I recently came home from the Queen Mary 2 New Year's Eve Cruise.

To summarize - for American passengers - give this ship a wide birth. It is expensive, over-crowded, badly air-conditioned, over-hyped, cigarette smoke all over, lousy public rooms, poor excursions, over-priced drinks, and poor cabins.

HOTELS
Avoid at all costs the Wyndham in Fort Lauderdale. It is a dump and fleapit. Stay in Miami.

SHIP INFO
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Huge and over-crowded. The crew are OK, but basically this a Carnival ship in a Cunard disguise. Do not expect anything but feeble attempts to emulate the old Cunard Line.

For $2400 per person, I expected a lot. I did not get it:
1) Breakfast in bed was consistently greasy & bad.
2) The public rooms are small and hot.
3) On New Year's Eve, the ballroom accommodated only 500 people. We could not get in. What a rip-off. We spent the evening in the smoke-filled Golden Lion Pub - what a disappointment.
4)The so-called queen size beds are merely two singles pushed together, with a prominent ridge in the middle.
5) The food in the Brittania is great, but the King's Court Group is shoody, poorly planned, and has the atmosphere of a burger at Wal-mart.
6) Service quite good.
7) On the 4th day of the cruise, Cunard started diluting and under pouring the drinks. I found this unacceptable. Their practice of adding a 15% gratuity and then also leaving space for a tip is ludicrous and dishonest.

I sensed confusion in the crew - often wrong times on the cabin TV, and wrong wakeup calls.

ACTIVITIES
Very poor. Little going on. Prominent spots for religious services.

ENTERTAINMENT
Average, and British oriented. One show was poor. The Royal Court Theatre was too hot.

CABINS
Only just OK. You must bet an in-hull cabin. All others are over-priced or dismal.
Size: OK
Furniture: Beds very poor.. Adequate storage.

The in-cabin TV broke down a lot.

TEA
4pm tea is a joke: only one tea available (English Breakfast). Not hot, but luke-warm. Accompanying sandwiches would not be out of place in a homeless shelter.

DANCES
Outside - only OK. Very expensive drinks.
Inside - OK if you could get in.

EMBARKATION
Good and fairly quick (2 hours)

DISEMBARKATION
Chaotic, poorly planned, and a vacation ruin-er.
Fort Lauderdale airport cannot hold 2000 travelers. We were in line for 5 hours, and made it to our flight with minutes to spare, exhausted.

IN SUMMARY
DON'T EVEN THINK OF CRUISING ON THIS VESSEL.
IT NEARLY RUINED MY MARRIAGE