While eating breakfast one day in the QM2's Britannia Restaurant on a crossing from Southampton to New York, I had an experience that captured many of my reactions to this ship. My partner and I had decided to forego our usual morning run through the buffet in favor of something more pampered, and we opted to sit at a 6-person table rather than eat alone. Among the passengers already seated was a wiry, sixty-something, somewhat-weathered, vaguely-upmarket British woman and her husband. Her order included fruit salad, and when it arrived she was not pleased: it consisted entirely of two types of melon, when what she had expected were additional ingredients like pineapple, strawberries and grapes. She lectured the server vigorously and with an edge, pointing out that she knew well that there were other types of fruit on board because she had seen them at the buffet line. The server explained that this was what was had been prepared for that meal, but she was rough with him and would have none of it. He took it back from her and retreated. By now neither my partner nor I was feeling comfortable, and I noticed that one of the other two people at the table was getting a bit squirmy. The woman's husband was mute; we were sure he'd been through scenes such as this before, poor thing. The waiter may have been gone by now but the woman still had more to say, and so she turned to the rest of us to point out the weakness of the tea. This led (inevitably, because I suspect it's really where she was looking for an excuse to go all along) to the observation that Cunard is not really a British liner anymore -- the tea would have been better in the old days. She then moved on from food, reminding us that the recognized currency on the ship is now the US dollar, not the British pound, as it once had been -- a pity. I don't know where she might have taken us next, but we were saved when the waiter reappeared with exactly what she had wanted in the first place. She was thrilled, triumphant, transformed, and thanked him profusely. The meal could finally proceed, even if the mood were grim.

Whenever anyone asks me what it was like to travel on the QM2, I can't help but think of that breakfast, which serves as both launching pad and repeated reference point for this review. It certainly raised some matters that were central to my own QM2/Cunard experience. First and most important is that this little drama took place in a restaurant (actually, I'd call it a dining room, but more on that later), and the issue was a problem that someone had with her food. This piece is, in fact, very much about eating, and I think that's appropriate, for say what you will about the service, entertainment, spa, casino or lounges: on any big ship, it's basically about the food. This is especially true on a transatlantic voyage where there are no ports of call between points of departure and destination, and therefore nowhere other than the ship to eat or pass the hours of the day. Many, if not most, of the crew is there to support the creation, delivery and cleanup of food. For those passengers unskilled at finding ways to amuse themselves, say by reading, playing bridge, or going to movies or the gym (and there are more than a few of these), eating is the main event of the day. Nor should we forget all of the time spent talking about the food and dressing for dinner. Cunard's pre-sailing literature could not be more clear on this: "Dining on board a Cunard ocean liner is one of the greatest thrills that awaits you." They have set the bar high, they throw everything at it, and we have every right to think first of food when we evaluate the shipboard experience. This is a happy situation for someone like me who enjoys eating well and cooking for others, and who has also worked in professional kitchens; writing a food-focused review of the QM2 is an agreeable task that Cunard has invited by its pitch.

To be clear, then, this isn't a blanket review of the entire sailing experience, but given the degree to which the quality of the dining experience drives the overall perception of a voyage, the focus on eating seems reasonable. Specifically avoided was any attempt at a thorough discussion of service on this ship, except where necessary in the context of eating. Service is not a minor issue, but to get into that would make an already very long piece much longer and distract from the main point. Besides, there is no lack of opinion on this in other reviews, and anyone seriously thinking about traveling on Cunard should consult those for more information. I'll dismiss the entire topic by noting that the service was so uniformly good that if I could spend the rest of my life being treated as I was on the QM2, I would die a very happy man. What I knew at the outset of this task, and what became even more apparent the more I worked, however, is that eating is about much more than food, and so in the end I found that I could not feel that I had done the matter justice without allowing myself to stray now and again. Service couldn't be entirely avoided, for example, since food is served, but then there are the issues of class and dress: for me, they all came together and I wasn't happy until I had herded them all into same discussion. Read more