Twelve years ago I went on a two-day cruise around Tampa Bay on the then brand new Queen Mary 2, which joined the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria as part of Cunard Line's legacy on the high seas that dates back to 1839. Sad to report, while I found the ship itself impressive, the food onboard was atrocious at a time when it seemed oceanliners were just beginning to improve their food and restaurants.
Then last year I was invited to give two lectures aboard the QM2 on her Atlantic crossing out of Southampton, and I leapt at the chance. My wife, who as a child was a veteran of crossings on ships like the S.S. France, Flandre, and Liberté, found the idea of seven nights at sea a little daunting, but I was thrilled to experience it for the first time. I was praying the food would be better.
This past June the QM2 emerged from a short make-over that brought in 6,500 pieces of new furniture, 4,000 new works of art, 438,00 square feet of new carpet, even ten more pet kennels. Prices for this season, which ends in the fall (when the ship switches to warm water ports of call) run from $1,653 for inside rooms up to $21, 210 for the most posh of accommodations. All include room, food, pool and gym, and all entertainment, which ranges from first-run movies and amazingly good Broadway-style musicals to a Shakespearean play. The lowest fares are hard to believe for their economy, but even were you to pay $10,000 or more, you get far more luxury, service, and entertainment that you could expect for seven nights at even a mediocre hotel, restaurants, and shows in London or NYC. No wonder, then, that this season's crossings are almost sold out.
Our arc-shaped stateroom suite (left and above) looking out over the prow of the ship, with a modern art deco refinement, was exceptionally well-designed, from the bedroom, with King size bed, spacious and walk-in clothes and luggage closet--no need to slide bags under the bed!--to a well-equipped bathroom roomy enough to move around in easily.
Service throughout, from our butler to the restaurant workers drawn from a wide range of internationals speaking many languages, were clearly trained in the British way of hospitality: Remember that Lord Nelson demanded that "England expects every man to do his duty" on an English ship, even if the crew are mainly from Slovenia and Rumania.
The options for dining seem endless, at least until you've eaten onboard for five days. The two top-tier dining rooms, tied to your package, are the Queen's Grill and the Princess Grill, where, as is the custom, you dine with the same people every night. (You may ask to dine alone, and there were some who did, described by the staff as people who more or less spend their entire year cruising the world.)
We ate each evening in the beautiful Princess Grill (left), where we were extremely fortunate to have six tablemates who could not have been more diverse or more affable, including two Californians, a movie stunt coordinator and his wife, and two jolly retired Brits. We'd usually start with cocktails at the always packed Commodore's Club lounge, whose bartenders get to know your cocktail preference on the first night, then proceed to dinner, where three nights were black tie. The food was for the most part very good, as were the wine choices, though, except for one special each night, the menu never changed, so that four nights in, we had pretty much ran through everything on it. But it's no hardship to have fine lamb chops or Dover sole twice in a week. The cheese and dessert offerings were excellent, too.
The menu at the more glittery Queen's Grill is the same, and I see from the current menus that they've also added some Canyon Ranch Spa Selections, with calorie counts, though to me the idea of not splurging on the Queen Mary 2 is like driving an Aston Martin at the speed limit. 
The Brittania Club restaurant (left) set for lunch is exceptionally handsome and sunny--when it is sunny--and the menu more or less overlaps with those at the Grills. The King's Court is where most people have breakfast, lunch and dinner and everything in between. It's a huge place with tandem dining areas and the look of a cafeteria, which it is, and among the various stations there is hardly a cuisine or any kind of food you won't find every day, from pancakes and freshly made eggs, to pizza and sushi, from Thai spring rolls to Indian curries, from New York-style sandwiches to London-style bubble-and-squeak. I must say I was very impressed with the quality, not least because all the food had been brought aboard in Southampton (reprovisioned in NYC), yet freshness was never an issue.
After all the days at sea, the dips in the pool, tea time, movies, quiet visits to the library, lectures, and even a daunting Planetarium show (right), our urge to get on American terra firma had set in. Dutifully getting up just before dawn, we joined the throngs outside to watch the sun silently creep up over the magnificent New York skyline stretching from Brooklyn to Staten Island, with Lady Liberty in the harbor, holding her torch aloft. I half expected them to play "Rhapsody in Blue."
There were a few eccentric people onboard who never disembarked from the QM2 and intended to sail back to England that afternoon, but for me the cruise had been just enough to make indelible impressions on me, so that I would probably never repeat it, content in the way I was once to join Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the Fourth of July fireworks in NYC. My time onboard was unforgettable but never fleeting, and I feel that a second voyage might sap the wonder of it all.