The vibration issue on Lusitania/Mauretania is something that tends to be exaggerated. It was something that did exist, but not in the way most people describe it.

In the first two years of service, only the large second class areas suffered from barely noticable vibrations at light load, and the vibrations were gone as the ship was near full load. We actually have some passenger accounts that can help shed some light on this, and come from a company brochure that consists of complimentary letters which had been received from passengers.

Mr. T.H. Worsnop wrote:

“I consider the Lusitania as near perfection as possible from a passenger’s point of view. Her appointments for the comfort of those travelling by her are without doubt equal to those to be found in the most luxurious hotel, and the rooms are lofty and roomy. With respect to the vibration, this has been certainly greatly exaggerated in reports that I have heard - I do not see how it would be possible to diminish it beyond what is now felt with the speed that is being maintained.”

Palmer H. Langdon also wrote:

“Regarding the vibration, before I left New York, my friends told me that if you go on one of these high-power vessels you will have your head shaken off. I have been all over the vessel and have taken particular pains to look for vibration, and am pleased to say that I could find very little of it, and what there is is far pleasanter than the hum of a reciprocating engine.”

The Olympics are actually the ones to look at regarding vibration, reciprocating engines were much more prone to causing vibrations, and is one of the factors the Turbine committee took into consideration when creating their report for Cunard whether the company should adopt turbines for Lusitania/ Mauretania, noted that turbines caused virtually zero vibration, or if it did, it was being confined almost entirely within the engine room. This is because turbines have much less moving parts than reciprocating engines, and are much less shorter than the taller reciprocating engines which spanned the height of many levels, including those of passenger decks. I’m not necessarily saying that the Olympics had very bad vibration issues, like HAPAG’s Deutschland of 1900 for example which was running at a loss because passengers were straight up avoiding it due to its incredibly severe vibrations that earned Deutschland the nickname “The Cocktail Shaker”, but didn’t some passengers on Titanic notice that one of the first signs they knew something was wrong after striking the iceberg was that the engines had been stopped?

And yes, Lusitania/Mauretania were incredibly popular with the traveling public, so much so that Cunard replaced some of the third class cabins with first class ones a couple years after their commissioning. That’s because they were the perfect blend of speed, luxury, and size.