Queen Mary 2: $166m refit aims for younger crowd
The reborn classic ship aims to lure new generations aboard.
The butler’s pantry aboard Queen Mary 2 is a hive of activity. Pinstriped professionals drift effortlessly past one another, conveying breakfast trays with the poise and elan of acrobats. The aides-memoire on the wall are wonderfully precise. How to tie a bow tie? Naturally. But also how to knot an Ascot, care for nubuck leather and “present” champagne, because there’s nothing as uncouth as “serving” bubbly on Cunard’s celebrated flagship.
A timer next to a teapot rings. “Two minutes and 50 seconds,” declares Pierre, the head butler. “The perfect cup of tea. If you get tea wrong, you get everything wrong.”
If there’s one thing Cunard usually gets right, it’s luxury. This is the company, after all, that took a cow on its first transatlantic crossing in 1840 to guarantee fresh milk for the passengers’ tea. It’s also the line that sailed to occupied France during World War II to pick up champagne for a different group of thirsty guests.
Now, as then, Cunard’s feted “White Star Service” is synonymous with going above and beyond. Or, as one white-gloved officer says, “If we can, we will.”
So it’s no surprise the $US132 million ($166m) refurbishment of QM2, completed just over a year ago, is, well, luxurious.
I sail during the famous liner’s second round-the-world voyage since its comprehensive “remastering”, and find the ambitious upgrade discernible from bow to stern. This has been not so much a facelift as full reconstructive surgery. Not only has it taken years off the Queen, but has no doubt served as a useful prelude to the subsequent refit of her sister ship, Queen Victoria.
The interior isn’t the only place the years have disappeared. Whisper it, but QM2’s passengers have been getting younger too. No longer dominated by seafaring septuagenarians, the average age is now closer to 60. And if my six days spent sailing from Singapore to Colombo are anything to go by, there’s a small but curious band of millennials weighing down the demographic anchor.
Cunard makes no secret of targeting a younger audience, a policy that has already garnered success with QM2’s popular Transatlantic Fashion Week. I get the impression the extensive refurbishment, the most ambitious since Cunard was founded in 1838, was conceived with an eye on this audience too.
In a nod to the current solo travel trend being driven by young professionals, the refit saw 15 single staterooms added for the first time, and they are impressive, with deceptively large beds and glass-fronted showers. The tired conservatory-style Winter Garden was ripped out and replaced with the sleek Carinthia Lounge, which resembles the bar of a five-star city hotel. Even Kings Court, home to the ship’s 24-hour buffet, enjoyed a refit along the lines of a fashionable London bistro.
My overall impression is the refurb is less of a “remastering”, more of a full-on Dr Who-style regeneration. Ultimately it’s the same old ship, but younger, more attractive and more appealing to a wider audience.
Of course, aside from transatlantic crossings, ports continue to punctuate proceedings. Roughly every other day we are forced to tear ourselves away from the luxurious new decks and explore terra firma. But excursions are unstuffy, and easily adapted to both age and taste.
Don’t fancy being stuck on a tour bus for two hours with somebody else’s parents? No problem. In George Town, the colourful capital of Malaysia’s Penang, there’s an option to take a rickshaw tour of lively street art, which proves a rich vein of Instagram gold.
Likewise in Singapore, we are free to explore the resurgent cocktail scene in far greater depth than more senior passengers manage with their pink slings at Raffles.
Finally, in Colombo, we seize the chance to skip the textbook tour and simply chill on a palm-fringed private beach.
So why have millennials and their near-neighbours of Generation X never embraced high-end cruising in significant numbers before now? Speaking as one, I believe it suits us perfectly as a comfortable, stylish way to see the world with maximum gain for minimum pain. Simply unpack, find a cocktail and a hot tub and watch the countries unfold, while snapping it all on your phone. All you have to worry about is picking the right filter.
Not that everything here is the sail of the century for generation me. While QM2 is fast, luxurious and expensive, on-board Wi-Fi is, alas, only the last-mentioned of these things. The lauded “running deck” is more akin to a 400m track, littered with enough deckchairs and sluggish sunbathers to test even champion hurdler Kriss Akabusi.
But there’s a definite sense of a changing of the guard on this queen of the seas, something regulars remark upon during my trip. Most are positive, wishing younger members of their own families could be persuaded on board. Others are less keen on the pace of transition. “Flip flops?” one passable Lady Bracknell snorts. “In the ballroom!”
But in the bustling Golden Lion pub, the bouncing G32 nightclub and the new Laurent Perrier Lounge, the vibe is positive, energetic and, yes, young. If there’s one thing the regeneration of QM2 proves, it’s that class might be permanent but luxury can evolve.
Or as one impeccably dressed staff member put it over cocktails in the Commodore Club: “Welcome to the QM2.0.”
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As a leg of its world voyage, QM2 has a 14-night Sydney to Singapore cruise, departing March 9, with limited availability; inside staterooms from $3399 a person. The season of seven-night transatlantic crossings between Southampton and New York runs from May 10, including itinerary variations of 10 nights featuring Le Havre, France, and Hamburg; 2018 Transatlantic Crossing Fashion Week departs Southampton on September 2, arriving New York, September 9. Book well ahead for early bird discounts and extras; 132 441.