Thoughts on first QM2 and Princess Grill experience

[TheOldBear]

2 hours ago, BklynBoy8 said:

 

The passage way is on the Starboard side just before the doorway to the Promenade Deck doors. Pass the Elevator bank. The red arrow is the Chef's Gallery.

 

My DW and I used it every night after the PG. Yes you can not go thru the Grill Bar but I wouldn't call it a blockage as it is part of the structure.

 

Remember Speciality Restaurant was not held each evening on our sailing.

I think the specialty restaurant was serving for all 26 nights of the Norway and Northern Lights sailing. 

We had evening shore excursions for both nights in Tromso, and elected to eat in the Chef's Gallery [made to order pizza] before the Northern Lights shore excursion. And yes, the forward end of the Chef's Gallery is at the 'C' lobby area.

The 'passageway' aft of the pink arrow only goes into the galley area serving the Chef's Gallery & the 'pop up' part of Kings Court. During an emergency situation it _could_ provide an alternate route [hopping over the Grills Lounge bar?] if the port side was blocked, but I think passengers are discouraged from entering galley areas unless on a 'behind the scenes' tour.

We were in 5194 - right by the 'D' staircase - and it was occasionally irksome to need to detour around the pop up KC section.

 

 

[BklynBoy8]

7 minutes ago, TheOldBear said:

I think the specialty restaurant was serving for all 26 nights of the Norway and Northern Lights sailing. 

We had evening shore excursions for both nights in Tromso, and elected to eat in the Chef's Gallery [made to order pizza] before the Northern Lights shore excursion. And yes, the forward end of the Chef's Gallery is at the 'C' lobby area.

The 'passageway' aft of the pink arrow only goes into the galley area serving the Chef's Gallery & the 'pop up' part of Kings Court. During an emergency situation it _could_ provide an alternate route [hopping over the Grills Lounge bar?] if the port side was blocked, but I think passengers are discouraged from entering galley areas unless on a 'behind the scenes' tour.

We were in 5194 - right by the 'D' staircase - and it was occasionally irksome to need to detour around the pop up KC section.

 

 

So happy that the ship offered the dinners for 26 evenings but unfortunately our sailing did not have that opportunity.

 

I am going to let this point settle to personal opinion.

 

Happy a good cruise in the future.....

[moses0]

23 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

As for the QM2 it's one and only plus point is its ride , you just don't feel the waves.

Thanks for your review. I wonder if you have considered much of the reason for the quirky layout you mention is so you can have the smooth ride you enjoyed. 

[Windsurfboy]

Smooth ride all due to hull shape and weight.  Layout doesn't effect ride.

 

 

[Covepointcruiser]

We had a mix of a great pianist, string trios, and a harpist in the Commodore Club in December.   All three acts were wonderful and you could appreciate the music and still be able to speak to table mates.   Never had a problem getting a seat and are sailings were fully booked.   Never experience the “Black hole of Calcutta” in the Queens Room unless you are speaking of the behavior of the ballroom dancers.   

[moses0]

1 hour ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

Smooth ride all due to hull shape and weight.  Layout doesn't effect ride.

 

Absolutely.  But Not really what I meant. Where certain public places are located does make a difference. I understand that QM2 was purposely designed for maximum comfort in those places. Which makes it a challenge for some to navigate around the ship as it is not designed like a regular cruise ship. 

 

[rafinmd]

37 minutes ago, moses0 said:

Absolutely.  But Not really what I meant. Where certain public places are located does make a difference. I understand that QM2 was purposely designed for maximum comfort in those places. Which makes it a challenge for some to navigate around the ship as it is not designed like a regular cruise ship.

Let me try a couple of specifics here.  On a cruise ship the theater is generally at the bow and the dining room at the stern.  On QM2 both the theater and Illuminations are aft of the A elevators.  Britannia dining room is forward of the D elevators as well as Kings Court.  While the Grills Dining rooms are aft of the D stairs there is a lot of ship aft of even them.  Both the dining room and theater typically run the full width of the ship but since they are so far to the ends of the ship there is no problem with people needing to get around them.  To provide access around these 2 areas narrow passageways were created in a space between decks 2 and 3 and between decks 1 and 2.  A very quirky design but it allows access around these 2 vital resources.  Even though QM2 hull is designed for maximum stability she is still subject to the ravages of the North Atlantic and these quirky accommodations allow the most critical areas to be in the most stable part of the ship,

 

Roy

[cpc3639]

I agree with many of you views about QM2. It’s our least favourite too. Although enjoying the transatlantic voyage very much. Ballroom on vistas in our opinion so much prettier. Theatres too. I also really did not enjoy the lido offering on QM2. No direct see views and not being able to easily access outdoor areas to enjoy a snack in the fresh air. 

[space oddity]

In reading comments here, I'm always struck by the fact that many of us have different preferences -- which is great! To each their own.  As for me, I absolutely love QM2 and wouldn't wish to cross the open ocean in anything else.  

 

While we're on the topic of design and the "quirks" of the ship, I just thought I'd echo the idea (mentioned already) that all these design choices are linked, sometimes in not-too-obvious (to me, at least!) ways.  Like many of you, I've seen Stephen Payne (chief architect for the ship) speak onboard, and a super-quick summary of one of his talks on this subject (to the extent I can still remember it, much later) would go something like:

 

-- If you want to continue doing a regular transatlantic service throughout much of the year, in line with Cunard tradition, you need a proper liner.  Different hull, different design characteristics, crazy amounts of power.  A transatlantic liner can't just divert to a different port every time there's a bad storm.  Payne showed (e.g.) a neat set of simulations they'd done during design, taking 20 years of wave data across the North Atlantic and estimating how the new ship would have done -- if you want to arrive on time in NY and Southampton every time, and also be safe in the crazy wave conditions sometimes found on that route, a normal cruise ship isn't going to cut it.  (At least, that was his argument.)

 

-- A liner is significantly more expensive to build -- he quoted something like 40% more -- given the amount of steel used in the hull + other design features.  

 

-- Cunard said "okay, but the new ship needs to give us a similar return on investment to a bog-standard cruise ship."  

 

-- That dictated a few things: for example, the ship is a lot bigger than QE2 partly because of economies of scale; the per-cabin cost usually goes down (within limits) if you're making a bigger ship.  It also meant he wanted as many balcony cabins as possible, because those command a price premium.  

 

-- You can't put balcony cabins on a liner crossing the N. Atlantic on deck 2.  They need to be higher up.  This is part of why they chose to put the common areas of the ship -- restaurants, theatres, all that stuff, down in the low decks.  

 

Etc, etc, too many interesting tidbits like this to relay -- you should see his talk someday if you can!  Another one I enjoyed was about the design of deck 7 -- which was partly dictated by the idea that in the very unlikely event of a disaster in the N Atlantic, you would like the passengers to be in a sheltered place (i.e., not on the open deck) but as close to the lifeboats as possible.  And as others have mentioned, they put the Brittania restaurant around the point of least motion on the ship.  

 

(All the above just my recollections of a talk by someone else, so caveat lector!) 

 

 

 

[buchanan101]

The shame on our crossing was that there was no one giving this sort of talk - surely an Illuminations talk by someone about the design of the ship would've been very popular?

[ExArkie]

21 hours ago, BklynBoy8 said:

 

Yes you can walk thru Deck 7 inside thru the passage way by Chef's Gallery on the starboard side

You could not in December when we were on board. At least not on the first night we tried…after that, we just went upstairs to go forward and never checked again.

[BklynBoy8]

49 minutes ago, ExArkie said:

You could not in December when we were on board. At least not on the first night we tried…after that, we just went upstairs to go forward and never checked again.

 

Was not on December 

[rafinmd]

Question:  When I was last on QM2 (last July) all but 2 of the ship;s many elevators were in service.  Unfortunately those 2 were both at the D stairway near the Grill Dining rooms, leaving only 1 in service, and it had apparently been that way for a while.  Can someone verify that those elevators are back in service

 

By the way, while most of my time on QM2 is on transatlantics I have about 3 weeks on her as a cruise ship and for me she fills the role quite well.

 

Roy

[exlondoner]

1 minute ago, rafinmd said:

Question:  When I was last on QM2 (last July) all but 2 of the ship;s many elevators were in service.  Unfortunately those 2 were both at the D stairway near the Grill Dining rooms, leaving only 1 in service, and it had apparently been that way for a while.  Can someone verify that those elevators are back in service

 

By the way, while most of my time on QM2 is on transatlantics I have about 3 weeks on her as a cruise ship and for me she fills the role quite well.

 

Roy

One of them came back into service during our Med. Cruise in the second half of July. Don’t know about the other. Curiously, we never found there only being one lift there in the first few days much of an inconvenience.

[Windsurfboy]

Still only 2 out of 3 lifts on staircase D. Never any queues. 

[Windsurfboy]

're @spaceoddity post

 

"Brittania restaurant around point of least motion , in middle low down on decks 2 and 3 "

 

They then went on to put Grills higher up on deck 7 (but no views)  and to rear.

 

Perhaps they thought grills guests more experienced sailors😂

 

Learnt lesson and put grills in Middle on newer ships

Edited April 26, 2023 by Windsurfboy

[exlondoner]

10 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

're @spaceoddity post

 

"Brittania restaurant around point of least motion , in middle low down on decks 2 and 3 "

 

They then went on to put Grills higher up on deck 7 (but no views)  and to rear.

 

Perhaps they thought grills guests more experienced sailors😂

 

Learnt lesson and put grills in Middle on newer ships

But much higher up, and evident, though harmless, movement at times.

[TheOldBear]

1 hour ago, rafinmd said:

Question:  When I was last on QM2 (last July) all but 2 of the ship;s many elevators were in service.  Unfortunately those 2 were both at the D stairway near the Grill Dining rooms, leaving only 1 in service, and it had apparently been that way for a while.  Can someone verify that those elevators are back in service

 

By the way, while most of my time on QM2 is on transatlantics I have about 3 weeks on her as a cruise ship and for me she fills the role quite well.

 

Roy

Back in October/November we were right by the 'D' lifts [room 5194] and the only time I recall seeing a lift tagged as 'out of service' with a red light was on turn around days in Southampton and Brooklyn - that likely was the elevator rigged for luggage instead of passengers.

[moses0]

19 hours ago, rafinmd said:

Even though QM2 hull is designed for maximum stability she is still subject to the ravages of the North Atlantic and these quirky accommodations allow the most critical areas to be in the most stable part of the ship,

 

Thanks for that. Hope that folks now see there is a method to the madness. Been on the others I love QM2 the best. What a ship!