Queen Mary 2’s cheapest cabin: a review

The Queen Mary 2 (QM2): an absolute icon on the water. This ship has turned the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from a standard transit to a world-famous passenger shipping route. I was fortunate enough to get onboard in December 2023 for the 7-night crossing, starting at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal (New York, USA), and finishing in Southampton, England. I’ll tell you more about the journey and overall experience at a later date, but in this post today, I’m going to show you my cabin, which was a little inside cabin up on Deck 5. Here’s the cabin on paper - you can see the front of the ship on the left of the below picture, and the back (or aft, in ship-speak) on the right side. My cabin’s highlighted using the red box:

So, how was this location ‘on paper’? To be honest, this is one of the best cabins ‘on paper’ that I had throughout all of my cruises last year - both Decks 4 and 6 (so both above and below) are mirror images in this section, and so there are other passenger cabins surrounding mine on all sides. As you’ll know from my YouTube channel, I always recommend people aim to surround their cabin with others if they’re booking a fare that allows them to do so - it’s usually much quieter this way! This cabin is also really nicely located for elevators - as you’ve got banks of elevators so close on both sides, it could be assumed that the only people walking down your corridor as those who have either a) booked a cabin in this exact area or b) got lost and took the wrong elevator back to their cabin…

The final ‘on paper’ point that made this cabin great was the location in comparison to public venues. While there were cabins above and below, the public spaces were up on Deck 7, then down on Deck 3 and below. This meant that, at any given time, you weren’t ever really more than two decks away from where you’d want to be, meaning that it was far more likely you’d just walk up or down the stairs, instead of waiting for the elevator to come every time - good news from an exercise point of view, right?!

Anyway, what did the actual cabin look like? Before I show you some photos, it’s important to adjust your expectations if you’ve never cruised with Cunard before. If you’re used to the modern megaships, that isn’t Cunard’s vibe, and it’s certainly not what the QM2 aims to deliver. Instead, you should be expecting something far more traditional, with a more luxurious feel. So, here’s my cabin:

Now, while this cabin doesn’t set the world alight and get me so excited I can barely sleep, there are a few elements worth talking about…

From an overall decor point of view, I do really like the look and feel of this space. For those who didn’t follow my journey over on Instagram, the ship itself had undergone a HUGE refurbishment before I got onboard, and the public spaces were looking spectacular. I did feel that this refurb potentially made these cabins (I really should call them staterooms, as Cunard would say) look much more dated as the public areas were modernised so nicely. On that note, if you’d like to check out the public areas onboard Queen Mary 2, you can do so via my full ship tour - here’s the link:

Basic ‘look and feel’ aside, this is a really functional space. I love when I’ve got multiple seating options in a cabin, and this is the case in here - I could opt for the bed, the chair at the desk, or the chair by the side table. This little table may seem pointless when you first see it, but it really opens up options - it serves as your dining table, should you opt for in-room dining at any point during your time onboard (and you really must - it’s so good with Cunard based on my experience). It’s commonplace nowadays that the desks on ships are accompanied with a little (usually really uncomfortable) stool to sit on when over there, but you’ll notice in the above pictures that it’s a proper chair with a back on it in this room. That would be your second chair for the little side table - remember this is a cabin for two people, even if I was travelling solo.

Let’s move to think about the next point: storage. As someone who tends to complete most of their cruises solo, I’m often surprised by the storage options in a cruise ship room, as I can often fill the space with just my things - I’m often left wondering how on Earth someone else would ever fit their things into that cabin alongside mine… However, on Cunard, there’s loads of space - that whole wall over by the TV has some great storage options! This was one of the first cabins I’ve been in where I didn’t stand a chance at filling the cupboards and drawers - well played, Cunard! One area of storage I particularly loved was the open sections above the bed on either side. I usually wouldn’t know what to store here, but before I started travelling last year, my friends and family had given me some cards when I was preparing to leave. This area then served as the perfect place to store stuff like this, as I could be reminded of everyone every single day, without needing to put them all out on the desk!

The next plus-point about this cabin? The lighting! If you’ve read my review from my inside cabin onboard Rhapsody of the Seas, you’ll remember that one of my peeves was that it felt like quite a dark space at times, which really emphasised the fact there was no natural daylight coming in from the outside. In this Cunard cabin, there were so many lights, that the place never felt dark! Their choice of lamps on either side of the bed also made it really easy to ambient light the space - it was really great to be able to have only the bedside lamps on while watching a movie, for example, rather than lighting the whole room.

Ok, you get the picture, I liked the cabin overall. However, let’s dive into a little more detail and look at some of the things that really need to be looked at in here. First up, let’s open those drawers and see what’s inside…

There’s not much to report from inside the wardrobes and drawers (yes, there were quite a lot of scuffs/marks, but this is just ‘wear and tear’ on a ship that’s no longer fresh off of the production line), but look at this hair dryer. It’s clear that a previous guest must have accidentally left this ‘on’ in the drawer, which has resulted in quite a mess in there, and the hairdryer itself is essentially out of action. After reporting this to Guest Services / Reception, I was horrified to have the accusation pointed in my direction, with it being stated very clearly at Guest Services that it was obviously myself who had chosen to vandalise the cabin. After a discussion (which involved me repeatedly pointing at my head - who needs a hairdryer anyway when they have hair as short as mine?), it was decided that I wasn’t at fault (I know, thank goodness - right?), and the hairdryer would be replaced, and this happened 2 days later.

Next up, let’s move into the bathroom…

Ok, there’s not much in here for me to talk about, other than the fact it’s a much more old-fashioned space than the cabin itself. Don’t worry, I’m not going to complain about the shower curtain - I appreciate that there are ‘bigger fish to fry’ sometimes, so here’s my ‘bigger fish’… The sink in here was one of the most ‘worn’ sinks I’ve seen in a good while on ships (and I’ve spent some time on some OLD ships over the past few years!). Let me show you a closer photo - it’s somehow managed to get really heavily marked, and there are also quite a few chips out of the sink itself:

Let me be really clear - I may be having a moan about a broken hairdryer, the management of that situation, and a cracked and quite ‘dirty-looking’ sink in the bathroom, but I did really enjoy staying in this cabin. For my week of crossing the Atlantic with Cunard, my total base cruise fare came in at £1,048 (about $1,400), which I did think was really good value for this type of experience.

I’ll share more with you from my time onboard the QM2 in future articles, but I really hope you’ve enjoyed getting some insight to my cabin for my time onboard. If you’ve enjoyed, it would be amazing if you’d come back and check out my future posts as I’m trying to continually update things around here. If you would like to keep ‘up to date’ with everything ‘Fraser at Sea’, then all you need to do is sign up for my newsletter - you can do that by heading to the ‘sign up now’ button at the top of your screen!

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