Christmas on Cunard - a ‘hit’ or a ‘miss’?

A secret aspect of my life that I’ll let you in on is that I absolutely LOVE Christmas, and the whole festive season. There’s something about the dark, cold nights combined with the warm, bright lights that I absolutely LOVE. From early November, I’ll start the process of decorating my house (early, I know!) with the outside lights always turning on for December 1st - I just love it. You can imagine my absolute delight when I realised that I’d be able to use the QM2 to take me home at the end of my stint of US-based cruising mid-December, meaning there was a high chance that it would be decorated for Christmas!

I wasn’t disappointed - the ship wasn’t only fully decorated for the season, but it was also fresh out of ‘dry dock’ (in other words, it had just been refurbished), so it was looking absolutely spectacular! In this post, I’m going to talk to you about the Christmas festivities onboard Queen Mary 2 - is it worth the risk of colder (and rougher) seas to experience some of what’s available onboard, or would I suggest you give it a miss? Well, let’s get started…

It makes perfect sense to kick off this post thinking about dates. I boarded the ship in New York on December 8th and disembarked in Southampton on December 15th. I spoke to so many people onboard who were delighted to see the ship looking festive, as they had been worried that Cunard might save the decorating until we left the ship, as the next cruise would be the week before Christmas itself, so maybe a real treat for those passengers? However, when boarding the ship, one thing was apparent: it was CHRISTMAS onboard - here’s the main atrium:

I know - beautiful, right?! The feeling of boarding this ship into this atrium is something I will NEVER forget. The last time I was totally overwhelmed on embarkation was my first experience of the big Royal Caribbean ships, but that’s a very different feeling. With that, I was amazed at the scale, and was so happy to get to experience it, but with this it felt like stepping into an environment I never thought I’d get to experience (Cunard’s always been quite far out of my price range as a solo traveller as they tend to operate with the full ‘double fare’ approach for the solo traveller market.

Next, let’s talk about the volume of decorations.

If you’re like me, then you’ll apply the logic of ‘more is more’ when it comes to Christmas decorations (yes, I probably should apologise to my neighbours across the road from my lights mid-December, ha!). Cunard seem to have applied this approach too, with huge Christmas trees in almost every public area, garlands across so many of the interior railings, and even festive foliage hanging from the wall lights - I was so impressed! Here’s a quick glimpse into the nutcrackers who ‘guarded’ the gangway area, and also the gorgeous Queens Room trees:

So, Cunard certainly ‘ticked the box’ in terms of decorating the ship, but what about the overall experience? Was there anything additional on this pre-Christmas cruise that made it feel festive?

Well, I’ve been on ships before over the festive season where there’s been ‘Christmas Markets’ on the pool deck, curling rinks on the promenade (yes, really!) and mulled wine stations throughout the ship (who doesn’t love a mulled wine on a cold December afternoon?!), but sadly none of this was on Cunard. It’s my one criticism of the ship - it didn’t feel like there was a huge ‘build up to Christmas’, despite the fact that so many of the passengers were absolutely loving the decorations. the above are just some suggestions of what I’ve seen on other ships (the examples above are all actually from cruise lines which operate at a MUCH lower price point than Cunard, so I was a little disappointed with their oversight in this area).

Now, to say there was nothing going on is an over-exaggeration, and would also be unfair. The reality is that there were some signs of life around Christmas, but nowhere near what there could have been. Let me offer you 2 examples!

First up, throughout a couple of our afternoons, Cunard had some crew members positioned in the atrium to serve as a little Christmas choir (and yes, thank goodness they did choose crew members who could sing…!). This was such a beautiful thing to stumble across while walking throughout the ship - a great idea from Cunard that I haven’t seen before!

The second element to highlight is gingerbread. A few days into our Transatlantic, I went for a walk after breakfast one morning to find an AMAZING gingerbread display directly outside the Golden Lion pub, just along from the main atrium. Before boarding this ship, I was on Holland America’s Rotterdam, and they installed a similar display on the last week of my cruise (I was on there for 21 nights), so it was really interesting to see that Cunard obviously do some of their decorating MUCH later than other lines. This got me thinking - although there weren’t too many festive events on my cruise, maybe this was being held until the following week, as suspected above… Anyway, let me show you the display on QM2:

The final point I would make about being on the ship in the run up to Christmas is that the crew were on absolute ‘top form’, and Christmas was absolutely on their agenda. It was so lovely to speak to so many crew members who were talking about the next couple of weeks, and how delighted they were to see the ship starting to turn festive. I also met quite a number of crew who were delighted to talk about Christmas, and also the gifts they’d bought for their children back home - absolutely heart-warming!

So, would I recommend cruising around Christmas time with Cunard? Yes - absolutely! I’ve been on ships that offer a lot more on the topic of Christmas, but I’ve never seen it executed so beautifully - everything about the experience on Queen Mary 2 was stunning, and something that I absolutely hope to experience again in my lifetime.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this post - if you’d like to see more of how the ship was decorated for the Christmas season, then head over to my YouTube channel and have a look at my ship tour - in that video, you’ll see LOTS of Christmas trees, in addition to the other decorations - the link’s below!