Recent QV Experience

[Alslc]

Hi all, I would like to share with you my recent experience on board QV during her Baltic Voyage. 

This voyage had the mandatory masks reintroduced after approximately 10 days. 

 

I'd start saying the ship was at approximately 50% capacity, this is down to the COVID cap and the staff reductions cap. So around 1000 passengers were onboard. 

All facilities were open, but after the mask mandate was introduced the launderettes were closed. I was trying to ask a few staff members about covid cases onboard, most of them seemed reluctant to speak about the topic, but a couple of them told me they had to reintroduce the mask mandate as a certain threshold of covid cases was reached (I'm not sharing that percentage, but it's above the CDC one). There were many stateroom decks closed to the public, I can't remember if it was next to stairs A or C, but the stateroom area on 4 decks on the port side (next to lifts A or C - I can't remember) was shut with a blue badge on the door that said "Do not enter - Sail with confidence", now I don't now if that means that area is a designated isolation area, but it was quite a big area, it might just be the doors were shut for another reason. I could only see just one small door that said "Isolation Area do not enter".

 

You can clearly notice the lack of staff in some areas, there were glasses and rubbish left on the deck 3 for days with no one clearing them. I asked for extra toiletries in the room such as a toothbrush and they told they don't provide them anymore due to COVID.

FFP2 masks were provided free of charge in the stateroom and the compliance rate was 99.9999%, as I said on another post I probably saw one person without one on the whole voyage after the mask mandate was reintroduced. On a positive note, most of the staff working on the ship were lovely and happy to help. The restaurants were, as usual, top notch and the staff was doing their utmost best to go above and beyond.  WI-Fi was an absolute disgrace though, I complained to the Pursers Desk and I was told the signal might be weak as we are at sea .... really ?? Not that we are on a cruise ship. The upper level of the Britannia Restaurant seemed not in use. 

 

All in all, I really enjoyed the cruise, the mask wearing made me feel very safe and this was a shared opinion with other fellow travelers. Compliance was extremely high, so I would kindly advise to ignore people moaning on this forum saying they won't be wearing them. Most of your fellow passengers will and I really felt safe. Staff was reminding non-mask-wearers to wear one, but I have only seen doing this in one occasion as everyone was wearing one anyway. In regards to COVID cases you could see some passengers were coming back from isolation, so COVID was there, but I can't give you much details on the numbers of cases as it would be just my assumption. The ship was really quiet and you could clearly see you were at 50% capacity and a few people were isolating, but regardless that made for a very nice experience as you could enjoy the ship without the massive crowds of people around. 

 

One more final shout to the staff, as despite most of them were just recently back on the ship, made the experience even more pleasant. 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Alslc

[Host Hattie]

Thanks for taking the time to report back. It's been really good to read all the reports about Queen Victoria since her return to service.

[exlondoner]

I wonder if some of those closed off areas of cabins are being used to spread the crew out a bit, rather than for Covid cases as such.

[lindylooellalouise]

12 hours ago, Alslc said:

Hi all, I would like to share with you my recent experience on board QV during her Baltic Voyage. 

This voyage had the mandatory masks reintroduced after approximately 10 days. 

 

I'd start saying the ship was at approximately 50% capacity, this is down to the COVID cap and the staff reductions cap. So around 1000 passengers were onboard. 

All facilities were open, but after the mask mandate was introduced the launderettes were closed. I was trying to ask a few staff members about covid cases onboard, most of them seemed reluctant to speak about the topic, but a couple of them told me they had to reintroduce the mask mandate as a certain threshold of covid cases was reached (I'm not sharing that percentage, but it's above the CDC one). There were many stateroom decks closed to the public, I can't remember if it was next to stairs A or C, but the stateroom area on 4 decks on the port side (next to lifts A or C - I can't remember) was shut with a blue badge on the door that said "Do not enter - Sail with confidence", now I don't now if that means that area is a designated isolation area, but it was quite a big area, it might just be the doors were shut for another reason. I could only see just one small door that said "Isolation Area do not enter".

 

You can clearly notice the lack of staff in some areas, there were glasses and rubbish left on the deck 3 for days with no one clearing them. I asked for extra toiletries in the room such as a toothbrush and they told they don't provide them anymore due to COVID.

FFP2 masks were provided free of charge in the stateroom and the compliance rate was 99.9999%, as I said on another post I probably saw one person without one on the whole voyage after the mask mandate was reintroduced. On a positive note, most of the staff working on the ship were lovely and happy to help. The restaurants were, as usual, top notch and the staff was doing their utmost best to go above and beyond.  WI-Fi was an absolute disgrace though, I complained to the Pursers Desk and I was told the signal might be weak as we are at sea .... really ?? Not that we are on a cruise ship. The upper level of the Britannia Restaurant seemed not in use. 

 

All in all, I really enjoyed the cruise, the mask wearing made me feel very safe and this was a shared opinion with other fellow travelers. Compliance was extremely high, so I would kindly advise to ignore people moaning on this forum saying they won't be wearing them. Most of your fellow passengers will and I really felt safe. Staff was reminding non-mask-wearers to wear one, but I have only seen doing this in one occasion as everyone was wearing one anyway. In regards to COVID cases you could see some passengers were coming back from isolation, so COVID was there, but I can't give you much details on the numbers of cases as it would be just my assumption. The ship was really quiet and you could clearly see you were at 50% capacity and a few people were isolating, but regardless that made for a very nice experience as you could enjoy the ship without the massive crowds of people around. 

 

One more final shout to the staff, as despite most of them were just recently back on the ship, made the experience even more pleasant. 

 

 

Hi thanks for the review, it’s very reassuring that the mask mandate is back and people are complying with it, I really hope this stays in place when we board on 31st July, 

[carlmm]

Good to read about the "lovely" and helpful staff. Thank you for your report.

[Alslc]

On 7/7/2022 at 9:40 AM, lindylooellalouise said:

Hi thanks for the review, it’s very reassuring that the mask mandate is back and people are complying with it, I really hope this stays in place when we board on 31st July, 

You’re welcome. Unfortunately the mandate is not back for every cruise, but either if the CDC threshold is reached on ships in US territories or if the Cunard threshold is reached, this is my understanding. I would say also Captain’s discretion, I remember a post on this forum mentioning that.

[lindylooellalouise]

1 hour ago, Alslc said:

You’re welcome. Unfortunately the mandate is not back for every cruise, but either if the CDC threshold is reached on ships in US territories or if the Cunard threshold is reached, this is my understanding. I would say also Captain’s discretion, I remember a post on this forum mentioning that.

Fingers crossed it will be mandatory, just to keep everyone as safe as possible.

[BlueRiband]

6 minutes ago, lindylooellalouise said:

Fingers crossed it will be mandatory, just to keep everyone as safe as possible.

I guess we all have our own tolerances of what is necessary and safe.  The high potential for a "roll back" to more onerous covid restrictions keeps me from booking.   Cunard's earlier "Healthy Gateways" protocols explicitly stated that only passengers traveling together would be permitted to dine together.  As a solo, a roll back to that would be a deal breaker.   After paying that much money it would be no pleasure to dine alone or in my cabin.  

 

If that's what is necessary to keep the ship safe, and I'm not happy to comply, then my staying away is the better choice for all.

[lindylooellalouise]

11 minutes ago, BlueRiband said:

I guess we all have our own tolerances of what is necessary and safe.  The high potential for a "roll back" to more onerous covid restrictions keeps me from booking.   Cunard's earlier "Healthy Gateways" protocols explicitly stated that only passengers traveling together would be permitted to dine together.  As a solo, a roll back to that would be a deal breaker.   After paying that much money it would be no pleasure to dine alone or in my cabin.  

 

If that's what is necessary to keep the ship safe, and I'm not happy to comply, then my staying away is the better choice for all.

Hopefully when this dreadful covid goes away we will get back to  the normal cruising we all love, we met with some lovely solo passengers on our QE cruise in April and had some wonderful dining experiences with them.

[techteach]

We need vaccinations that include versions 4 and 5 soon or I bet there will be places rolling back to mask mandates.

[longton]

On 7/6/2022 at 8:51 PM, Alslc said:

Hi all, I would like to share with you my recent experience on board QV during her Baltic Voyage. 

This voyage had the mandatory masks reintroduced after approximately 10 days. 

 

I'd start saying the ship was at approximately 50% capacity, this is down to the COVID cap and the staff reductions cap. So around 1000 passengers were onboard. 

All facilities were open, but after the mask mandate was introduced the launderettes were closed. I was trying to ask a few staff members about covid cases onboard, most of them seemed reluctant to speak about the topic, but a couple of them told me they had to reintroduce the mask mandate as a certain threshold of covid cases was reached (I'm not sharing that percentage, but it's above the CDC one). There were many stateroom decks closed to the public, I can't remember if it was next to stairs A or C, but the stateroom area on 4 decks on the port side (next to lifts A or C - I can't remember) was shut with a blue badge on the door that said "Do not enter - Sail with confidence", now I don't now if that means that area is a designated isolation area, but it was quite a big area, it might just be the doors were shut for another reason. I could only see just one small door that said "Isolation Area do not enter".

 

You can clearly notice the lack of staff in some areas, there were glasses and rubbish left on the deck 3 for days with no one clearing them. I asked for extra toiletries in the room such as a toothbrush and they told they don't provide them anymore due to COVID.

FFP2 masks were provided free of charge in the stateroom and the compliance rate was 99.9999%, as I said on another post I probably saw one person without one on the whole voyage after the mask mandate was reintroduced. On a positive note, most of the staff working on the ship were lovely and happy to help. The restaurants were, as usual, top notch and the staff was doing their utmost best to go above and beyond.  WI-Fi was an absolute disgrace though, I complained to the Pursers Desk and I was told the signal might be weak as we are at sea .... really ?? Not that we are on a cruise ship. The upper level of the Britannia Restaurant seemed not in use. 

 

All in all, I really enjoyed the cruise, the mask wearing made me feel very safe and this was a shared opinion with other fellow travelers. Compliance was extremely high, so I would kindly advise to ignore people moaning on this forum saying they won't be wearing them. Most of your fellow passengers will and I really felt safe. Staff was reminding non-mask-wearers to wear one, but I have only seen doing this in one occasion as everyone was wearing one anyway. In regards to COVID cases you could see some passengers were coming back from isolation, so COVID was there, but I can't give you much details on the numbers of cases as it would be just my assumption. The ship was really quiet and you could clearly see you were at 50% capacity and a few people were isolating, but regardless that made for a very nice experience as you could enjoy the ship without the massive crowds of people around. 

 

One more final shout to the staff, as despite most of them were just recently back on the ship, made the experience even more pleasant. 

 

 

We were also on this cruise. We called it "Our Med cruise in the Baltic" due the the hot and beautiful weather throughout the cruise.

 

We used the internet on sea days and we had no issues with getting a connection, sending emails, WhatsApp messages, reading news and travel sites. We were able to use it in our suite on Deck 6 and in all areas of the ship.

 

There were no photographers on board and the area where they normally display photos was empty.

 

The Golden Lion was open throughout our trip and we had lunch there 3 times. It was never busy.

 

We enjoyed the lectures on military matters and some cookery demonstrations done in the Royal Court. However there were no cameras on the stage so it was impossible to see what was cooking. I am guessing that 10 to 20% of the passengers were from Germany and I doubt they would have attended the talks on Rudolph Hess, or spying in cold war East Germany... There was also an astrophysicist speaker but personally I didn"t find the first talk interesting so didn't attend others.

 

The suite TV was useless. There was no location map and nothing about our cruise speed etc. There was an announcement in the Daily Bulletin that the technicians were working tirelessly to rectify the situation. Presumably still working at it given that the TV is still not functioning properly.

 

There were Covid cases. Two people in an adjacent suite to ours were moved out but another couple were moved into 6115, a few doors down. I saw them moving in with their bags accompanied by two people in full protective gear. The pursers desk could not tell me why they had moved there and not into an isolation area. It was unsightly to see food trays by the door and clear plastic bags full of bedding and towels to be laundered.

 

The launderettes were all closed a few days before the end of the cruise. I don't remember anything in the Bulletin about the closure and I was left with the feeling that Cunard doesn't want to alarm passengers or use the dreaded C word.

 

Embarkation in Southampton was speedy. We had a time of 1.30 pm. Arrived at about 1 o'clock and were in our Britannia suite before 2pm. Our cases were already there.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the food in the main dining room and our waiters were excellent. We were originally on second sitting but changed that to first sitting once onboard. We usually got there at 6.30pm and attended the 8pm show.

 

Our next cruise in from Barcelona on Queen Elizabeth in late August and we are both looking forward to that.

 

 

 

 

 

[kmerlin14]

38 minutes ago, longton said:

Please do a trip report for that one because we are booked on one of those.

 

 

Our next cruise in from Barcelona on Queen Elizabeth in late August and we are both looking forward to that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alslc]

On 7/15/2022 at 11:01 PM, longton said:

We were also on this cruise. We called it "Our Med cruise in the Baltic" due the the hot and beautiful weather throughout the cruise.

 

We used the internet on sea days and we had no issues with getting a connection, sending emails, WhatsApp messages, reading news and travel sites. We were able to use it in our suite on Deck 6 and in all areas of the ship.

 

There were no photographers on board and the area where they normally display photos was empty.

 

The Golden Lion was open throughout our trip and we had lunch there 3 times. It was never busy.

 

We enjoyed the lectures on military matters and some cookery demonstrations done in the Royal Court. However there were no cameras on the stage so it was impossible to see what was cooking. I am guessing that 10 to 20% of the passengers were from Germany and I doubt they would have attended the talks on Rudolph Hess, or spying in cold war East Germany... There was also an astrophysicist speaker but personally I didn"t find the first talk interesting so didn't attend others.

 

The suite TV was useless. There was no location map and nothing about our cruise speed etc. There was an announcement in the Daily Bulletin that the technicians were working tirelessly to rectify the situation. Presumably still working at it given that the TV is still not functioning properly.

 

There were Covid cases. Two people in an adjacent suite to ours were moved out but another couple were moved into 6115, a few doors down. I saw them moving in with their bags accompanied by two people in full protective gear. The pursers desk could not tell me why they had moved there and not into an isolation area. It was unsightly to see food trays by the door and clear plastic bags full of bedding and towels to be laundered.

 

The launderettes were all closed a few days before the end of the cruise. I don't remember anything in the Bulletin about the closure and I was left with the feeling that Cunard doesn't want to alarm passengers or use the dreaded C word.

 

Embarkation in Southampton was speedy. We had a time of 1.30 pm. Arrived at about 1 o'clock and were in our Britannia suite before 2pm. Our cases were already there.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the food in the main dining room and our waiters were excellent. We were originally on second sitting but changed that to first sitting once onboard. We usually got there at 6.30pm and attended the 8pm show.

 

Our next cruise in from Barcelona on Queen Elizabeth in late August and we are both looking forward to that.

 

 

 

 

 

Agree they don’t want to alarm everyone, but it would have been much better to be open and honest with the passengers and clearly define an isolation area. Not ideal walking around the ship not knowing if you are walking in an isolation area or not. I found staff quite dismissive when I was asking question about COVID onboard, like it’s a secret there would be cases onboard a ship. Again it would be much better to close a whole deck or a whole side of the deck to make it safer for everyone. 
 

I can also clearly remember people rejoining the restaurant, meaning they might have ended their 10 days isolation 
 

Given what you reported as well I think the number of cases was quite substantial, otherwise they would not have reintroduced the mask mandate or closed the launderettes. Again I’m not speculating, but given the number of decks where the fire doors were shut and given those days were the peak of COVID cases in Germany and the UK, I can’t imagine a low number of cases. Having said that… my whole party didn’t get COVID which is nice 😃

Edited July 17, 2022 by Alslc

[longton]

I agree with you Alslc. 

 

Our suite attendant just shrugged his shoulders and pretended not to understand when I asked about Covid cases on my corridor. 

 

There were closed parts on Deck 6.

 

When the couple next to our suite moved out they placed a red card into the door card slot.

 

Friends of ours saw a large group of about 70 people disembarking at Southampton and one of the group told them they had all been diagnosed with Covid. I don't know if they were to undergo Covid testing at the terminal or just "released" among the public.

[Alslc]

13 hours ago, longton said:

I agree with you Alslc. 

 

Our suite attendant just shrugged his shoulders and pretended not to understand when I asked about Covid cases on my corridor. 

 

There were closed parts on Deck 6.

 

When the couple next to our suite moved out they placed a red card into the door card slot.

 

Friends of ours saw a large group of about 70 people disembarking at Southampton and one of the group told them they had all been diagnosed with Covid. I don't know if they were to undergo Covid testing at the terminal or just "released" among the public.

 

If Cunard follows UK public health guidance, then they would have been released among the public. I remember on the Cunard website it says you can use your own car to go back home or they can book a special taxi for you. 

 

 I was on Deck 6 as well, so it annoys me I might have be next to someone with Covid without even knowing it. I saw an ambulance at Kiel with people "dressed up" but I haven't see any massive movements out of the ship.