We joined the Eastern leg of the South American voyage on March 22, 2006 in Valparaiso. The embarkation process was very smooth, it was not very crowded and we were registered and on the bus to the ship in about 20 minutes. The Cunard desk personnel had given us very accurate information at our hotel in Santiago about when and how to register and, due to following this information, we were delighted that this was not the horrible experience that we had read about occurring on other QM2 cruises.

(However, we learned later that my credit card had not been properly registered, so all the charges for things such as shore excursions were on my roommates bill. It was not a big problem, but seemed like something that could have been corrected sooner so that we wouldnt have had to spend time at the pursers office sorting things out later.)

We were pleasantly surprised to learn that we had been upgraded to an A1 stateroom upon embarkation. No idea how it happened, but the quality of the room certainly made the cruise that much more enjoyable. There really is nothing to compare to the view from your room with the transparent balcony  there were several days at sea that the sunrise and sunset were spectacular and the experience was greatly enhanced by the improved visibility. We were also lucky to have a port side stateroom, which given the direction of our cruise (eastbound) assured us the maximum ability to see shoreline and really enjoy sail away and other such events. Read more