CruiseMates' Readers Cruise Reviews

TranAtlantic Crossing West bound.

This was our second trip on the QE 2. We had been on her for five nights in the summer of 1995. That trip was wonderful with only minor problems. This time around for six nights the ship is even older & her problems are major. The public rooms are basically in good shape. I am sure the upper class sections [yes there is an upper class] are in much better shape than the Mauritania Dining Room section. As for the dining room which of course is not quite as fancy as the others like, The Queens Grill, Princess Grill, Caronia Restaurant. This is not to say the Mauritania is bad because that just is not true. The food is quite good, service good, interior decorations very nice. The problem is the cabins in that class of the ship. We were assigned cabin 4050. After being all settled in the cabin we were to discover a non working toilet. Two calls to the Pursers office to report the problem & 1 1/2 hours later we finally have a promise of someone helping us. Mind you we only set sail a short while ago. We are told there is a major water problem in another part of the ship near one of the dining rooms.

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The plumber's needed for our emergency were needed there & could not fix our toilet before the next AM. The Pursers Office suggests that since the ship is not full we use the bathroom in an empty cabin down the hallway until ours can be fixed sometime the next day. I am very surprised at this very bad suggestion. I tell them this just is not acceptable. The next thing we know there is a knock on the cabin door. A man is there & asks if we would like to switch to another cabin. Fred goes down there to check the facilities & being in working condition we decide to switch cabins. With the help of a crew member we pack up & move to cabin 4064. Considering this new cabin is an upgrade with a so called "sitting area" it was a mess. There is no way I would have paid more money for this second cabin. The first cabin was a lower grade but I must say in much better condition [except toilet] & much nicer decorations than our new one. This second cabin was painted tan [very dull], very bad floor plan, had some wall problems with the air duct & was just downright depressing. Well anyway we do settle in & I decide to take a shower. Get into the bathroom & discover the shower head is being held in place with string----yes string. Obviously it had been broken for some time, ignored & put back in place with string. by now it is late the first night & we let it go. In the AM we get a call from the Pursers Office to see how the changed room was. I told them about the shower & two plumber's were sent to the cabin to fix it in a very short time.

Could have been done when it first was found to be broken. For the rest of the six night cruise back to NY we kept mentioning how depressing the cabin was. Another problem was in some of the hallways. Sometimes it was musty, sometimes it was a mildew smell & near the end of the six nights it was the smell of sewage. Whatever the smell, it was very unpleasant passing through each of these areas in the hallways. The ship has a lineage of history, goes back a long way but that is exactly what makes it a very old ship & is due to turn over her crossings to the brand new Queen Mary 2 do to come out in 2004. The QE 2 is do to then cruise just in Europe. I am proud to say that I have cruised on her but this last trip was not nearly as much fun as our first trip. One thing that was really nice & that was the weather for this six night crossing was smooth as glass. Not a sizeable wave from Southampton to NY. Leaving the ship was quite organized & went smoothly.