Cunard: 8 Things You Didn’t Know You Needed To Know!

here's one of the most puzzling things about Cunard these American dollars they're the onboard currency on Cunard a line that makes much of its roots and Heritage in Britain it names its ships after British Queens it serves up British Fair British entertainment and even has traditional British pubs on board welcome aboard I'm Gary bembridge you're about to discover why they use American dollars and seven other interesting things about Cunard although Cunard originated in Britain it's lost a lot of that in many ways it's been owned by the U.S Carnival Corporation since the late 1990s so that means it sits alongside other of their Cruise Lines including Holland America princess Seabourn and many others on board I'm always struck by how few of the crew are actually from the UK now while some of the senior officers are often British that's not true across the board even with the senior crew plus most other crew members are from countries is like India Indonesia South America and the Philippines just like on pretty much every other Cruise Line the US dollar is used on board because of course it's a Carnival corporation-owned Cruise Line very U.S Centric the passenger nationality on board though is very mixed and they sail very International itineraries more on that later because that's important the overall program though I do find to be very British and even the spelling in the daily program is UK English the guest entertainers are British and there's usually a variety of other things like afternoon tea on board that again are uniquely British unlike other lines which are British based though cunardo found is way easier for international travelers to book if you look at some other UK based lines like Saga Pinot cruises and Fred Olsen it's almost impossible as a non-citizen to book those cruises Q naught on the other hand has International sales offices around the world and actively promotes itself to Travelers from countries like the United States Canada Japan Germany Australia and on and on now building on that something I really like and you need to know about Cunard is they offer a slightly different approach on itineraries compared to most other cruise lines and they have two unique key features first of all Q naught is the only Cruise Line in the world that has a scheduled transatic service which runs roughly from April to October that's on board the Queen Mary 2 between Southampton and New York a fantastic trip I love doing it they also offer a variety of longer World Voyage sailings including total World circumnavigations cuno by the way first ever World Cruise was aboard Laconia in 1922 and that setting was really instrumental in how the line still thinks exotic and Global to this very day now for example I recently got off Queen Elizabeth and it was heading down after my cruise to offer cruises all around Australia Japan then heading on to Alaska before returning to the UK so aside from world cruises these kind of world voyages are a key part of Cunard another thing I find most people get confused by and don't understand is the class system now I believe cunot is not nearly as class driven as people think it is let me explain so I'm too not there's four grades of cabins Britannia which includes inside Ocean View and balcony cabins Britannia club which is a premium or kind of elevated balcony cabin then there's princess Grill which are kind of mini suites and then there's Queens Grill which are the more premium suite experiences now the gray determines which restaurant you eat in the grill restaurants are very fancy you can order a la carte but you can also order exotic things like Dover soil and chatterbrian to order you can order off menu and you can even have caviar however there are very few venues beyond the restaurants that those grills passengers have as a perk that other passengers on board can't also use for example there's a small Lounge a deck not a particularly big one it's a concierge and there's priority and location to some vocation that is it this is very different to the likes of celebrity MSC and Norwegian which have huge ships within ships for their sweet guests this is not the case on two note I'd say pretty much about 95 percent or more of the ship is open to everybody by the way if you want to know why it's called Princess Grill and queen's Grill you could watch this video it's a members only bonus video so but by becoming a member you could find out that another thing I think you probably should know about Cunard is that the perception largely driven by the original QE2 and now the queen married to is that Q not have one-of-a-kind ships it's just not true unfortunately the Queen Mary 2 is unique though she's a one-off she's the only true ocean liner that's selling today however Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria are Vista class ships and this class of ship pops up on many other cruise lines in the carnival group including Carnival itself piano cruises and 100 America cunard's new ship Queen Anne is a pinnacle-class ship and this is based on Holland America's conning's Dam there is though one aspect of Cunard that makes it one of a kind and that is that all the Lion's ships have been named by the royal family including the late Queen Elizabeth and now the queen consult Camilla another thing I think you need to know about Cunard pertains to the ship's iconic features so this includes the Majestic Grand Lobby that exists across all of the fleet the Queen's room which is the ship's Ballroom this is a large spectacular space it's on every ship and is home to key on board events including dancing and afternoon tea for example You'll Always Find a magnificent two-level Britannia restaurant which is the main dining room where about 80 to 85 percent of passengers eat it's Grand it's Art Deco inspired it has big murals it really has a wow factor and I really do love that room the library is also an important feature of Canard ships the one I'll be married to for example has over 10 000 books and the others have around 6 000 books hugely impressive I love these libraries they're all called theater is another key venue which on the Elizabeth and the Victoria feature traditional theater boxes I also love a couple of other iconic venues like the golden line Pub the Corinthia Cafe Lounge The Veranda grills restaurant the only specially dining restaurant on board kunant ships Cunard also has a few iconic events in the daily program that are fundamental to the line these are actually the reasons that I always have a great time on board I love these first of all it's all about dancing and you'll find dancing classes during the day in the evening you'll find a live Orchestra performing in the Queen's room for ballroom dancing there are even gentlemen hosts for those passengers who want to do ballroom dancing and don't have a partner and during a cruise you can also expect things like a black and white board a roaring 20s ball which focuses here in the Queen's room by the way there's also a Royal Court theater band that supports theatrical performances so there's a lot of musicians on board the second big thing is afternoon tea every day hundreds of people go to the Queen's room in the afternoon for this event it really is quite spectacular I'm always Blown Away by it and I love it the third thing that they have is inside lectures on every single cruise they normally have three speakers so for example on my recent cruise on Queen Elizabeth they had a past press secretary to the late Queen Elizabeth a former Concord pilot and an English historian I've also been on trips with famous actresses and authors and even a police detective who caught a renowned British serial killer the other thing that people think they know about Cunard but they don't is the dress code now personally I found the dress code is not nearly as stuffy as it was but they do still have some elements of a dress code and do enforce it so most nights are smart attire so men can wear trousers it can even be smart jeans and a colored shirt which could be a short sleeve one ladies can then wear blouses skirts stylish trousers or dresses Gala evening which used to be called formal night encourages all of us when we're on board to dress to impress men dinner jackets tuxedo dark suit and tie a bow tie ladies evening or cocktail dresses formal separates as I believe they're called however what's important to know is unlike other cruise lines to get into your main dining room on Gola night you have to follow that dress code they are really strict on Gola night so on those nights in fact on any nights when the ship turns into this magnificent event with everyone dressed up it's really special but if you want to sit on qnot and not dress up you can still do that as I'm asked as often if you do want to dress very casually including shorts you can go in the evenings to the little buffet restaurant The Golden Lion Pub the casino Cafe Corinthia and the yacht club which is the nightclub by the way so there's quite a few places you can go and not follow the dress code the other thing you may not know about Cunard is they are incredibly good at dealing with three very specific different types of traveler groups that people are surprised about I'm often asked about these groups and if they're suitable for q9 so I did want to talk about them so first of all for decades Q naught has been a great choice for solo Travelers they have Solo Traveler meetups on board because so many solar guests cruise with Cunard me included sometimes they have some sort of cabins which means you can avoid a large surcharge this is open to not a slightly younger audience but they're not very many of them and you do have to plan far ahead the second thing is there is a perception that Q naught is very conservative and that they are not welcoming of gay lesbian bisexual or transgender Travelers this is not at all true based on what I've seen and observed Cunard attracts a large number of LGBT Travelers in fact the LGBT Meetup which is held every day has more people attending than on any other Cruise Line I have ever seen it's actually a pretty big event now the third area is around kids and Families Two nod ships do have kids clubs they're not particularly expansive and they tend to focus and be most active within very specific holiday periods school vacation Christmas and so on so for example I've been on the Queen Mary 2 to the Caribbean at Christmas and they've been probably up up to 300 kids on board but because they ramp up the kids areas I didn't really notice just the number of kids on board however in my opinion Cunard still is not the best choice of line for kids it's so focused on enrichment afternoon tea and all those kind of activities in my view it's not the best kid environment now if you want to know more about Cunard and particularly the transatlantic crossings watch this video where I talk about Queen Mary 2 and the things that everybody should know starting with the thing that will transform your transatlantic Cruise as it did for mine see you over there

Channel: Tips For Travellers

Views: 57,838

Keywords: cruise tips, tips for travellers, Gary Bembridge tips for travellers, Gary Bembridge, Cruise Tips For Travellers, CUNARD, cunard queen elizabeth, cunard queen mary 2, cunard queen victoria, cunard cruise, cunard line, cunard queen anne, cunard transatlantic crossing, cunard line ships, cunard cruise line, cunard ships, tips for travellers cunard, gary bembridge cunard, cruise tips and tricks

Id: dfI2wm_Qvj4

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 26 2022