The Tea Room

My 2 daughters (ages 9 and 11) and I took my mother here this past weekend for her birthday. We ordered The Little Royal Tea Service for my 2 girls, and The Windsor Tea for my mom. I ordered a salad. Whilst the service was very nice, I have to say the quality of the food was just "okay".

The Windsor High Tea included 5 open-faced sandwiches, each the size of 50cent pieces; 2 scones; and 5 small desserts. This was $32.

The Little Royal Tea included 3 savory sandwiches; 1 scone; mini cupcake, cake pop, and macaroon. The picture you see here were the 2 combined on one tier at $39.98 ($19.99 each). Whilst the sandwiches were okay, the scones and desserts were not great. And we normally love scones and sweets.

So, ultimately, the service and ambience was nice, but I felt the high tea was over-priced. For such an expensive meal, my children came away very hungry.

Parking is validated for 3 hours at a discounted rate of $8.00.

As hard as I tried, I could not get high on their tea... so what is this "High Tea" all about then? Seriously, what a wonderful afternoon! It is the middle of winter and it is sunny and warm. We had lunch on the Queen Mary - The Tea Room with a view of sea gulls and ducks lazily swimming in the harbor, their feathers ruffled by a mild ocean breeze as they generously provided a backdrop for our lunch; this is why we live in SoCal.

Dining at the Tea Room is more about historical significance and ambiance than an adventure in culinary delights. I had the Mango Chicken Salad sandwich. This was served on a croissant with a side of fruit. The chicken salad had a gentle curry flavor that set this chicken salad apart from the ordinary. The fruit was plain as was the presentation. The service was polite but subdued. We were greeted by the captain on our way out and I wanted to ask how it felt to be a captain on a ship that did not sail but my manners got the better of me and I just greeted him back.

Next time? Well, I may just actually have High Tea!

After seeing the Princes Diane exhibit my English wife was a bit peckish and the tea room was conveniently located nearby. She suggested we had a proper spot of tea and we proceeded to the tea room. Once arriving, we noticed the establishment was pretty posh and that we were slightly under dressed for the restaurant. After living in So Cal for a while we knew that dress code isn't the be all, and end all and proceeded anyway.

Once seated we were greeted by our server who was very smarmy, arrogant, snooty, and abrupt. Perhaps he was trying to match the character of a English server in a high class establishment. None the less we were not impressed with his service and snide remarks. He failed to refill our cups of tea until the end of the service.

The tea sandwiches were presented beautifully and were delicious. The downside of the sandwiches, were that they were only one bite and not cut into triangles that you would find in a traditional English tea in England. When you pay 25 dollars a person, one would expect to get more than a bite size sandwich. The sandwiches we received were no larger than a half dollar piece.

We also had scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, and marmalade. Big epic fail, where was the strawberry Jam?!! Traditionally, scones are served with strawberry jam.

If you want a novelty English Tea, not too hungry, and don't mind steep prices, then I'd say go for it!

I love Love LOVE afternoon tea :)
I had to try The Tea Room when I was visiting Queen Mary.

$36 per person for the Windsor Tea.
I picked green mango tea for our loose leaf tea pot. The tea was just okay; not strong enough for me.

Tea sandwiches:
Chicken & mango tossed in light curry aoli in wheat bread.
Deviled egg salad & micro dijon green served on marble rye.
Canary melon & prosciutto with pomegranate cream on white bread.
House cured salmon gravlax, English cucumber & cavior served with aioli on mable rye
Sweet water shrimp served with heart of palms with herb dressing on sourdough bread.
My favorites were the egg, prosciutto and salmon sandwiches. The sandwiches are round, not rectangular or triangular.

Scones:
Freshly baked scones with clotted cream & assorted local jams.
The scones were not bad. I liked the apple(?) jam.

Petit Fours:
Petit eclair.
Opera cake.
Elderflower raspberry cake.
Lemon tart.
California fruit tart.
Honestly I was disappointed with the dessert. Petit eclair was the best one from all of them.

The waitress was very attentive and sweet.

Afternoon tea at this place was not cheap. It was almost $100, including tax and tips, for 2 people.

3 stars!!

The Tea Room is almost yummylicious!!

3 stara!!

Was super excited to learn that the Queen Mary offered tea on their boat! We were able to explore the boat on our own and wander before and after tea, which was a huge plus.

Upon sitting down, we were given our menus and options for the types of tea. I stuck with the more fruity tea, while my friend got a herbal tea. They provided three types of sugar for us, and we got our little bites shortly after.

The food was okay, nothing special in terms of presentation and taste. A lot of the toppings were just scooped onto the bread, not much originality for presentation. My favorite two sandwiches were the egg salad and the salmon with caviar, and the scones were delicious! Warm yet crunchy on the outside, and a great flavor scone.

After finishing our little bites, we got another tray for dessert. We were really full by that time, but kept going. Again, the desserts were okay, nothing special. But it was a lot of food for the price we got it for- it's pretty cheap compared to LA high teas.

As for the atmosphere, definitely a five star for that. We got a view of the ocean and the pier, and it was beautiful. It was so cool getting to have tea on the Queen Mary! Definitely come here more for the environment than anything.

The service, on the other hand, was kind of interesting. He was very blunt and was telling us exactly where the tea tray was going to go and told us to move everything out of the way. He explained all of the food like we didn't know what any of the food was, and was very detailed orientated. My guess is that he deals with older women (don't know how else to describe it sorry) a lot who don't really listen or pay attention, so he was really straight forward in what he was saying. Never experienced this type of service before; it was not what I expected from a tea place haha.

The bill was around $70 as we also got a glass of champagne- recommending it because it was slightly sweet and delicious! The food I would give a 3 stars, but plus 1 for the atmosphere and environment! Glad I got to go on here and experience this at least once!

I have wanted to go here for ages and finally got the chance to go with Mum. The ship is grand and it feels like you are stepping back in time. The tea room is beautifully appointed and the service was wonderful. It's my birthday and my mum and I wore Halloween hats. The server could tell and brought me a piece of birthday cake at no charge.
The food, ambience, service and location are perfect. However, they really need teapot warmers or cozies to keep the tea hot- it cools fast even though the servers are quick to keep filling the pots with hot water. GO! It's an experience not to be missed.

I haven't been to the Queen Mary since I was a child! I was excited to hear that they had a tea room that offered gluten free options! My sister and best friend threw me a "tying the knot/anchor" themed Bridal shower here, which went perfect since we were on a boat.

It felt like we were on a cruise! They sectioned off a corner for us to use a table for gifts and decorations. We had 2 tables of guests. The food was ok, but I was lucky that they even had gluten free options! Most tea rooms just have salad! They made special sandwiches for me, and also made me a creme brûlée for dessert! I didn't feel left out when everyone was eating their mini sandwiches and scones. They didn't have gluten free scones.

Their African tea was yummy! We kept asking for more refills. It's probably one of my favorite things about this place.

The staff wasn't prepared and we were late to start. Our server was great and he worked really hard for us. We were lucky because they let us hang out for a while since there was nothing after our party. We didn't feel pressed for time, which was good.

It was a wonderful event and definitely memorable!

Greatly disappointed by my experience here Firstly our server looked disinterested, and was lacked any kind of elegance or grace that should represent an English style tea room. In fact rather than placing our plates on the tossed them in place.

The ambience was decent but the decor was too simple and rather bland. At $32 per head this was grossly over priced for what we received. The sandwiches came on 3 tiers. The mini open faced sandwiches were tiny not dainty. The bread was dry almost stale and the sandwich fillings generally lacked flavor. The dessert pastries also were subpar. You can get better at Costco!! Only saving the grace was the tea!!

Won't be coming back here!!

For my husband's birthday this year we decided to do something a little different, and that lead us to the Queen Mary and then ultimately to The Tea Room. We'd been talking about doing a proper tea for some time, but just kept putting it off. When I saw the Queen Mary offered afternoon tea I knew we had to try it.

First of all, it's confusing to gain access to *just* the restaurants. After much head-scratching we finally asked for help and the ticket attendant sold us two basic tickets for the Queen Mary ($15/each) and then advised us to show the tickets to the restaurant and they would take that amount off our total bill. I'm not sure why they do it that way, but okay. We bought our tickets, boarded the ship, and wandered around exploring for about an hour.

When it was time to make our way to The Tea Room for our reservation, we realized we had no idea how to get there. It was comical and we are idiots. We walked around the ship 1.5 times, even passing by The Tea Room and seeing through the windows all the people enjoying their tea inside. But we could not find the entrance! We tried numerous locked doors, went into two or three wrong restaurants, and we even walked down a couple of dead end stairways. Finally we asked a bartender for help and he told us we had to enter through the Princess Diana exhibit entrance. Oh.

Once we finally got in, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Everything was delicious and even though I was wearing a jean jacket and Dr. Marten boots, I felt like a fancy fancy Duchess.

I was worried the tiny food wouldn't fill us up, but we were struggling to finish our dessert tier. Tiny food + a pot of tea each = UGH FULL.

It was a really fun experience and we've already researched local places to grab afternoon tea. We're addicted to feeling like we live in Downton Abbey.

Note: The Tea Room validates your parking so make sure to get that before you leave!

As a family tradition, my sister-in-law treated us to the Tea Room to celebrate my daughter's 5th birthday. The adults enjoyed the Windsor Tea and the girls were thrilled with a kid-friendly version of the high tea. Delicious sandwiches, tea and desserts were savored in a lovely, unique atmosphere. Very attentive service.

The only reason I did not give the tea room five stars is that, even with reservations, we were turned away from the ship's entrance and had to walk to another building and wait in line for 25 minutes to purchase tickets to board the ship. It was very inconvenient especially in the hot sun with a senior citizen and children. There is a ticket window at the ship's entrance, but it was not staffed for ticket sales on the Saturday we attended. We ended up being late for our reservation and it started the experience off on the wrong foot. Also, our parking ticket was validated, but we got there a couple of minutes late and had to pay $7. It left a bad taste in our mouths since we would have made it in time had we not waited in line for 25 minutes for tickets!