Crossing The Atlantic By Ocean Liner. My Cunard Queen Mary 2 Winter Crossing And Ship Review And Video Tour

Crossing The Atlantic By Ocean Liner. My Cunard Queen Mary 2 Winter Crossing And Ship Video Review And Tour
One of the great journeys of all time is crossing the Atlantic by Ocean Liner.

Cunard Queen Mary 2 QM2 Winter Atlantic Day

By the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the number of transatlantic liners working the route from various parts of Europe to the United States and Canada had grown to almost 60 a week. The demand to travel between the 2 continents was so huge that lines competed fiercely with more and more grand liners and features.

The birth of regular and scheduled jet liner travel between Europe and North America obliterated the transatlantic liner business. At times in the 1960s ships like Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth had as little as 100 passengers on it – and well over 1000 crew. Since the 1970s the only regular and scheduled liner crossing the Atlantic was Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2.

Today there is only one true ocean liner that has a scheduled transatlantic service.

This is Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. This unique, one off and glamorous ship has been designed to ply the hard and challenging North Atlantic route. It is the only ship that has a regular scheduled service. Other cruise lines do offer repositioning cruises across the Atlantic when moving their ships at the end and start of the cruising season in Europe and the Caribbean. However, many will avoid the challenging North Atlantic route and sail from Europe to the Caribbean, as the seas will usually be calmer and something a cruise ship design can cope with better.

Crossing the Atlantic in winter, even on the Queen Mary 2, can be a very boisterous at times.

I have crossed from Southampton on both the Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Mary 2. The QM2 handled it much better than the QE2, but still there was quite a lot of movement. A good smattering of people at the start of the winter crossing felt seasick as a result, though less than I had experienced on the Queen Elizabeth 2 in slightly less stormy seas.

I love crossing the atlantic by ocean liner. And, in fact, found the winter crossing on the QM2 even more wonderful than the summer crossing I have done on the ship. The ship is designed to work through the Atlantic when it is rough and aggressive. The movement from churning through the Force 8, 9 and eventually Force 11 storms with 30 to 40 foot swells was exciting and impressive. You appreciate the power of nature and the atlantic, but also feel safe and secure as this is what the Queen Mary 2 has been designed and built to handle.

Though, you so have the whole of the massive and beautiful Queen Mary 2 itself to enjoy, explore and be pampered in!

The best way of showing and bringing the whole experience alive is not to write about it but to show it. So I have made a video that shows the seas during the crossing that were at times Force 11 and then I take you on a detailed tour of the stunning Cunard Queen Mary 2 and all the public rooms and restaurants during the crossing.

Watch my video tour, with commentary, of a winter crossing on the Cunard Queen Mary 2 with a full tour of the public spaces on the ship:

You can also watch a video of the suite we stayed in too. This is 10006 which is a Queen Grill Suite (Q6) on deck 10: