You might have thought that First Class had disappeared with the advent of cruising in today’s purpose-built cruise ships. But while there are different classes of cabin in today’s ships, from Inside to Penthouse Suites, broadly speaking passengers in all accommodation classes, from suites to inside cabins, share the same facilities with each other. In recent years however that has begun to change – on some ships on some lines, passengers can buy what looks quite like a re-creation of the old First Class experience.
One line – Cunard – never entirely went away from First Class, although it didn’t call it that. But if you’re in either of the Grills Classes – Queens Grill or Princess Grill – then you will eat in a dedicated restaurant, and there are some areas of deck that are reserved for you. It’s interesting is that there are two Grills restaurants, Queens and Princess, not just one, so Cunard see some fine distinctions between the two (Queens Grill is for passengers in the very best suites, Princess Grill is for passengers in lesser suites.) And there is one other big difference between today’s Cunard Grills experience and the former First Class, and that’s that Grills class requires a suite-level cabin. In the old days – and not just on Cunard but also on other lines such as P&O and Union Castle – there were some quite low-quality First Class cabins, e.g. small Inside cabins (indeed, there were often a number of better cabins in Second class). But the crucial point was that however poor the cabin if it was defined as a First Class cabin it gave the cabin’s occupants access to all the First Class facilities, whereas the ‘better’ Second Class cabin was definitely in Second class, and the occupants could only access the ship’s second class facilities.
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