Just a few random notes from a first-time cruiser which will hopefully be of help to other first-timers by answering a few questions.

First, should you travel transatlantic? One of the things that has often made me discard the idea of cruising is the rapid-fire way in which one sees destinations - arriving in the early hours of the morning and pulling out again around 05.00 pm in the afternoon. None of that on the QM2! Instead, you have six nights to make use of the facilities of this massive floating resort. The size really is a major surprise...quickly followed by other surprises such as the excellent food, amusing entertainment, great conferences, endless opportunities to learn new things, lots of dancing (we love ballroom dancing) and, above all, the way in which the staff really works hard to make every moment a pleasure. I would wholeheartedly recommend the QM2 to anyone above the age of 20, preferably in couples and (this is important)English speaking. Everything on the boat happens in English and we occasionally encountered people whose handling of English was rudimentary and who, frankly, must have found this a big disadvantage.

Second, what kind of cabin (or stateroom, as Cunard rather pompously called it)should one choose? Obviously, money is an issue here and many people reading this may not choose to spend the kind of money required for a Princess or Queen suite. That was our case and we didn't regret our choice. The key thing about the choice of room is that it determines in which restaurant you eat. All of the non-suite people (i.e. the majority)eat in the Britannia restaurant. The food is excellent but the problem comes with seating for dinner. Even though the place is palatial, it's not big enough to hold everyone for dinner in one shot. So, when booking, you have to choose between eating at 18:00 (which I find too early) or 20:30 (which is rather late). However, if this restaurant is your choice, I would recommend choosing the late sitting for the westbound crossing (when you get 1 hour of extra sleep every night so that when you arrive in New York you are on local time) and the early sitting when travelling eastbound (when you lose 1 hour every night). This allows you to follow dinner with some entertainment or dancing and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. Read more