Queen Mary 2 (QM2) Review

Princess/Celebrity cruisers try the QM2 with 16 and 12 year old DD's

Review for Transatlantic Cruise on Queen Mary 2 (QM2)
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junglejane
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jun 2013
Cabin: Balcony, sheltered
Traveled with children

We’re a family of four consisting of me, DH, DD16 and DD12. Prior to this trip, we’d taken 13 family cruises, including 3 European cruises. The vast majority of our cruises have been on Princess and Celebrity. For years we had wanted to try a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2. We decided to take the June 1 eastbound crossing, and to bookend the trip with 4 nights in Manhattan and 6 nights in London. We knew that June 1 would be earlier than most kids and teens would be out of school, but the date was the only one that worked out on our schedule. The trip culminated 18 months of planning by DH, including the accumulation of lots of frequent flier points and converting other points to subsidize our hotel stays. DH just loves this type of planning and gets all the credit for the logistical success of our trip.

PRE-CRUISE VISIT TO NEW YORK: We stayed at the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central Terminal where we had two connecting rooms. This proved to be a very convenient location. We had taken the family to Manhattan in 2010, when we did many of the “must do” first time visitor experiences, like Top of the Rock, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Met, carriage ride in Central Park, etc. This time we took a more leisurely pace and tried to spend more time soaking in the big city ambiance. One fun thing we did was taking the self guided audio tour of Grand Central Terminal, which was educational and entertaining. We also went to the new 9/11 memorial, toured the Frick Collection, and went to the MOMA and the Natural History Museum. We also spent a fair amount of time wandering through Central Park, and walking down Fifth Avenue. We took the girls to see “Peter and the Star-Catcher” which was totally hilarious. The girls and I managed to get in a little shopping as well. We got around through a combination of walking, subway and taxis.

EMBARKATION/CABIN/SAILAWAY: Finally Saturday, June 1 dawned and it was time to board the ship. Embarkation went smoothly. We boarded the ship by about 2:00 pm. We had Cabin 4195 (a BD balcony cabin in the aft starboard section of Deck 4), and 4197 (an ID inside cabin directly across the hall) for the girls. The only negative thing I would say about our cabins is that the girls’ inside cabin got a fair amount of noise from the Queen’s Room at night. I was glad we had picked a sheltered balcony. We were blessed with placid weather for this crossing, and I enjoyed walking out on the balcony to look at the ocean. On the other hand, I didn’t feel bad about not having one of the higher up glass-fronted balconies, since it wasn’t warm enough to linger on the balcony and there wasn’t much to see except endless ocean.

Cabin Review

Balcony, sheltered

Cabin BD
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