We don't really like big ships, but pretty much got what we expected from this Cunard cruise in an A2 balcony cabin with the Britannia restaurant: A modern ship fitted out to a high standard and kept immaculate, good food but not excellent, service generally of a high standard but patchy, professional entertainment, good accommodation with good size cabins but small bathrooms. However let down by a general feeling of being somewhat ripped off resulting from the determined efforts of Cunard to get you to pay for as much as possible as extras. We met many very loyal Cunard passengers who thought the standard of everything was very high, but I couldn't help but feel that they had been convinced by the Cunard hype, and / or not having tried the lines with even higher standards (Silversea, Seabourn, Regent, for instance) they simply don't realise what they are missing. However a few people seemed to think things have gone downhill a bit since their first experiences on Queen Victoria, and several felt the excursions are priced too high - we simply didn't bother with the Cunard excursion programme at all.

The dining experience was "OK" but I really don't like the fixed dinner sitting idea (though I accept it is probably the only way to manage things on such a big ship) and it is a bit disappointing that you would have to pay extra to use the 'alternative' dining experiences - Lido speciality or Todd English. The menu choices are very traditional British and not what I would describe as 5 star. One of us doesn't eat meat, and I felt the meat (choice and quality) was probably superior to the choice and quality for a non-meat eater.

The service at dinner after the first couple of meals moved from good to excellent for our table of 8. We were blessed with a waiter and junior waiter who were both very good (better at their jobs than some of the more senior dining room staff). They remembered who didn't want ice in their water, who wanted a cappuccino after dinner, and any mistakes in serving were rare. The same couldn't be said for breakfast service, where one waiter that we had a couple of times was plain rude and offhand, smoked haddock was dried out by the time it was served, and one lady got the wrong eggs three days running. Read more