Queen Mary 2 is Getting a Makeover, Down to the Carpet Tacks

I was six years old when I sailed from New York to England on my first ocean voyage. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, I sailed aboard the original Queen Mary. I’ve been getting on ships ever since, yet somehow I’ve never sailed on her successor, Queen Mary 2. On Tuesday night, Cunard invited the press to a very posh dinner at the Waldorf Astoria to show what it has in mind for the ship it calls “the world’s only ocean liner.” By the end of the evening, I was wondering what on earth had I missed.

The Waldorf was an inspired choice. Its Park Avenue address opened in 1931, five years before the first Queen Mary sailed, and the hotel reopened in July 2025 after a years-long restoration. Both the Waldorf and the first Queen Mary had a Peacock Alley, a place to see and be seen. Now Cunard will re-introduce its own Peacock Alley for Queen Mary 2’s Grill Suites Lounge. There are worse ways to introduce a room devoted to the art of making an entrance than over dinner at the Waldorf.

While we were in Manhattan on November 10, Queen Mary 2 was already underway on her 450th transatlantic crossing. The ship entered service in 2004 and still runs a regular Southampton–New York schedule. This crossing is due to reach New York on November 17.

Queen Mary 2’s transformation is still months away. Cunard says she’ll go into dry dock at Damen Shipyards Brest in France on March 31, 2027, and return to service on May 9. The shipyard has a good deal more to do than lay carpet, though Cunard has given the carpet considerable thought.

The Queen Mary I Remember

The original Queen Mary left Southampton on her maiden voyage on May 27, 1936. She went on to hold the Blue Riband for Atlantic speed and served as a troopship during World War II before returning to passenger service. She left New York on her final Atlantic crossing on September 22, 1967. Her last voyage was a different proposition altogether. She sailed from Southampton on October 31, rounded Cape Horn and arrived in Long Beach, California, on December 9. The city had bought her for $3.45 million.

Years later, I spent a weekend aboard her, as a hotel.

I spent much of it wondering, what in God’s name had they done to my Queen Mary? I’m glad she’s still there, but I missed the simple thing that made her so thrilling to a six-year-old. She used to take you somewhere.

Clock Set to 4:33

Cunard calls the new look “Cunard Deco.” London studio AD Associates went to the Cunard archives in Liverpool, where drawings and artworks from the original liner gave the designers plenty to work with. Cunard’s Lee Powell, Vice President, Brand and Product leads the charge down to the last detail.

My favorite of those turns up in the Princess Grill bathrooms, of all places. The panels reinterpret Leslie MacDonald Gill’s map of the Atlantic, which hung in the original Queen Mary’s first-class dining room and had a working clock.

In the new version the hands are stopped at 4:33 p.m., the moment Cunard says she left Southampton on her maiden voyage.

Of all the things to bring back from 1936, I rather like that they thought to bring back a minute.

Illustrator Tanu Vasu, who grew up watching Cunard ships glide into Sydney’s Circular Quay, used ink, etching and soft pastels to show how the new rooms might feel.

“I look for the details that give a brand its character,” she said in Cunard’s Q&A.

For Vasu, that can be a typeface, a color or the composition of an old advertisement. The illustrations have the soft glow of the travel posters that once made a crossing look like the most glamorous thing you could do with a week.

There’s a shot of Cunard red in the Princess Grill suites, with city skylines embroidered on the headboards. Britannia and Britannia Club get marine and midnight blues and geometric carpets that take their cue from New York seen from above.

Purple runs through the Queens Grill palette, while the Grand Duplex, Royal and Penthouse suites look to Britain’s royal gardens. Look down at one of the hand-tufted rugs and you might spot Balmoral heather or a Holyrood thistle.

A scallop shell turns up throughout the Grill interiors. Cunard calls it an emblem of safe passage at sea, and there’s a good story to go with it. In one legend of St. James, a bridegroom plunges into the sea and comes out alive, covered in scallop shells. Medieval pilgrims wore the shell as proof they’d reached Santiago de Compostela.

Aboard Queen Mary 2, the scallop shell takes the shape of the liner’s bow in the Queens Grill suites, echoes the Manhattan skyline in the Princess Grill suites and fans out like a peacock’s tail in the Grill Suites Lounge, a wink at the original Queen Mary’s Peacock Alley.

The refit adds 31 accommodations, including 16 Princess Grill suites and 15 Britannia staterooms. There’s a makeover for Mareel Wellness & Beauty, a digital upgrade for the planetarium and more outdoor deck space. Even the dogs are doing rather well out of this. The kennels will have room for more pets, and their charges will get a larger outdoor walking area. Their humans get a refurbished lounge.

A week to celebrate 450 crossings

For the crossing now underway, Cunard has turned the ship over to a rolling celebration called the 450 Club. Passengers can hear the story of the Titanic rescue told from the perspective of Captain Arthur Rostron of Cunard’s Carpathia and take afternoon tea in the Queens Room with a performance about wartime brides.

The shipboard newspaper, Ocean Times, is back for the week, and the gala dinner brings back dishes from earlier Queen Mary 2 celebration voyages. There’s even a murder-mystery dinner, should the crossing strike anyone as too quiet.

I’d like to see how all this looks once there’s an Atlantic swell outside the window. It’s been a long time since I sailed on a Queen Mary.

And I think, for Queen Mary 2, I know which way I’d like to go.

Give me Southampton to New York, with Manhattan on the other side of the glass instead of underfoot.