Cunard v P&O

[Presto2]

Out of curiosity I had a look at fly cruises on the Queen Victoria for August 2024 and it came out at £6 for a cabin I liked. I am double checking today incase I made a mistake but the itinerary was great and that may have just been for one of us !!!!

 

Am happy to go more formal for a decent cruise and wonder if anyone on here has ever done Cunard before and what your thoughts are.

[Presto2]

PS I obviously got the spelling wrong using my phone.. ha ha ha ha. Dear Sharon can you please help and change it to spare the embarrassment.  🙂

[janieb1962]

2 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

PS I obviously got the spelling wrong using my phone.. ha ha ha ha. Dear Sharon can you please help and change it to spare the embarrassment.  🙂

Can you click the three dots on your post use used the edit option 

[pennib]

Been on Cunard twice. First time on the old QE2 which was brilliant. Second time on QM2 which was awful. Cunard is OK if you can stand the class system. If I am on a ship I like to be able to go where I like on board. If you are not booked in one of the grills then you are definitely steerage.

[yorkshirephil]

6 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

PS I obviously got the spelling wrong using my phone.. ha ha ha ha. Dear Sharon can you please help and change it to spare the embarrassment.  🙂

Too late, great bargain at £6 too. In my opinion Cunard are superior to P&O, they have cutback on lots of little things too but still outshine P&O, however they are more expensive so should be. It is never easy to advise someone you do not know as we all like different things but I would go for it and then you can judge yourself. 

[majortom10]

Been on both Cunard and P&O many times in last 25 yrs and utter nonsense that you are treated like steerage. Around the ship there is no difference and you wouldn't know any difference of who was in any cabin/suite grade. There are 2 separate small restaurants and lounge and outside deck area with only access for suite passengers which unless you specifically looked for you wouldn't know they were there. Why would you look for them it is just an ordinary restaurant and lounge anyway. There is no class system around the general area of the ship whatsoever that is utter nonsense. With regards QM2 she is an ocean liner and not a cruise ship so many find a difference which is unexpected because they have expected a cruise ship. QM2 is our favourite ship of all the ships we have cruised and yes Formal nights are generally strictly adhered too but rest is Smart Casual like P&O. I am sure if you give it a go and enjoy the more formal side of cruising you will really enjoy it.

[pete14]

14 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

PS I obviously got the spelling wrong using my phone.. ha ha ha ha. Dear Sharon can you please help and change it to spare the embarrassment.  🙂

Too late 😊. Lots of us have seen it so no embarrassment spared.
As Canard is French for duck, maybe they have invested in lots of them to transport cruisers across the sea. Maybe one cut too far?

[majortom10]

QV is very much like Arcadia in size of ship and build but very different interior but is a beautiful ship. If Presto2 you have any specific questions about Cunard or QV then please feel free to ask and will answer as honest and unbiased as I can. We are due on QM2 in May and QV in November and cruised as recent as last November on QV so happy to give assistance.

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by majortom10

[zap99]

37 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

Out of curiosity I had a look at fly cruises on the Queen Victoria for August 2024 and it came out at £6 for a cabin I liked. I am double checking today incase I made a mistake but the itinerary was great and that may have just been for one of us !!!!

 

Am happy to go more formal for a decent cruise and wonder if anyone on here has ever done Cunard before and what your thoughts are.

6 quid sounds a bargain. Back to the France for a pound days.😁

[Megabear2]

41 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

Out of curiosity I had a look at fly cruises on the Queen Victoria for August 2024 and it came out at £6 for a cabin I liked. I am double checking today incase I made a mistake but the itinerary was great and that may have just been for one of us !!!!

 

Am happy to go more formal for a decent cruise and wonder if anyone on here has ever done Cunard before and what your thoughts are.

In my personal opinion, and that's all it is, Cunard is far nearer to the traditional style of cruising than P&O.  QV is of course Arcadia sized so offers the more intimate offering many on here seem to want. There isn't a "class system", what there is are three  type of separate dining rooms for those who choose to pay more, Grills, Club Britannia and Britannia - majortom missed the Club class Britannia offering in his reply.  The suite passengers eat in their own restaurants dependent on their suite class - Princess Grill guests don't eat in Queens Grill as it's a grade below and therefore are also "banned" from an area if you look at it that way.  Having paid a big premium for this right Grills passengers have a small lounge and deck area for their exclusive use. Personally I can't see how that is a class system (P&O  suite guests eat breakfsst in the Epicurean, does that make me second class? Considering that most cruise lines are now adopting "the ship within a ship" concept (MSC Yacht club, RC Genie, Celebrity Retreat) the idea of restrictions on Cunard is frankly no longer something to speak of.  

 

The Cunard experience is unique.  If I didn't travel solo so often I'd never sail on any other line.  If you can get a good price on an itinerary you like I wouldn't hesitate.

 

Happy to give any information on the ships and experience if you have any questions, I cant speak on the Grills being too poor to travel there!!

 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Megabear2

[majortom10]

We have cruised in Queens Grill, Princess Grill, Balcony and Inside Staterooms over the years so feel well qualified to give any help or answer any questions you may have.

[Josy1953]

We have cruised with Cunard and enjoyed both Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth.  We would happily cruise with them again, they remind me of the more traditional cruising that we enjoyed when we first started cruising almost 40 years ago.They are definitely, in my opinion, a step up from P&O who I feel are being used by Carnival to attract a different sort of cruiser on their larger ships than they used to attract.

Cunard are a bit more formal but we like formal so fine for us.  We also think that the entertainment on Cunard is more to our taste.

It really is horses for courses,  my sister found them too formal so sticks to Celebrity and Princess because she and her husband were unimpressed by P&O passengers' casual dress on formal nights when they were on Britannia 3 years ago.

[Presto2]

Oh ignore me .... 6K ... not 6 pounds. I am going back to using a laptop .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tring]

We had a brief about Cunard and then I found out they do not offer freedom dining, (for the affordable cabins), so that scuppered the thought for us if on a Carnival Corp type of itinerary.

 

Not sure if that has changed, but we were told that fairly recently.

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by tring

[Host Hattie]

That's changed, there is now an open dining option in the main dining room as well as 2 sittings.

[Presto2]

3 hours ago, Presto2 said:

PS I obviously got the spelling wrong using my phone.. ha ha ha ha. Dear Sharon can you please help and change it to spare the embarrassment.  🙂

Thank you Sharon / Hattie  🙂 Don't think anyone noticed !!!

Edited January 13, 2023 by Presto2

[Presto2]

Hi everyone, house work done so catching up properly now (via laptop !).

 

Don't mind varying levels of cabins etc as they do this on Celebrity and it has never bothered us to be honest. I suppose if you pay for the extra you should get it and that's just how life is.

 

Just wondering if they do what PO does and offer the chance to stay for a night or 2 in a hotel somewhere before your holiday before your cruise even if you book flights with them.

Re flights - who do they use (Please don't let it be BA - give me Jet2 any day) and are they direct flights? Have heard some horror stories in the past of people going via Germany with Celebrity in the past.

 

Have to say the price has surprised us at 6 THOUSAND POUNDS for the 2 weeks including flights as we expected it to be much more. The itinerary looks good from Rome to the Adriatic / Greece and back and it visits the lovely Kotor which is worth doing a cruise for in itself.

 

🙂

 

 

 

 

[pete14]

17 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

Thank you Sharon / Hattie  🙂 Don't think anyone noticed !!!

Probably anybody else is too polite to draw attention to it, pretending not to have noticed. 🫣

[yorkshirephil]

1 hour ago, Host Hattie said:

That's changed, there is now an open dining option in the main dining room as well as 2 sittings.

This was a section of what we were sent for our next Cunard; since we got this a new option has been added to our cruise personaliser for open dining.

 

You may remember Cunard introduced Open Dining for new voyages that went on sale in May 2022. Open Dining will now be an additional dining option, alongside our standard Early and Late Dining times, for voyages sailing from; 3 October 2022 (Queen Elizabeth), 23 October 2022 (Queen Victoria), and 1 November 2022 (Queen Mary 2).
Open Dining means that guests can dine any time from 6.00pm*, with last orders at9.00pm*.

Reservations can be made in advance, or once on board. Guests can reserve a table through ‘My Voyage’, or guests can simply arrive at the restaurant when they would like to dine. If a table is not available, guests will be given a pager and notified when a table becomes available. *Note: indicative timing, is subject to change depending on deployment and operational requirements.

[tring]

That open dining option makes a big difference, we may try them one day.  Can you take a bottle of spirit onboard at embarkation, like you can on P&O?  Reports seem to suggest drinks are about double the price of P&O, though as long as water is available in the restaurants, we would not drink a lot.  Quite took to our pre dinner drinks on the balcony on Aurora in November though. 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by tring

[Host Hattie]

You might want to post your more detailed questions on the Cunard board. 

[Presto2]

1 hour ago, Host Hattie said:

You might want to post your more detailed questions on the Cunard board. 

Thanks Hattie - I will 🙂

I did wander over there a few years back and the folk on there were really welcoming and helpful.

To my PO friends on here - please wander over with me if you can help out at all 🙂

[majortom10]

1 hour ago, tring said:

That open dining option makes a big difference, we may try them one day.  Can you take a bottle of spirit onboard at embarkation, like you can on P&O?  Reports seem to suggest drinks are about double the price of P&O, though as long as water is available in the restaurants, we would not drink a lot.  Quite took to our pre dinner drinks on the balcony on Aurora in November though. 

 

You can take as much spirit as you can carry on Cunard you are not limited to 1 litre per person like P&O.

[majortom10]

1 hour ago, tring said:

That open dining option makes a big difference, we may try them one day.  Can you take a bottle of spirit onboard at embarkation, like you can on P&O?  Reports seem to suggest drinks are about double the price of P&O, though as long as water is available in the restaurants, we would not drink a lot.  Quite took to our pre dinner drinks on the balcony on Aurora in November though. 

 

Measures of spirits served on Cunard are US measure so are bigger than on P&O.

[Presto2]

3 hours ago, majortom10 said:

Measures of spirits served on Cunard are US measure so are bigger than on P&O.

That caught me out on Celebrity EDGE when I ordered a double brandy and soda. I slept well 🙂