Does the QE2 cater for teenagers?

[Red_Imp]

Hi, I’m a 16 year old lad and my parents are frantically nagging me to go on a cruise with them on the QE2.

 

I have a few questions:

 

1) Dress code, i wont have to wear posh clothes all of the time will I? I'm the jeans and t-shirt type.

2) Will my playstation 2 work on the tv we get in our room?

3) Are there games rooms and is there internet access? If so is it free?

4) The cinema, is it free?

5) The swimming pool(s), what are they like? length and depth, etc?

6) Is there designated area for teenagers to socialise in the evening. No matter how hard i try will be i be served alcohol?

7) The driving range? How long is it?

 

Cheers.

[whylion]

I'm the mom of a 16year old girl and we've done a couple of trips on QE2. I can answer some of your questions:

 

you only have to dress up at night

the pools are pretty small

the movies are free, but it's expensive to access the internet

I think you used to drive off the back of the ship, but now you just drive into a net, but there is a small basketball court where the kids hang out.

You might get wine with dinner

 

They have quite a few teens and have a person who organizes activities. In our experience, they help get things started and the kids take over from there. Our daughter loves it.

[Philipp]

having been onboard a number of times ( I am a young 50 year old) I would say that your average teenager would be bored if they expect to meet others. But if they go on board with a more open mind then it might be ok. But it is very much an older sedate crowd

[YoungQE2Cruiser]

Hi! I'm 18 and my sister is 16 and we've been on the QE2 twice and loved it. It's best though to go in school holidays as there will be a few other children on the ship but I wouldn't expect loads! We had a group of about 15-20 both times.

During the day on the ship, jeans and t-shirts will be fine, although in the night, everyone pretty much dresses up...definitely for dinner and most people stay in their formal clothes all night, although some of the kids changed after dinner.3

Besides the pool and basketball courts outside, we usually hung around in the table tennis room at night, as long as you don't block the walkway through or make too much noise when shows are going on next door in the ground lounge. Also, here you can hear all the music from teh yacht club so it gives it a good atmosphere.

I've only turned 18 since being off the ship, so drink's were sometimes hard to get. On boarding the ship, you are issued with a Passenger Card with your DOB etc on and anyone under 18 gets this hole-punched so that bar staff can easily see who is under 18. Although both times I didn't get mine hole-punched they do still check your DOB on the card before buying alcohol most of the time. Drink at dinner and at the Captain's party is fine, and sometimes you can get served from the bars, but its not always guarenteed that you can get served. However, your parents can buy your drink for you and give it to you.

There is a games room onboard but it's never too busy. In fact I only think I've been in there once so can't even say to much about what the machines are like.

The cinema is free and particularly on our first cruise a lot of us went after dinner, as the films are pretty recent. They also show films during the daytimes if you have a sailing day, but it usually isthe same film all day long.

It might sound a bit sad, but my advice to you is to go down to the Teen Club on the signing up day just to see what over age groups there are around. Even if you don't sign up yourself. On the summer cruise there were quite a lot of older teenagers down there so we signed up and thats where we met all our friends, but on the xmas cruise we tended to meet people more at night times at the table tennis table or by the pool in the daytimes.

I would definitely recommend going with your parents as every person I met had a wicked time on board, but we were so lucky with the group of kids that were on there at the same time. At the end of the day, even if there aren't loads of kids, there are likely to be a few in school holidays but the experience of the QE2 alone is fantastic anyway!