Full Of History and Tradition

I recently attended our annual cruise.co.uk conference. We were very lucky to actually have a 3 night stay on  the Cunard Queen Mary 2.  The ship is beautiful and if your a lover of history and tradition the ship as well as the Cunard line itself will be right up your street!   Cunard are celebrating their 175 year anniversary in 2015. For example, did you know that the Lusitania was a Cunard ship?

As soon as you board the ship you get a sense of days gone by. All of the furnishings are 1930’s art deco style, which I love!  The Queen Mary 2 is a ocean liner and therefore different to other cruise ships. She sails from Southampton most of the year to New York and back. I would never worry about having these days at sea as you cruise to New York as there is so much to do on the ship. For example there is a planetarium which I would have loved to have experienced,(due to a technical hitch on board we could not!) There is also a cinema and a lovely spa, you know how I like to pamper myself! If you wanted to swim or lie by the pool you have 5 to choose from.  One of my favourite places was the library, so many books and in a lovely setting, with big comfy chairs looking out onto the ocean, I could imagine myself whiling away the hours there!  One of the highlights for me was the evening we spent in the theatre. A few of us saw this great group of singers called “The 5 tenors of rock” they were brilliant, if you get a chance you should see them, they had all of us up on our feet clapping and cheering away – fantastic!

Of course on any cruise the dining, bars and lounges are really important.  The lounges were all beautiful in there own way, all different. The Winter Garden serves lovely afternoon teas, the Veuve Clicquot champagne bar was stunning with pictures of Hollywood stars from bygone days on the wall. The Golden Lion pub is just like a traditional English pub, serving great cocktails of course!  The chart room is also lovely with lots of maritime displays and a place to sit, have a drink and relax. Eating of course is never a problem. We ate every evening in the Britannia restaurant which is stunning and waiter service, if you didn’t fancy that and wanted something less formal you could also eat in the buffet restaurant, The Kings Court.  There is also the speciality restaurant, Todd English . I did not eat in there but had a little look – again looks fab.  The food was fantastic as you would expect, and I would recommend you to have your breakfast in the Britannia restaurant.

The evenings were of course a time for all of us to let our hair down a little.  There is a nightclub called the G32. – If you like a bit of disco dancing, this is the place for you, great music and a buzzing atmosphere.  I must be getting old (well, I guess I am!) because I loved the Queens room. Again this is a throwback to the 1930’s in style with great big band music as well as a bit of ballroom dancing if your that way inclined. I loved the setting more then anything, it was really beautiful.

Of course I have not yet mentioned the staterooms. We stayed in a outside with a large picture window, it was really nice, with plenty of room. The only thing I did not like was the shower had a shower curtain, maybe I am being picky in my old age!  The beds were very comfortable.  On the Queen Mary 2 you can also stay in the Princess or the Queens Grill staterooms which all have there own dining restaurants and larger more opulent rooms.

For me this ship just sums up all that is great about cruising, and the tradition of it all.  There are some fantastic pictures all over the ship, all with stories to tell which I found really interesting. If you get a chance, try this ship out, maybe to start with you can do a little mini cruise because I can guarantee once you have done that you will most definitely want to sample the Queen Mary 2 again!