 Horizons are always changing for Hotel Manager John
John Duffy heads a 1000-strong team who regularly serve as many as 2,600 guests staying in more than 1,200 rooms at the most famous period hotel of its kind in the world.
But his clients have State Rooms in place of bedrooms which they might enter in New York and vacate in Southampton.
He is, of course, Hotel Manager onboard Queen Mary 2, the largest and most luxurious ocean liner the world has ever seen.
It’s all a far cry from the early 1960s when after being educated at Liverpool’s Jesuit St Francis Xavier’s College, he studied hotel management at New York’s Cornell University.
John joined Cunard Line in 1965 with an appointment in the Pursar’s Office and served in a junior capacity on such vessels as the old Queen Elizabeth, Carinthia, Carmania and Franconia.
And when he joined the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) for her maiden voyage from the Clyde in 1969, he could not have imagined that 12 years into the future he would take over as Hotel Manager and remain in post until her final voyage.
During those intervening years he acquired an impressive track record within the line’s hotel sector seeing service onboard Cunard’s new ships Adventurer and Ambassador and being posted to La Spezia, Italy, to liaise during the fitting out of Cunard Princess of which he later became Hotel Manager.
“But when in 1980 the company told me that hotel manager of the QE2 was retiring and would I take over, I naturally jumped at it,” said John.
“I joined on April Fool’s day 1981 and the joke lasted all the way to her final voyage to Dubai in December 2008,” he recalled with a smile.
QE2 had been the only traditional great ocean liner to survive the arrival of the age of jet travel and to continue transatlantic voyages long after all her famous rivals had sailed to the breaker’s yard and into the pages of maritime history.
“The QE2 was a great ship of her time but 40 years on facilities aboard the QM2 are just outstanding,” said John. “She is without doubt just the
greatest ship in the world and her facilities, including the largest ballroom and the only Planetarium afloat are simply amazing, ”he said.
“Yet while her facilities both for passengers and the ship’s company are so superb, QM2 has retained and enhanced that wonderful feeling of maritime tradition which was such a hallmark of the QE2,” he said.
 As Hotel Manager, John has overall responsibility for every sector of the ship involving the passenger guests from food and beverages through to house keeping and entertainments.
“My typical day starts at around 6.45am with a walk through a few areas of the ship to see how things are,” said John.
“I usually get myself a cup of coffee and come down here to my office to see what has come in on the emails overnight and then there will be a meeting or two with department heads,” he said.
“Later on I will do another walk around before returning to my office where the phone and the emails never stop and people are always coming in and out so it never gets lonely.”
“Lunchtime I’ll do another walk around and maybe visit the retail outlets to see what’s happening.
“The afternoon really takes care of itself with more emails, telephone calls and meetings and then in the evening there are functions to attend and I have dinner with my table of eight guests by which time it’s around 10.45pm and it’s either off to bed or maybe see the show if it’s a new one,” said John.
With the arrival of the new Queen Elizabeth, sailing alongside Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria, Cunard would be the line with the longest maritime history and the youngest fleet and would be set to carry on a magnificent tradition for the next 40 years, he said.
John is the longest serving four-striped officer aboard any of the Queen liners. He was awarded the Merchant Navy Medal for distinguished service and voted “Seagoing Employee of the Year” at the Seatrade Conference in Venice, the presentation for which was made in London at the beginning of the year.
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