Alternative Dining Review On Cunard Queen Mary 2 | Nordlys, Coriander & The Verandah

Cunard like to refer to their Speciality Upcharge restaurantes as Alternative Dining. We like to refer to them as tasty options! In this video we review all the alternative dining venues available on our Cunard QM2 cruise to the Fjords in September 2023. These included Steakhouse At The Verandah (Lunch & Dinner), Nordlys & Coriander. But were they worth the upcharges?
As usual with our videos, we record these in a single take to give you our honest, non-scripted opinions. And as always our videos and all content is shot by us, in 4K and no stock images are used.
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Thanks, Linzi & Mark
Chapters
00:00 Intro to Alternative Dining on QM2
00:34 Lunch at Steakhouse At The Verandah
04:42 Dinner on QM at The Verandah
08:56 Nordlys - Norwegian Dining on Queen Mary 2
12:20 Coriander - Cunards Indian Dining Experience on QM2
If you are going on QM2 or any other Cunard cruise then consider watching some of our other helpful Cunard content
Cunard Line Playlist
• Cunard QM 2
#queenmary2 #cunardline #steakhouseattheverandah #nordlys #coriander #qm2 #cruise

[@nellies-treasure-trove]

Food looked delicious! The menus impressive! I think I would have a hard time choosing what to eat. Great video!

[@SuiteNatured]

Thank you. The food was so delicious especially Nordlys, which was the big surprise 😀

[@caseyley100]

I watch these kinds of videos because I have cruise food envy and I truly appreciate that people take the time to make these vlogs but in all honesty...I find some of the people doing them really dry and uninteresting. I watch them anyway, cause I hope they'll show me menus and cover the food really well. You guys though..... thanks for the great cruise vids and I JUST WANNA COME CRUISE WITH YOU!!!!!!!!! 🤣🤣You two are completely brilliant and I would LOVE to run into you someday! Happy sailing!

[@SuiteNatured]

Thank you so much Casey for such a lovely comment ❤️ We are glad you enjoy watching the food videos, because we love making them for you, and you are more than welcome to join us on a cruise anytime, and it would be lovely to share a drink or two with you one day. Linzi & Mark

[@brigitteravenscroft8982]

Watched and wished we were back! Loved both Verandah and Nordlys. That seafood platter was enormous! I had the rum baba. Loved that they asked which rum you wanted. I didn’t have the foggiest idea. To me, rum is rum! Graham said the cheese in Verandah was to die for! And of course there was THAT bread! xx

[@SuiteNatured]

We thought the same when we were doing the voice over yesterday Brigitte. We love to get back on QM2 for a TA.

[@richardg8651]

We enjoyed Frontier on the Lido on our Queen E Alaskan cruise this summer. The food was good but what was surprising was how beautiful that part of the lido was when multiple tables were removed . Service was exceptional . The upcharge was $25 , booked on board or off and alternated with Bamboo in the same space . They were fully booked .

[@SuiteNatured]

Based on our experience on this cruise, we definately what to try the other Themed menus they have on the other ships in the other locales too. we have only heard good things about them too.

[@stephenelson6857]

Thanks for that. Nice to see some of the alternative dining. On the Queen Victoria next year but will certainly be on the Queen Mary at some point......

[@SuiteNatured]

You are welcome Stephen, and speaking from our experience on QM2 and QE, we found the found to be very comparable on both, so fingers crossed you will see that too, and with a bit of luck you'll get the new Michel Roux menus onboard then too. Linzi & Mark

[@FraserAtSea]

Ah, I’m so annoyed I missed Coriander on QE recently - the menus on there cycled round to the point where the Indian menu was only available for about 4 nights on our 14 night cruise! Great review as always guys!

[@SuiteNatured]

Thanks Fraser. Hope you are well. That's a great excuse to go on another Cunard Cruise though to try Corriander 😂

[@186bingo]

Love the video and you guys are awesome! Safe travels and can't wait to see what journey you will take next. Cheers!

[@SuiteNatured]

Thank you so much for such a lovely comment. Have a lovely day. Linzi and Mark

[@shelleyharvey8654]

Amazing video as always! me and my other half are off on our first cruise in 2 weeks!! Has anyone tried the 'alternative dining' at Bamboo?? the menu looks amazing but can't find a review anywhere?!

[@SuiteNatured]

Thank you Shelley, so glad you enjoyed it. Whilst we didn't have Bamboo we spoke to a few passengers who were on the transatlantic before us who did try it and they spoke as highly of that as we did Nordlys.

[@dancourt4792]

Hi, I have to agree with your review of The Verandah. The food was delicious and the service was excellent. The steak was one of the best steaks I have ever had and I don't understand why anyone would not like the bread, it was a real treat x

[@SuiteNatured]

We don't get anyone not liking the bread either Susan 😂

[@oliventure7055]

Great ideas! Thank you!

[@SuiteNatured]

You are very welcome. Thank you for watching. Linzi and Mark

[@DaftCatBrewing]

We loved the bread at the Verandah. Totally agree it is the best I've had

[@SuiteNatured]

It really is so good. If they ever list the calories for that bread we would have to stop going on Cunard 😂

[@johnwisdom3774]

Great review. Do you have an opinion on the best night on a TA crossing to book for dinner?

[@SuiteNatured]

Hi John, generally the first night out of Southampton or New York is a safe bet. But just double check wind and weather a couple of days before and change if needed.

[@susan.connelly9955]

Please do a review of the Queen Anne when it’s launched. We are booked on her in 2025 and I’m busting to hear what’s what on there.

[@SuiteNatured]

We are going on Queen Anne for Christmas and New Year this year, so there will be plenty of reviews from us, but there will be lots from other great cruise vloggers too when she launches in May too.

[@DenaInWyo]

OMGoodness..that burger and your white top...No way I'd have made it through lol

[@SuiteNatured]

To be fair there has been more than one occasion where the white tops have not made it through a meal 😂

[@user-eg5zu1se4v]

Our dinner at the veranda was one of the worst we’ve had. We shared the seafood platter and it tasted like it had just been removed from the freezer - but had not totally thawed.

[@SuiteNatured]

Oh no what a shame Don. We have heard the odd experience like yours but personally, we've been really fortunate and each time we've been in there the food was great. We didn't have the seafood tower on QM2 in Verandah, but we did on QE, and it was good there. Hopefully, if you get chance to try it again it will be a big improvement. How was the rest of the food on your last Cunard cruise? Linzi & Mark

[@Andrea-sl3ey]

We love Alternate Dining on Cunard, it’s a bit of a hidden gem, as people don’t seem to know about it. My favourite themes are Nordlys, Coriander, Bamboo and British.

[@SuiteNatured]

We'd love to try some of the other themes Andrea. So many people we spoke to onboard didn't know anything about them being there. Seems surprisingly low key from Cunard. They really should make people more aware of them as it really was a great experience both times we went on QM2. Have a lovely evening. Linzi and Mark

[@Andrea-sl3ey]

@@SuiteNaturedI think because it’s situated in the Buffet, people don’t realise that it is a service restaurant. I believe that on Queen Anne, it will have a dedicated restaurant and I suspect that this will make it more popular. Nordlys is available on any of the Queens when visiting Norway. The Leg of Lamb on the British menu is fantastic, as are the Lamb cutlets in the Veranda

[@SuiteNatured]

We will definitely go to them on Queen Anne, and hopefully they will have that british menu too :)

[@martintravelnjt2721]

Karen said we need to do Cunard now just for the onion rings 😂

[@SuiteNatured]

Well there arr many reasons to cruise a certain line. Onion rings is not one we've heard before 😂😂 but they are great ones.

[@charlesengelberg8335]

Love the videos, subscribed, if you want to grow this channel you're going to have to improve the audio on the videos and put a wireless lav on your wife. I'm guessing just from the sound quality, You're walking around with a phone shooting the videos. It's time to upgrade the gear, get a video cam that allows for external audio inputs and get the misses mike'd up so we can hear her properly. Keep up the good work. Cheers.

[@SuiteNatured]

Thank you Charles. Love getting some constructive feedback how we can improve and grow the channel. You should see a huge improvement on our traditional voice over sound quality as we recently upgraded to Shure MV7s for recording at home. Our onboard stuff should also be massively better from Celebrity Apex onward too as we will be using our Rode Wireless Go 2 when working with the cameras and phones. We'd just been waiting on the rode sc19 iphone lead to arrive begore QM2 but it arrived late. Again this should make a huge difference 🤞 Camera wise. We use the iPhone 14 pro max for most interior filming as it is less in people's faces and quality is excellent. Externally, depending on what and where we are filming, we have a Nikon and Sony cameras but again sound quality on built in mics is poor but easy to use Rode wireless with them too. Linzi and Mark

[@marecianoble5826]

What was that fantastic looking pink desert in the steak restaurant?

[@SuiteNatured]

It was their special wild strawberry Pavlova and was absolutely delicious Marecia.

[@CJ-xv7rw]

is the paid dining better than free

[@SuiteNatured]

In short, yes 😂 That’s not to say the included food is bad, it’s really not. It’s just the speciality dining is better.

[@johnlt7026]

Did you have to pay to have a table at Nordlys?

[@SuiteNatured]

We did John yes, but it is well worth it.

[@youtubewatcher1135]

We are enjoying your videos. Love your patter. Would very much appreciate you take a bit more care while filming not to move so quickly left and right as it makes one feel woozy. Subscribed and liked.

[@SuiteNatured]

Thank you for watching and subscribing 👍 And thank you for the feedback too. We try to be careful of not going too quickly when we turn the camera because it makes us woosy too watching them and we are constantly trying to improve 😀 we will take extra caution on Apex next month. Have a lovely day Linzi and Mark