Just back from QE Norway. Comparison with Celebrity

[iandjm]

I have just returned from a really nice week to Norway on Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth (7 – 14 August 2012). It was my first cruise on QE, having travelled on QM2 and QE2 in the past.

I also frequently cruise with Celebrity Cruises on the Solstice class so thought it would be interesting to compare the two cruise products.

I have to say I really enjoy both cruise lines, and I am not setting out to knock or favour either. I guess the perfect ship for me would be a combination of both brands.

Check in:

Celebrity – Arrive at 11am, check in and board immediately on-board shortly after 11.00am. Staterooms available from 1pm

Cunard – Arrive at 11am, number given at arrival. Had to wait an hour to check in, boarded 12.30pm. Stateroom available immediately. Bottle of sparkling wine in stateroom on arrival.

Shows / Theatre:

Celebrity – Grand production shows, elaborate sets and scenes. Good standard of singing and dancing. Drinks waiters circulating theatre pushing drinks sales before / during start of shows. Orchestra visible and play live at production shows.

Cunard – Production shows consist of nice costumes with a bare stage, relying on lighting effects. Good standard of singing and dancing but very poor show experience. Shows were far better on QM2. No drinks service in theatre (hooray!). Front row of theatre box’s unusable due to curved glass.

The Cunard Ball nights in the Queens Room can be regarded as shows in their own right and make for really nice evenings.

Main Restaurant

Celebrity – Excellent standard of food, waiters explain what dishes consist of and do not seem too hurried. Always available section on menu (Steak, Salmon, Chicken Caesar salad etc)

Maître d’ comes to make sure we were happy with the restaurant experience on most evenings.

Cunard – Waiters seem stretched and rushed, and rarely seem to have time to stop and speak to you. Food nicely presented. Always available section not on menu. I did find Caesar salad is available every day, just not advertised. Took over an hour several times from arrival in restaurant for the first course to arrive. No sign of Maître d’ for first 3 days until we complained about the service.

Photos

Celebrity - $14.99 each for formal night restaurant photos.

Cunard - $24.99 each for formal night restaurant photos!

Why on earth don’t the cruise lines realise that selling every photo for $10 would encourage far more people to buy them, and make the photographers far more money.

Alternative entertainment venue

Celebrity – Sky lounge used for party band on many evenings. Ensemble lounge for jazz. Nightclub and cinema. No large alternative venue.

Cunard – Commodore club with pianist and singer. Queens room has its own orchestra, with ballroom dancing. Yacht club has party band and DJ. Really nice to have queens room to go to after theatre.

Promenade Deck

Eclipse – No real promenade deck as lifeboats are basically sat on it. No way of getting around stern of bow.

Queen Elizabeth – Proper promenade deck that enables you to walk right round ship. Steamer chairs at various locations. Really enjoyed being able to walk laps of the deck and look over the stern at promenade deck level.

Captain’s cocktail party

Celebrity – Glass of sparkling wine given on way in to theatre on first formal night. The captains greets everyone on stage (Not always easy to understand!) No space large enough for a cocktail party to be held.

Cunard – Cocktail party held in Queens Room pre dinner on first formal night. Shake hands and photographed with captain on way in to event.

Lifts / Elevators

Eclipse – 11 in total arranged in a group of 3 and a group of 8 for nearly 3000 passengers. Can take a long time for a lift to arrive as in the main stairwell you only call one of the 4 lifts on your side of the ship.

Queen Elizabeth - 12 in total in 3 stairwells for 2000 passengers. Seem to always arrive fast. Easy to see which lift has arrived as they are grouped in 4’s in each stairwell.

Stateroom

Eclipse – Well laid out, some storage over bed. Lovely bathroom with clear shower doors.

Queen Elizabeth – Well laid out, plenty of storage. Bathroom is small. Shower curtain, not door. Very dark in shower as curtain cuts out light. Balcony glass not cleaned during cruise and used glasses not changed in room.

TV

Celebrity – Large interactive TV with full access to on-board account. Can book shore excursions and room service on the TV too.

Cunard – There is a TV guide that is personalised for your cruise showing shat is showing on each channel, each day. TV small and is not interactive. Only way to view account is to call at pursers desk.

Bar Service

Celebrity – Good service in all bars.

Cunard – Bar service good, canapés offered pre dinner in bars.

Afternoon tea

Celebrity – Self Service in Buffet area

Cunard – Served at your table in Queens ||Room, also available in Buffet area.

Other entertainment

Celebrity Eclipse –

Acappella group at various locations around the ship.

String quartet and Jazz group in various locations.

Party band on deck or in Sky Lounge.

Orchestra in atrium some nights, the echo is terrible and you cannot get away from the music, far from ideal.

Queen Elizabeth –

Orchestra in Queens Room.

Big band night one night.

Pianist in bars.

Pianist and singer in Commodore Club.

Party group in Yacht club.

String Quartet and Harpist in various locations on ship.

Other thoughts

It was nice on Cunard to not have the waiters telling us that we had to rate them highly on the satisfaction survey. On Celebrity this has happened several times.

I generally felt less pressured to buy drinks on Cunard.

Cunard drinks seemed more expensive and drinks lists were not always displayed in the Commodore Club. If you ordered Vodka for example they tended to default to an expensive brand! I do find a 15% service charge, plus a space on the receipt for a tip rather insulting!

The Décor of QE is lovely. I like art deco and really like the Cunard past ships exhibits displayed around the ship.

It was nice seeing hand sanitizer at the entrance of every room, with staff making sure you used it. Best to be safe rather than sorry. The cruise director mentioned how important hygiene was at the welcome aboard show too.

[Chunky2219]

Many thanks for posting the very useful comparison.

 

We know Cunard well but have our first two Celebrity cruises in the offing. I can't disagree with much of your view about Cunard, so it's reassuring to know that X looks okay.

 

I was tickled by your comment about photos. It makes my blood fizz to see all those overpriced prints that will go in the bin, when a bit more sensible pricing would have half of them sold!

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[safarigal]

Thanks for a very informative comparison. We have not sailed on Celebrity yet, but they have some interesting itineraries and we were thinking of giving them a try. It was good to read your review.

[Mapu]

Thank you for your review. I will be taking my first Cunard cruise on the QE in October. Since you were just on you might be able to answer this question. There have been some post that you might be able to buy Duty Free alcohol onboard to be consumed during the cruise. Do you have any experience or insight relating to this? Thank you.

[northernsailor]

Thank you for your review. I will be taking my first Cunard cruise on the QE in October. Since you were just on you might be able to answer this question. There have been some post that you might be able to buy Duty Free alcohol onboard to be consumed during the cruise. Do you have any experience or insight relating to this? Thank you.

 

If your cruise sails out of the EU Zone then you can benefit from the onboard duty free sales from the first evening onwards. You can just go down to the shop, purchase whatever you wish and drink it back in your stateroom. On QV last month I actually a bottle of Grey Goose from the room service ($70+15% I think was a large bottle though) and it came with 6 free mixers.

 

The same bottle was $40 (and no 15%) in the Duty Free shop but obviously no free mixers. However, I could (and did) order large jugs of cranberry juice to my stateroom daily and they arrived without fee. Seems extremely reasonable, very impressed - especially from what I hear about other cruise lines.

 

Chris

[junglejane]

Thanks for your very interesting review. We were on the Celebrity Equinox in 2011 and our family will be on both the Silhouette and the QM2 next year, so we were very interested in your comments.:)

[iandjm]

Thank you for your review. I will be taking my first Cunard cruise on the QE in October. Since you were just on you might be able to answer this question. There have been some post that you might be able to buy Duty Free alcohol onboard to be consumed during the cruise. Do you have any experience or insight relating to this? Thank you.

 

Hi,

 

I think the trial was over when I was onboard as there was no mention of it at all onboard.

 

Ian

[fishywood]

Having done the opposite of your experience--my first trip on Celebrity this past February after two sailings on Cunard (QM2 and QV) last year--I found there to be a vast gulf between the two lines in all aspects of quality you listed above. Rather than hijack your thread with my list of respectful disagreements, I will simply point out the one statement you made which I believe does a vast injustice to Cunard:

 

Cunard drinks seemed more expensive and drinks lists were not always displayed in the Commodore Club. If you ordered Vodka for example they tended to default to an expensive brand! I do find a 15% service charge, plus a space on the receipt for a tip rather insulting!

 

You imply that only Cunard has the space for additional gratuity on the bar chit. All cruislines do--and on Celebrity Infinity I found much aggressive promotion of the use of this line, especially in the dining rooms when paying for wine and for the cover charge in the alternative venues; seemed to well complement the equally aggressive pleas for high ratings on the survey you citied. Come to think of it, I seem to recall the identical behavior on my one long-ago cruise on RCI; must be a corporate policy.

[LadyL1]

Very much agree with you. If a Celebrity ship and a Cunard ship were leaving Southampton on the same day, with same itinerary, I would always take the Cunard option.

 

Off on the Eclipse this Saturday, and know I will miss the Commodore Club.

[Norfolk Brit]

Very much agree with you. If a Celebrity ship and a Cunard ship were leaving Southampton on the same day, with same itinerary, I would always take the Cunard option.

 

Off on the Eclipse this Saturday, and know I will miss the Commodore Club.

 

I also agree. Two main problems with Eclipse for us: no decent forward-facing bar and 'music' permeating every corner, with seemingly no escape. Actually, I've just thought of another: the bathrooms on Celebrity are larger, but the space has to come from somewhere, and the cabins and storage space seem smaller.

 

Mary

[pepperrn]

Thank you for your review, most informative :) .

 

Friends of mine and their 12 yr old daughter took their first ever cruise, on a Solstice Class ship, last year. They couldn't praise it highly enough. They had a great time. Other than over-crowding (they were "very aware of how many people" there were on board :eek: ) they couldn't fault the cruise or ship. They thought the ship and crew were superb.

And yet... listening to them I realised that it wouldn't have been for me. But I wouldn't dream of saying anything to them and spoiling their memories ;) .

And, I suspect, when I tell them all about Cunard, transatlantic crossings and QM2, they are happy they booked with Celebrity. But are far too polite to say so ;) .

To each their own.

Isn't it wonderful that there is so much choice?

 

Thank you again :) , Bon Voyage for your next cruise.

[rafinmd]

I think this is a case of "to each his own", but Celebrity also left me distinctly underwhelmed. Clearly Celebrity is doing something right but I found very little evidence. After my first transatlantic, about the only thing that would get me back on one of their ships is my nephew getting married on board. Oh well.

 

Despite all the raps about the "class system" on Cunard, I've never felt as much like a second class citizen as I did on the Solstice, despite being in an Aqua cabin. They do have ONE decent forward looking room on board, but I could NEVER go there and watch a sunrise there, it's closed to all but the top tier of the Captain's Club several hours every day.

 

There were a couple of things I did like about the Solstice. The power doors on the restrooms are nice, they don't really make things easier but it's nice to be able to open the door when leaving without having to reach for a tissue or something to grab the door. The other was the hard wired laptop connection in the staterooms.

 

I thought in most every other way Cunard was better than Celebrity. Certainly the public rooms, the Promenade deck, the enrichment speakers (It probably helps that Cunard solicits guest feedback on each individual presenter), the library.

 

In theory I should like the smoking policies on Celebrity, that's only true if I never step out on deck. One of the killers for me was that the most outboard point of their miserable "jogging track" passed within 6 feet of a smoking area.

 

Roy

[spursdebs]

I think this is a case of "to each his own", but Celebrity also left me distinctly underwhelmed. Clearly Celebrity is doing something right but I found very little evidence. After my first transatlantic, about the only thing that would get me back on one of their ships is my nephew getting married on board. Oh well.

 

 

I am finding myself agreeing with this, our first ever cruise was on Celebrity Century and I was underwhelmed, we had a Royal suite which was nice enough and out butler was lovely, soon grasped the concept of make sure they have a constant full tea pot and they are happy ( we are easily pleased ) even when we missed tea and cakes on excursions he would leave it all ready in room without us asking , we eat once in MDR and my mother refused to go back, to noisy and they sat us next to the waiters station and forgot us lol and the food was poor we thought, so ended up paying supplement and eating every night in specialty restaurant but we were a little bemused at people coming to dinner in what looked like beach and gym wear, and I am not reigniting a formal dress v casual dress debate but Lycra shorts at dinner really? But we would never not make the effort so maybe just us, I remember going to the Vatican and people trying to get in wearing bikini tops and shorts they were refused admission and rightly so.

[avalon1025]

I also agree. Two main problems with Eclipse for us: no decent forward-facing bar and 'music' permeating every corner, with seemingly no escape. Actually, I've just thought of another: the bathrooms on Celebrity are larger, but the space has to come from somewhere, and the cabins and storage space seem smaller.

 

Mary

 

I've been on the Eclipse twice, did you miss the Sky Lounge/Bar? its that huge forward facing lounge and bar above the bridge

[avalon1025]

I've been sailing Grills on Cunard and Aqua Class on the new Celebrity ships over the past two years, Celebrity is a more casual experience but Blu is very nice and the ships are stunning (I have not sailed outside of AQ so can't comment otherwise) QM2 is my favorite and can't wait to be back on board in October

[Norfolk Brit]

I've been on the Eclipse twice, did you miss the Sky Lounge/Bar? its that huge forward facing lounge and bar above the bridge

 

I did not; firstly we didn't find the room particularly congenial and, as someone else has already said, much of the time it was otherwise engaged.

 

Mary

[rgaudet]

It sure is good to have this board to read everyone's opinions. I have been considering Celebrity but I've several times now about the piped music being heard everywhere. It means it's not for me. Thanks to the OP for starting a fresh thread on the topic.

 

Rob

[vivavegas]

Thank you for such an informative comparison!:)

[junglejane]

It sure is good to have this board to read everyone's opinions. I have been considering Celebrity but I've several times now about the piped music being heard everywhere. It means it's not for me. Thanks to the OP for starting a fresh thread on the topic.

 

Rob

 

Regarding the piped or loud music issue, that's been the subject of many threads on the Celebrity board. Here's a recent report from someone on board the Constellation saying the music has been toned down: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1688762 Too soon to know if it's a fleetwide trend but many of us X fans hope so.

[rgaudet]

Regarding the piped or loud music issue, that's been the subject of many threads on the Celebrity board. Here's a recent report from someone on board the Constellation saying the music has been toned down: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1688762 Too soon to know if it's a fleetwide trend but many of us X fans hope so.

 

Maybe the OP or others can comment if the music was intrusive. Were there quiet places to sit and read during the day?

 

Regards,

Rob

[pepperrn]

Here's a recent report from someone on board the Constellation saying the music has been toned down:

As there is NO excuse for piped musak at all... I would only consider Chandris, sorry Royal Caribbean, sorry Celebrity Cruise Line, if this aural graffiti wasn't only "toned down" but stopped.

One of the pleasures of Cunard for me (and friends whom I have introduced to Cunard) is the complete lack of piped musak, endless announcements telling us where we should be rushing off to now... and what we should be buying this minute...

 

As one friend said "only Cunard seem to treat me as an adult"...

I suppose one could take ear-plugs.

 

I wish those who enjoy Celebrity a very happy Bon Voyage for their next cruise.

[Aussieflyer]

As there is NO excuse for piped musak at all...

 

I seem to recall that on our trip on QM2 the swimming pool on Deck 12 did indeed suffer from piped music and very loud music at that.

[pepperrn]

I seem to recall that on our trip on QM2 the swimming pool on Deck 12 did indeed suffer from piped music and very loud music at that.

 

Really? That is bad. Thankfully I've yet to encounter it. Last time I was sat there, sipping a drink and reading my book, other than the occasional splash of water and quiet conversation, all was quiet and calm. You were unlucky. I shall listen out for that on my next crossing. Thank you.

[southwestie]

I have sailed on a few RCL ships and have to say I have not really noticed pipped music at all, not had any instructions of what to and where to buy from either, im sure they have music in some rooms however not noticeable.

 

Cunard do however wake you up big time on the last morning, RCL dont do this , QM2 do have piped music in a few rooms and it was quite loud and the pool on deck 12 is one of them, also the the chart room (not loud) but there none the same

 

I cant speak for Celebrity though, not tried them yet although I have heard good reports and thinking of the South American cruise shorty with them.

 

As for what we should be buying this minute Cunard don't announce it but bombard you with it on nothing less than market stalls, cheap tat at that and we all know about it and where it is, a huge misdemeanor by Cunard that I have not seen on any other Cruise line

[keithm]

I have sailed on a few RCL ships and have to say I have not really noticed pipped music at all, not had any instructions of what to and where to buy from either, im sure they have music in some rooms however not noticeable.

 

Cunard do however wake you up big time on the last morning, RCL dont do this , QM2 do have piped music in a few rooms and it was quite loud and the pool on deck 12 is one of them, also the the chart room (not loud) but there none the same

 

I cant speak for Celebrity though, not tried them yet although I have heard good reports and thinking of the South American cruise shorty with them.

 

As for what we should be buying this minute Cunard don't announce it but bombard you with it on nothing less than market stalls, cheap tat at that and we all know about it and where it is, a huge misdemeanor by Cunard that I have not seen on any other Cruise line

Yes, I remember the muzak in and around the pool area on deck 12. I didn't find it too intrusive. I only noticed it, because the lack of piped muzak elsewhere on board.