By way of context this holiday was to celebrate my husband’s 60th birthday and we chose this particular cruise (V614B for 7 nights in western med) because all the stops would be new to us and because we wanted to try a Cunard. We booked a Q3 Penthouse Queens grill suite as soon as bookings opened.

Pre-cruise customer service was poor. The email query facility was withdrawn with no explanation so all enquiries had to be made to the contact centre which was woefully understaffed (on several occasion I had to wait for nearly an hour). At the time of booking, we were told that our preferred stateroom was only available to those on cruises of 14 days or more, though in a follow up call some months later we were told it had been freed up so we were able to swap. The cruise Personaliser was made available early but we did not receive an automated email advising us and the Website was regularly down so by the time we could access the Verandah restaurant was already sold out for my husband’s birthday.

Travel and embarkation. We felt it would be safer and smoother to ask Cunard to arrange. Charter flights exclusive to Cunard were via Titan. Very poor experience on a par or worse than most cheap bucket and spade flights. There was no facility to pre-book seats, though at check-in we had pre-allocated seats which were good. Choice of two free sandwiches on board (same selection both ways) with tea and coffee served in plastic cups. Lots of confusion over the transfer but ended up sharing a minibus with another couple. Return journey was worse. Transfer was by coach which seemed a bit penny pinching and the check-in desks were woefully undermanned when all the coaches arrived together (took around an hour). We didn’t get the usual embarkation photos and the response when we asked about this the next day was “we were there for the first 400 people but you must have been one of the 200 who embarked after 1600”. Read more