This was our first Cunard cruise although we have been on many others (15+), mostly Princess and Holland America. We thought the ship was beautiful, lots of wood and marble and sparkling clean. Our balcony cabin was lovely but typical of prior balcony cabins on other ships. Embarkation at Yokohama couldn't have been smoother, and we were in our cabin right away with luggage arriving soon after. We booked excursions at every port online, months before the trip, and we and our son and daughter-in-law traveling with us enjoyed them all.

We had a table for 4 in the Britannia Restaurant and had a wonderful waiter and his assistants. The meals were very good, and we had no complaints. The Lido Restaurant was another matter as it was not particularly user friendly. Upon entering you have to walk the length of the restaurant to pick up your tray and silverware and then it's on a line for the main meal, a line for bread and rolls and another line for drinks. Breakfast was ordinary compared to to other cruises, and lunch did not have the items we usually look for (sandwiches, wraps, salads) but rather heavy dinner type meals. Towards the end of the cruise we discovered the Lido Grille for hamburgers and hot dogs. The Golden Lion had nice British type pub meals.

To be fair the ship did have a Noro virus issue which did not affect us personally but may have led to some of the problems on the Lido deck and also a large Japanese contingent that required areas in the restaurant for Japanese food. Read more