Positives, Negatives and Niggles
Here we are at the end of my third round world voyage and I felt a few comments concerning how I feel about various aspects of the cruise, would be a suitable finale to this voyage. First of all, would I do it again. On balance I don’t think so, the cost has increased so much that in future I would only be inclined to do a sector. Plus many of the places we have visited on this and other cruises, I have no wish to return to for various reasons, some given below. That being said, I certainly hope to cruise with Cunard in the future but on shorter voyages, if they will have me after this page of comments!
We left off saying farewell to Asia, as proceeded westward towards the Mediterranean and home. In the middle east we called at Muscat, Dubai, Salalah, and Aqaba before proceeding through the Suez Canal. Earlier in 2010, I had done a weeks cruise, in this area, on the “Brilliance of the Seas,” reported elsewhere, and did not even bother to go ashore in any of these places, partly because I had been there previously and partly getting older with less inclination to explore. Such as Petra, supposedly on every ones bucket list, but 5 miles of walking is not on my agenda any more !
Through the canal and onto Athens where I enjoyed a Cunard tour of the Corinth Canal, Cunard Tours are always subject to Passengers criticism, however on the whole this voyages tours have been very good, from my own experience, I was delighted to remove from my bucket list a visit to the Corinth Canal. The weather was brilliant, the tour guide knew her facts and the lunch at a beach resort hotel was very good. Really good day out. In Civitavecchia as we were moored adjacent to the QM2 I took the opportunity to do a tour of her, as although I was last aboard in 2004, memories are dim and I wanted to be reminded what she it like for a possible future cruise. Now planning sector cruises for the round world voyage in 2012
In Lisbon, the final port, I did a Cunard Tour of Lisbon by land and river. A lazy man’s way to see one of Europe’s wonderful cities
POSITIVES
From experience gained from the Queen Victoria, there have been quite a few changes made and I have to admit they are all very positive, for instance the open garden lounge on QV is now enclosed and properly air conditioned and made into a wonderful lounge, and an interesting venue for evening musical concerts. The sports deck has been completely revamped and is now properly covered with a sun screen and works very well, hats of to who ever re-designed the deck area. It also has additional croquet and bowling areas, now bowling can be quite fun when the ship is moving around! It would be wonderful if the Queen Victoria could be retro fitted at her next major refit.
The swimming pools are filled with fresh water, again very nice for the swimmers. The other major improvement has been the change from the Chart Room bar into the Britannia Club dining restaurant, for those in Britannia AA Cabins. The restaurant is roomy, well laid out, and to my way of thinking better than the Princess Grill restaurant which is very crowded. I am told that in the future the QV may be retro fitted the same way. I know that if ever I cruise again on QE (or QV if retro fitted) I will definitely book “AA” cabin if available.
Shuttle buses. It was a delight to find, after recent European cruises, where we have got used to being ripped off to get into town, that on the world cruise most places have had a shuttle bus into town, except where the taxi drivers, (in India, Muscat & Salalah) in their wisdom, have deemed it to much of a loss of business, foolish people, and in Phuket even managed to bar passengers going ashore! What has happened to the power of the ship owner providing thousands of customers to visit their ports and spend money?
I know we come to expect it, but the food and Cunard White star service by cabin staff and all who look after the passengers is above and beyond that found on any other cruise ship. Keep it up Cunard.
Air Conditioning through out the ship is very good, in some cases as reported by some passengers as too cool, however I have found that in the cabins one can adjust the temperature from 20 to 26, which is a very good range, and the humidity is always down around the 18% – 21%, which is just right.
NEGATIVES
Not to many and not necessarily the fault of Cunard! Firstly the Immigration requirements of many places requiring, us the passengers, to arrange visas prior to embarkation, and the the what seems totally necessary restriction/imposition of Immigration authority’s requirements in certain countries which to others are not needed placing unnecessary strain on the ships manifest section, to whom hats off for all the problems they overcome.
The other main problem for me personally is the number of ports that we have visited to which I could find no particular merit such as Api Api, American Samoa, Fiji – Port Denarau,
Langkawei, Salalah, and Civitavecchia, of no interest to most as Rome is just too far away for a decent days visit.
In years past, when a ship was in a major Port, one or two of the local free to air TV stations would be shown on the ships cabin TV’s unfortunately for reasons I have not been able to ascertain this does not happen any more, it is always fun to catch up with local News entertainment and adverts.
The very worst aspect of the whole world voyage has been the Internet access. Thank goodness Cunard has recognised the problem and given repeat loyal customers time on line. Every minute is needed, as estimates from most people are that we spend more than 50% of the time either waiting for a connection. Whilst this negative aspect may be considered trivial, for all concerned the aggravation, stress associated with twiddling your thumbs awaiting connection is something that anger management could well make hay of. That being said, one recognises that it is not all the fault of Cunard, the company providing the service MTN, have the same problems with all other cruise ships. Is there no competition in this field to provide a good service. Who could have foreseen the proliferation of lap tops for a majority of the passengers and of course the crew
NIGGLES
These are items which I feel should be addressed by Cunard to improve the basic environment of the ship are, for instance, there are insufficient clocks around, they are desperately needed on the Lido Deck aft and in the ladies and gents changing rooms of the spa.
There insufficient waste bins around the ship, plenty on deck for bottles and other trash but inboard apart from adjacent to the lifts there are none.
On many cruise ships there are passenger notice boards, but none any longer on Cunard, PLEASE bring them back. On this world voyage I had left behind my razor charging cord, had we had a passenger notice board I would have most probably have found another passenger with the same razor and borrowed a cord once every 3 to 4 weeks, but no I had to spend $30 on a new one from the Internet. I also had an accident with a pair of spectacles and needed someone with some small tools, but without the passenger notice board have been unable to find anyone who could help me.
Finally this is rather strange one, but it concerns me that the ships Doctor apparently proscribed medicine to a friend which was not needed. The histology of the case is that he, Mr. P.C. suffered the usual cough which most of us get during the long voyages and it settled into an upper respiratory tract infection. Which after a week of coughing he decided to attend the ships Doctor, to whom he advised of the problem saying that there was no fever, no aching body parts, and that he had been coughing for a week. The Doctor prescribed some antibiotics and 10 tablets, which when checked on Google, turned out to be Tamiflu tablets, at a cost of $10 each (16 prescribed).
Given the symptoms described by Mr P.C. It begs the question why prescribe Tamiflu tablets for a cough which was a week old. Further there were no flu symptoms and no general alert on the ship that there was any flu on board. The tablets in question are quite clear in there effectiveness as only applying to flu symptoms 24- 48 hours old and that they would only reduce the effects of the flu by 24 hours. One therefore has to question why such tablets, at such high cost, for a problem which could not have been flu. I leave it to you, the reader, to work out for themselves what my suspicions are but cannot be stated! As Sergeant Joe Friday would say, “Just the facts ma’am,”.
Many thanks for taking the trouble to read through this, its quite a lot to get through but I hope that it has been both informative and interesting. If you have any comments or questions please address them to me at :
pjweaver69@hotmail.com
I must also add that for a far greater detail of to what has been happening on the Queen Elizabeth during her world voyage I can highly recommend that you also have a look at the Blog from the Cruise Director and Mr Peter Shanks our CEO.
(www.wearecunard.com)
THE END
Phil's Radio Ham World 