Cunard next year and looking forward to it.

I've been on QM2 three times and think very highly of the crew, they do a great job. Having said that, I did once experience a homophobic crew member. He was assigned to the Princess Grill and although he wasn't assigned to my table (thankfully) we did, unfortunately, have to interact with him in the Queens Grill Lounge.

There were four gay guys having afternoon tea one day and the crew member's disdain could not have been more obvious. He really went out of his way to be rude. We all agreed he had a problem. I let it go the first occasion, thinking perhaps he'd had a bad day, but the second day his behaviour was just as bad. The final straw was when we were walking down the corridor of deck 10 about an hour later and we saw him approaching us. He stared straight at us and would have barged into us had we not moved to the side. Needless to say I lodged a complaint.

The response from Cunard was great. The maitre' d of the Princess Grill - Patu - sought me out and listened to what I had to say without argument or judgement. He told me that the staff member would no longer be assigned to the Queens Grill Lounge whilst I was on board and gave me the option of having him removed from the Princess Grill as well.

In summary, just because you haven't experienced a homophobic crew member, that doesn't mean they don't exist. It was an unfortunate experience, and quite upsetting at the time, but the wonderful response from Patu was just excellent and it's one of the reasons I hold Cunard - and it's crew - in high regard.

I can remember the days of visiting the crew pub on QE2.

My then partner and I were lucky enough to be invited "down below", by the MD and his staff through the Columbia restaurant kitchens to the crew area. It wasn't encouraged, but was accepted and seen as more of an honour than dining at a hosted table!.

The few pax who abused the invitation were NEVER invited back. We spent some fantastic evenings with some truly great crew members, homophobia just didn't come into the mix, either with fellow passengers or the crew.

The cross section of the crew was, even then truly international and we have never felt so welcomed. Sadly, those days are long gone and security is now the paramount concern. Perhaps we were lucky but they remain truly happy memories.

As to the QM2, my experience is limited to QG and we always found the crew to be motivated, charming and well, a delight. We've never had a problem either the butlers (glorified room stewards) or their assistants and the waiters in the "Commodorothy" were hilarious. Again, maybe we have been lucky.

We've since moved away from Cunard to other lines and have tried everything from Fred Olsen to Sea Dream via Celebrity and RCI, again all with happy memories and no homophobic issues.

We do though prefer the relaxed atmosphere on Oceania's ships, a very progressive line, which I understand allows crew who are cohabiting same-sex couples to share with each other, just as it should be.

O is much more laid-back than many other lines and is very gay friendly, although I have to say that in this day and age I prefer not to be defined by sexuality. I would have hoped that we have gone beyond that sort of discrimination, just as with race and religion. Discrimination on ANY level is totally unacceptable.

If you do have an issue, then do as "Acid Raine", sorry Whitemarsh suggests and make your feelings known to the appropriate department.

Cruising is not an inexpensive holiday, your paying good money and deserve good service no matter what level.

Don't be shy and enjoy your cruise....

:)

I wouldn't discount the possibility that homophobia exists, but if you read the details of the OP's interaction with Commodore Rynd, it's hard to attribute the issue to anything other that the OP's rudeness based on his assumption that the Commodore made a face at him in the reception line based on his "being ugly" (OP's description, not mine).

If one goes looking for discrimination with this kind of zeal, one is likely to find that people really DO not like them, but not for the reasons they might assume.

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Having sailed with Cunard nine times in five years, I must say that my partner and I have never encountered a problem on any of Cunard's ships, and find the line very accommodating and the crew friendly and accepting.

We've found Commodore Rynd to be a real gentleman when we've spoken to him.

I'm not saying that people won't encounter isolated 'incidents', but we've found Cunard, their crew, and fellow passengers to be, in the main, anything but homophobic.

Having just returned from our first ever cruise - on the Queen Victoria I can vouch for the fact that we - as a gay male couple - were always treated with respect by the crew. Once or twice there a crew member would appear not very willing to make conversation too much but that we put down to long hours of work or having an 'off moment' - we would not assume anything sinister in that. We had a very happy time on board and are looking forward to booking again soon.

I have not sailed on Cunard, but I am sorry if you had problems on your cruises. However, I have to say that your comments about Asians were very insensitive, and surprising considering the subject of this forum.

I have not sailed on Cunard, but I am sorry if you had problems on your cruises. However, I have to say that your comments about Asians were very insensitive, and surprising considering the subject of this forum.

You want insensitive, you should read what OP inferred (see movie The Help) about his cabin attendant on the Cunard board! Totally Disgusting

I had absolutely no issues with captain or any other staff/crew member... I think you are overreacting... and he is right... we don`t have to like every body... you seem to dislike some people as well...

why don`t you book yourself trip to Uganda and see what mistreating gay people really means...

best regards,

ps. just booked my transatlantic on QM2...

I'm a big believer that if you look for something, you'll find it. And based on this post and a few others, I can't help suspecting that's exactly what happened here.

Richard/tralfie

We have traveled Cunard for about 40 nights total and have never experienced homophobic staff. In fact some of the gay staff have been especially charming. Unfortunately we have experienced some pretty ugly homophobia and racism coming from fellow passengers, for which we can certainly not blame Cunard. Nevertheless, such nasty behavior has made me a tiny bit reluctant to book Cunard again. But the lure of crossings on QMII is too strong and we are booked for 2 TAs in 2014, and will try to avoid creepy passengers.

OK, to start, we are a couple in our 70's and we act like we are in our 40's sometimes (is that a second childhood?) anyway, we have sailed on all three Queens QM2,QV,QE and NEVER had anything even remotely homophobic happen from crew members of ANY race.

The only problem we had was from roadies who were traveling with (wait for it....) Rona Barret. Yeah, they had wheeled her out of retirement as a lecturer and her "staff" came to the Commadore Club and proceeded to bitch and complain about everything, the kicker was when they complained about all the "old farts" on board. LOL, Needless to say, they did not stay to long after that.

Not to be personal, but we have met several couples in our travels that have acted just like the OP and from day one we have made it a point to avoid them at all costs. Just plain miserable people that think they are better than any service person and want everyone to know they are better. But they aren't.

OK, to start, we are a couple in our 70's and we act like we are in our 40's sometimes (is that a second childhood?) anyway, we have sailed on all three Queens QM2,QV,QE and NEVER had anything even remotely homophobic happen from crew members of ANY race.

 

The only problem we had was from roadies who were traveling with (wait for it....) Rona Barret. Yeah, they had wheeled her out of retirement as a lecturer and her "staff" came to the Commadore Club and proceeded to bitch and complain about everything, the kicker was when they complained about all the "old farts" on board. LOL, Needless to say, they did not stay to long after that.

 

Not to be personal, but we have met several couples in our travels that have acted just like the OP and from day one we have made it a point to avoid them at all costs. Just plain miserable people that think they are better than any service person and want everyone to know they are better. But they aren't.

We never had issues with homophobes on Cunard..Some nasty/rude PAX, but you'll get them on any line.

Rona Barret? Really? She's still around? I always found her to be pretty nasty. No surprise about her roadies(Rona has roadies? Who'd have ever thought that!)We love the line & it's customs. You always saw me with a derby on formal nights.Commodore Rynd loved it! This time around it's Celebrity Jan.25-Feb.8. Would love to keep on with Cunard, but they've dropped most Caribbean trips. Due to being in a catering co. our vacations are usually late Nov.-early March. We'd love to do a B2B trans Atlantic, but they stopped those a few years back. Now they start in South Hampton. If they start them up again in 2015 we'll jump back on board.

We never had issues with homophobes on Cunard..Some nasty/rude PAX, but you'll get them on any line.

Rona Barret? Really? She's still around? I always found her to be pretty nasty. No surprise about her roadies(Rona has roadies? Who'd have ever thought that!)We love the line & it's customs. You always saw me with a derby on formal nights.Commodore Rynd loved it! This time around it's Celebrity Jan.25-Feb.8. Would love to keep on with Cunard, but they've dropped most Caribbean trips. Due to being in a catering co. our vacations are usually late Nov.-early March. We'd love to do a B2B trans Atlantic, but they stopped those a few years back. Now they start in South Hampton. If they start them up again in 2015 we'll jump back on board.

Last year I took the QM2 to Southampton and then back to New York on the QE later that evening. It was quite easy, just take the bus provided to the appropriate pier. Of course, you do have to pack again but that really isn't a big deal, at least not for me. To the homophobia comments, I met dozens of gay men on the QE part of the trip and they were all delighted with Cunard. Perhaps it's the OP's issue and not Cunard's. The comments about Asians was so uncalled for, that I suspect it's the OP's issue.

I have travelled as a single and with my partner on QE2 & QM2 and I have always been treated w/ respect(as I treat others - what goes around / comes around).

One great aspect of travel is meeting other people from all over & seeing the different nationalities interact. I live in NYC for my entire adult life so I have seen a lot over the years. Thankfully there are many more grateful & dignified & respectful people on this planet than not.

I too remember being in the crew pub on QE2 - talk about great fun til the sun came up & meeting the officers at private cocktail parties - more great fun. I also know not to bother staff during storms & no way would I want to be in their shoes after seeing what some passengers expect at all times. Passengers today expect the service of yester year, well things have changed.

Some people just can't see the good & deal w/ the bumps in a correct manner....their loss.

The old Cunard was FABULOUS & yet even under Carnivore's ownership they still do a good job - gay or not!

The original poster sailed on a TA during the winter time - only the best of sailors attempt that.

The ship encountered a storm - the crew is stretched thin on the best of days.

The Captain is under no obligation to stand & shake hands - his main concern is the ship & the safety of all those onboard.

Perhaps the most unfortunate information is that the poster states he is "ugly" due to an unfortunate accident. I do hope that he learns that is a most cruel evaluation

Lastly the effects of all these points does not warrant a judgement of Homophobia towards Cunard & its Captain.

The OP seems to have multiple issues with Cunard in general and QM2 in particular as outlined here.

Homophobia on Cunard??? Not only have I never experienced it on many trips in the SAGAFJORD, VISTAFJORD, ROYAL VIKING SUN, SEA GODDESS I, QE 2; QUEEN MARY 2 and QUEEN VICTORIA I met my now husband in 1989 aboard the VISTAFJORD. Long popular with gay travelors we have always found Cunard very welcoming to gay people. Perhaps the skit by Key & Peele (Office Homophobe) might be relevant not only in cases of perceived homophobia aboard Cunard vessels (or any other modern cruise line) but also relevant to many who are overly demanding of crew. Perhaps...

OP: Sorry to hear of your experience. We have NEVER encountered anything similar on several Cunard sailings. We are fling to London tomorrow and coming home on the QM Aug 20th. I'll let you know about our voyage.

I'm an ugly man but I try to compensate by having a pleasant personality.

A good attitude and happy disposition makes my life happier and I've found people respond positively to being pleasant. The opposite is also true.