High tea ON THE high seas
The British are coming! The British are coming! But unlike the cause of Paul Revere's legendary midnight ride in 1775, this arrival from across the pond is a welcome sight. Shine two lanterns, too, because the English are again coming by sea.
Marking the return of Britishbased Cunard Line on this side of the Pacific, the majestic MS Queen Elizabeth is scheduled to drop anchor in San Pedro on May 30. The approaching milestone call into the World Cruise Center will kick off the ship's two-month stint on the West Coast. From Memorial Day weekend to late July, the QE will offer one-time itineraries to Canada, Spain and Florida from L.A. and San Francisco. The majority of her time spent in the Pacific will be for a handful of Alaskan round trips to and from Vancouver, British Columbia, starting June 4.
Before QE's first visit in these waters in three years, the ship will have sailed 28 days from Southampton in the United Kingdom. All but eight of those are sea days on a journey that includes passage through the Panama Canal and up the Central American and Mexican coasts.
In its storied, 184-year history, Cunard has never home-ported a ship in California. Based on the jolly good time this travel writer had on the traditional, old-world cruise line, there's no doubt the Golden State has been the lesser for it. This void certainly makes the fleet's fleeting pending stopover in Southern California and the Pacific Northwest all the more special.
Proper, dapper, cultured, worldly — all the stereotypes Americans bestow on the British — are well accounted for on the Queen Elizabeth, a stately, 2,092-passenger vessel that, like the ship's namesake monarch, looks fab for her age. Not that the Cunard ship is all that dated, at 12 years old. But for an industry that seems to only make headlines when there's a maiden voyage or virus outbreak, how splendid it is indeed that something neither a bright, shiny new object nor contagious is worthy of attention.
For this first-time Cunard-cruising American, first impressions of the line and its ingrained “White Star Service” were smashing. The ultimate step off the gangway that officially begins your vacation — or holiday, as the Brits prefer to say — is a sensory experience unmatched anywhere except perhaps on QE's near-identical twin Queen Victoria and the larger Queen Mary 2. (The fleet adds a fourth ship, the Queen Anne, in 2024; bookings have just opened.)
Piano music and bouquets of fragrant flowers welcome arrivals in the elegant Deck 1 lobby, where the congenial purser's office and shore excursion desk are located. The atmosphere makes for a delightful welcome — 180 degrees from the too-much-too-soon upselling found on most ships of this size and larger. Another lovely surprise is an honest-to-goodness library with a spiral staircase, nearly 10,000 books and plenty of pulpperusing patrons.
Brilliant as all this sounds so far, let it be known that the Queen Elizabeth isn't for everyone, nor does it want to be. Just as London's Harrods department store or “The Crown” on Netflix aren't meant for the masses, the Cunard brand exists for clientele that can afford and appreciate, or at least adapt, to a lifestyle as different from mainstream megaship cruising as Cook's California Champagne is from Dom Perignon. Adult comedy shows and risqué hairy chest contests aren't listed on the paper-only Daily Programme. You won't find basketball or a rock climbing wall on QE's canopied games deck. Croquet, paddle tennis and short mat bowls, an English version of Italian bocce, are the more leisurely sports offered to passengers, most of the septuagenarian set.
This isn't to say the Queen Elizabeth doesn't know how to let her hair down. OK, so no one shakes their booty to the electric slide or Macarena, but there's nightly karaoke and DJ music in the Yacht Club. Inside the Golden Lion pub, free-flowing pints of Guinness and live folk music make every day St. Patrick's Day. Ballroom dancing to a orchestra is extremely popular at afternoon tea, and there's talk about bringing Orange County's acclaimed Pacific Symphony onboard to do the honors in the future. More music and dancing happen in the stunning Royal Court Theatre, the largest venue for stage productions and headlining worldclass artists.
Modifications for QE's West Coast swing are in the works, and when it comes to cruisers, no matter where they're from, nothing is more important than the food. The menu at The Verandah, the best steakhouse at sea (a well-worthit $45 upcharge), will happily remain intact, but to appease palates from SoCal to Skagway, more Asian fare, salads and fresh veggies will be served in the Britannia main dining room and Lido Buffet. Daily specials will feature local ingredients, with Vancouver Island scallops being one planned mouthwaterer. In addition to adding regional nuances to some menus, galley staff is making sure the ship's ice makers are in working order for Queen Elizabeth's arrival in California. Cunard knows we like our tea cold.
The cruise line is also aware that jokes as old as Stonehenge aren't our cup of English tea, so the stand-up comics being booked will all hail from the states. Same with the lecturers signed on to wax on such topics as nature, art and history.
“The comedians and diverse range of speakers will be very much geared to the market,” noted the ship's London-born entertainment director, Sally Sagoe. “They also need to be right for Cunard, however. So, you won't have a comedian doing an adult show after midnight like on other lines. Their material will not be naughty, nothing close to the bone.”
Across the pond that means “an uncomfortable remark,” and it's these British touches heard and seen around the ship that have fortunate passengers gloriously gobsmacked. For that reason, adjustments for the Western itineraries are rightly being kept to a minimum.
“People come to Cunard because they want to experience Cunard,” Sagoe said. “So, when we come to the West Coast, we're not going to change the intrinsic things that make people happy. We have an orchestra playing for tea dancing, which is very, very British. You're having your cucumber sandwiches, your coffee and tea, and then you get up to dance. People who are not used to this are excited about it and impressed by it. For many it might be a novelty.”
To her point, Cunard is one of the last bastions of the traditional formal night, or “Gala Night,” as the line calls these twice-weekly evenings. A blazer and no tie is standard for dudes on megaships, but on the Queen Elizabeth, nearly every gent donned a tuxedo, with a lady dressed to the nines on his arm.
“It's really what you're comfortable in, but we find that the majority of guests love dressing up because that's something we don't tend to do as a society,” Sagoe said. “It's quite unlikely you're going to wear a beaded evening gown for dinner at home. Well, unless your life resembles `Downton Abbey.' ”