Day 1
Boarded Queen Mary 2 around 1pm. Headed out to sea around 5:30pm sailing past the Statue of Liberty.
The room is eloquent. A bottle of champagne and a few chocolates were waiting for us. Later in the afternoon, they brought us a wonderful fruit tray.
For dinners we chose to sit at a table for eight. So we met our dinner companions last night. One couple has sailed around the world more than once. We are the least experienced cruisers of all with this being only our second cruise.
You will be reading most of this after our voyage as the internet is costly AND undependable. I spent the first fifteen minutes of my time getting “will not load” messages!
Day 2
We were awoken early this morning by an announcement to stay indoors. The captain advised us that we had changed course slightly and that a Coast Guard helicopter was in route to evacuate two passengers for medical emergencies. Due to windy conditions it took the helicopter several attempts to land, but was soon off again.
This evening was the Captain’s Cocktail Gala followed by dinner with our table mates. here are photos of us in our room. We aren’t able to up load the “ship” photos at this time.
Day 3
Today was quite nice outside and we walked the deck. We think we attended a Memory Seminar. After dinner we listened to a duo playing Eagles and Fleetwood Mac tunes.
Day 4
We walked the decks. It was cool, breezy and cloudy. The first goal was to see the huge spare propellers that were bolted to the deck. Next we inspected the life rafts and the life boats and decided we definitely preferred the boats over the rafts! It was formal dress attire for dinner. Met friends for drinks and then had dinner together. Afterwards we attended an American Evening with the National Symphony Orchestra.
Keeping track of time is tricky as at noon each day we lose an hour. We are not able to change the time on our iPads or Diane’s Fitbit so we have to add hours to our time or turn on the TV and find the ship’s information channel.
Day 5
Got up early which was 5:30am our time and 7:30am ship time as we had to go through the UK Immigration Inspection. Stopped and played a lovely game of Scrabble at a 3rd deck window seat. Then they took another hour away.
Diane went to the Great Queen Mary 2 scavenger hunt and then to the Planetarium. Phil attended a presentation of the Vivaldi Four Seasons performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and the Harmony Strings of QM2.
Turns out that the scavenger hunt was a bummer and the planetarium show was boring. However, Phil enjoyed the string performance.
Day 6
Woke up to rain, cloudy skies and a rough sea. Phil found the side to side rocking of the ship during the night rather soothing.
Laundry needed doing so we got up early and had a light and quick breakfast. Headed to the laundry room which has two washers and two dryers both in use, but we were next. With no place to sit in the tiny laundry room, we went to the Concierge Lounge to wait and run back and forth to check on our clothes. Everything went well and we have some clean clothes.
Found that our son, Paul, had Facebook messaged us. So we Facebooked back and was surprised that we could video conference. We tried to use up some of the 60 minutes we had left. We did a great job of that talking about life boats vs life rafts and other such stuff.
The seas have become a bit rougher and the wind went from Fresh Breeze to Storm Force which is stronger than Gale Force. It’s a bit rocky now. I opened the door to take a video and the wind grabbed it out my hands. I had to ask Phil to help me close the door. And Phil just got into the shower!
There was a Roaring 20’s Ball this evening and we were dressed to the nines. Our last dinner with our table mates was again enjoyable.
Day 7
Last day of our crossing. I wanted to return a call to our daughter Sydelle. In my eagerness, I phoned her and she answered saying, “Do you know it’s 3:45 am here?” So yeah, not used to that add an hour a day thing. Called her later that day and had a nice chat.
We need to have luggage ready and outside our door between 5 and 8pm. So we are skipping the formal dining as we want to pack our dressy clothes to store in a locker in Southampton while we tour Ireland and Germany. Will be happy not to have to “dress” for dinner every night. We leave our suite at 8am on Sunday and then wait in the Queens Grill Lounge until our group is called to disembark.