If you want a cruise with everything "English", pick this ship - lots of formal nights (suits and tie and lots of guys in penguin suits), indifferent staff (with a few very pleasant exceptions) many of whom would walk past and not even make eye contact (in complete contrast to the staff on our last cruise with Holland America who went out of their way to be friendly and pleasant), average food (some good - but outdoor grill food was terrible), and activities frequently disorganised and inefficient (e.g. up to 3.5 hours to get a tender to shore). Evening entertainment shows were excellent, cabin rooms very good but basic and overpriced, and poor value compared to other lines. Tours were reasonable to expensive but really good guides, but at one port ship arranged for all tour buses to get back to port at same time leaving 2000 passengers standing in the sun for up to an hour while 4 tenders struggled to get us back on the boat. We have done several cruises (P & O, Princess, Carnival, Holland America, Avalon) and rate this ship the lowest. Next time, back to Holland America (for sea journey) or Avalon (for river cruise) - both were 5 star. For veranda suite only one restaurant and buffet to chose from, two other restaurants had ridiculous cover charge with limited menu. Read Less

As part of a HoA package from DRW to SIN. Embarkation in DRW was a fiasco as 3hours after boarding we had to disembark to retrieve our passports from immigration, only to be immediately taken off us by a member of crew in the terminal. The terminal was also full of people wanting tax refunds with no clear delineation of which "queue" was which ! Mind you we never needed a Chinese visa, another smart move by NT politicians! Balcony cabin was quite good, 5124. although the tenders were directly below the balcony which obstructed the view a little. Half bottle of champers was appreciated, gave a false impression of what was to come such as paying for a nondescript bottle of Australian water. Samsung TV was a smart TV, however, nobody on board smart enough to fully use its technology, eg., no bill display, no menu displays, no details of going ashore, nada ! In fact the secretariat generated piles of expensive heavy glossy paper, must do wonders for fuel consumption. No welcome aboard at DRW or cocktail invitation, in fact the only welcome aboard was when we returned to the ship in HKG. HKG arrivals also received invites, we did not. Major interest appears to be "Dress code" when what you really want to know is where do we need a tender. There were several "Gala h" evenings for which I wore my Galah tie !!. Had to wear a jacket in the Britannia restaurant. Food, service was excellent although several spelling mistakes on the menus & the Sea Brass, aka Bass, provenance was always from the last port of call, amazing how these Bass get around. Bottle of house red, which was from a good vintners in London, ended up at US$40 a bottle ! We found the Lido cafeteria most acceptable, as always pick your times, avoid 1pm. If you have a "see food" allergy it could be a problem, I see food & eat it ! The answer is to use room service for breakfast at least. Amazingly no extra charge, always arrived on time but often with elements missing, no QC on the trays going out ? Saving grace was the pub which served excellent lunches (no extra charge) with Guinness at US$6.90 a pint. Never bothered with the so called "speciality" restaurant, especially when you see the cover charge. Was neither fish nor fowl & did not offer anything special. One day out the Royal Arcade liquor store had a special so eg 2litres of Famous Grouse for US$42, which kept us going to SIN. All this kerfuffle about taking alcohol onboard is rubbish. We took a bottle of champers in carry on & our bags contained 1 litre of Plax mouthwash which had changed colour, funny that. If your bags are correctly labelled they are whisked away through the x-ray by the handlers Excursions, aka a necessary evil in some places. Nha Trang return to ship was a catastrophe with all the tour buses returning at the same time with just one tender in operation. Enormous queue of people, mostly open to the elements, until someone at least told bus drivers to keep passengers on board with the AC on. Reason given that only facilities for one tender were available. Appears to be a normal problem otherwise how come there were staff distributing cold towels & water? Disembarkation in SIN was a breeze once you eventually got off as the port staff had bags clearly defined by tag & colour, beats BNE hands down. In conclusion, if you are loaded, don't mind spending hours for something to happen when going ashore & into all the social climbing bling then no problem. Otherwise we shall stay with P&O which has a much more egalitarian approach. Read Less

We are in our early 60's and fit and healthy. The Cunard line represented to us elegance, fine dining and an association with the Grand Queens of the Sea. Though there were some good points to the ship including the Common Areas, the Afternoon Tea, Library and some entertainment, the rest of the experience left a lot to be desired. We were in Cabin 6123 Starboard with balcony. We were assigned Britannia early seating. The main food options available are the Britannia Restaurant on Decks 2 and 3 and the Lido Restaurant on Deck 9 which is the main outdoor activity Deck on the ship. The Lido has very poor quality food - think Cafeteria style - with little flavour and no fresh produce, only cold storage items. The Lido restaurant itself looks like an Aged Care Facility with boring pastel shades and Ikea style furniture. The Grill bar out near the pool area again has no decor - just a plain service counter with precooked burgers and battered fish, but mainly batter, available in hamburger buns - just awful. The Britannia Restaurant is the formal dining offering where jackets for men at Dinner are mandatory and where waiters and a Sommelier in attendance. The menu changes daily but hardly any of the dishes were recognisable as chef quality. Some of the dishes were a mystery with the most ridiculous additions that did nothing for the hero of the plate - either fish, lamb or beef. What is the Head Chef thinking? We brought on board our own wine from Australia as we had the foresight to check out the wine prior to boarding. This was a good move, and though we paid $20 US for every bottle opened, at least we got to drink good wine at a reasonable cost. Our sommelier, Roberto was excellent and had a thorough knowledge of wine and his service was impeccable - thank you Roberto. All drinks are expensive on board the ship and you pay in US dollars - add to that a 15% surcharge plus gratuities every day. We did eat at The Golden Lion a few times, and the pub meals were good and at a standard of most pubs in England. The Daily Programme was nothing short of tedious and repeats of the same thing every two or three days. Think trivia challenges. The Gala Evenings (7 in 24 days) were of no consequence. We all put on our finery, went to dinner, went to the show, then came back to the Queen's room and watched a dozen or so of people on the ship who could ball room dance - there was no allowance for any type of other dancing as the floor was taken with Fox Trot, Samba etc. with couples swirling around the whole dance floor. Why have a Ball? Nothing was done to include the 90% of guests in more modern dancing or being part of a 'ball atmosphere". There was dancing in the Yacht club. However, this venue was as dead as a door on the few occasions we visited. 'Under 30's' are scheduled for 10.30 pm (the only under 30's on board are crew) and there's a disco on from mid-night. A 'Beatles' band joined the ship for the remaining 4 nights with the band playing in the Queens Room on the last night and everyone got up and danced and had a great time - the only one night throughout the duration of the 24 days. The lectures - some were interesting and others were terrible - a right royal buffeting of Princess Anne, and World War II British lectures on how the war was won (don't mention the war!) with over 350 Germans on board - goodness know how well that went down with the Germans.... The ship has apparently had an upgrade, but you were hard pressed to tell. We spent a large amount of time on the back verandah near the swimming pool and the condition of the decks, pool surrounds, and rusty areas needs to be attended to immediately. At times, the belching of the smoke from the funnels created great piles of soot deposits which spoilt our clothes and left us covered in black spots - unhealthy to be inhaling too... The windows on the ship always seemed to be dirty so if you were sitting in the Britannia looking out to sea, there were rust and salt encrusted streaks in your vision. The Tender service process was terrible. We managed to finally get ashore at the Whitsundays at quarter to twelve after having milled about in the Queens room with hundreds of people waiting to be called for the Tender. People who had booked tours that day, ended up not doing a different tour because of time constraints. The same process for every Tender port ensued and although there was some improvement in the process, the queues and delays were very frustrating. Oh, and to top it off, and notwithstanding the crew's best efforts with hand sanitisers, a flu like bug went through the ship which had people coughing incessantly. Difficult to stop once it starts. Perhaps food handling in the kitchens needs tighter control given we observed on one occasion when the kitchen doors were open one of the 'chefs' coughing into his hands then handling food without washing and sanitising his hands. Read Less