Bryan, one thing we never had to do on QE2 was queue up for food. We ate in the Mauretania restaurant, one of 5 restaurants on board, (the others are Caronia, Britannia, Queens Grill and the Princess Grill) and the lowest category (you are assigned a restaurant according to the level of your accommodation, and as we were in the "cheap seats" so to speak, we were assigned the Mauretania). The food was excellent, the service fantastic, and all table service. The Lido and the Pavilion are two additional bistro type eateries where anyone can go, but we only did so twice. We felt we would rather be served by a waiter (or waitress) than join a queue, besides, the Lido was always quite noisy. All food, wherever it was eaten, was included in the price of your ticket, and that goes for cabin service too. I don't think I would like to be on one of the new super cruise ships, with over 4000 passengers, I saw a documentary about one of them, and it looked wall to wall people. QE2 had just over 1700 passengers, with around 1000 crew, a good ratio.
Peter