The short answer is because I wanted to. I have long had a fascination with the Trans Atlantic liners that crossed between Europe and New York, particularly those of the 20th Century. The Titanic and its sister ships, the Art Deco French liner Normandie, its Cunard rivals the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth (the latter being the largest passenger ship in the world its entire life), and the much smaller Queen Elizabeth 2 which hung in there after jet aircraft completely took away the Trans Atlantic liner market. The liners were an era of speed, sophistication, style and elegance as well as progress - each of these glamour ships were technological marvels, the latest in innovations as well as national pride, and competed for the Blue Riband - the prize of being the fastest to cross the Atlantic.
Flash back to about March 2015. I was a few months into my OE not long having secured a job and a flat in the UK, and now secure in the knowledge that I would be able to likely stay in the UK until the end of my visa. For some reason I was surfing the internet about Concorde and started lamenting the fact that I was in the UK after the era of this magnificent aircraft. Imagine looking up over London and being able to see Concorde fly over the city daily on its way to and from the US. From the outset of my OE I have always had it in my mind that I wanted to go home via the US, to see family, say I have circumnavigated the globe but also visit the USA in the process. Imagine if Concorde was still flying, and I'd save up the money to fly it to New York, how cool would that be. But alas that's impossible now. In my perusing of Concorde, an image appeared - a painting depicting Concorde flying over the liner QE2. Concorde is not possible, nor is traveling on the QE2 but it is still possible to travel by Trans Atlantic liner to the US from the UK. The last Liner in the world still plies the route - Cunard's the Queen Mary 2. I looked up sample prices for around when I would have to leave the UK - it would be rather expensive even for the cheapest cabin, but its a possibility. I think I may have even done some sums to work out how much each pay I'd need to put away to save up for it. Wasn't a small amount but potentially achievable - but that's where that ended for the time being, as an idle thought
I never did leave the UK when I was supposed to - I left earlier and went to Berlin with Sasha, ultimately extending my stay in Europe by 1.5 years. Somewhere along the way I told Sasha about my idea of catching the Queen Mary 2 - what I thought to be a rather unachievable dream. She didn't dismiss the idea though - in fact she said we should try and do it when we left. Eventually we knew when we were going to leave, and once we had a rough outline of where we'd be visiting in Europe and how long that might need, we looked at what sailings were available. We found one at the end of June which worked for us, found that if we booked through a 3rd party cruise seller it would be far cheaper than booking with Cunard direct, and found that we could secure the booking by putting down a deposit. Figuring this was likely a once-in-a-lifetime chance to travel on the ship, we did just that, right then and there - and in doing so, this was the first thing booked for our big going-home trip and it also gave us a fixed date to work the rest of our travels around.
Aside from organising a few details such as posting our fancy clothes ahead to London (there are strict dress codes in the evenings), it was just a matter of waiting for the cruise to roll around! We were sure we were going to be both the youngest, and the poorest people onboard - as Sasha put it, the cruise is like the Titanic without the sinking and we'll both be Jack.
So, how did it go?
Day 1 - Embarkation Day
After getting out of our Uber in the large, but fairly warm terminal shed with a myriad of Union Jack flags hanging from the roof our checked bags were collected by a porter - they would be taken to our room for us. I'd actually been inside this terminal shed once before - my previous visit to Southampton, when I had walked towards the terminals to see how close I could get to the Queens which were in port (not anywhere decent for taking photos) and helped a lady who was going on Queen Elisabeth and had left her phone in a taxi get in touch with the rest of her party and find the terminal. We joined the queue to check in, which was quite long - unusually so and also it moved unusually slow according to a rather informative lady behind us who we chatted with while we waited. She'd been on Cunard ships a number of times, but her traveling companion had not - so as the lady explained things to her friend, we overheard the useful things being mentioned. One thing was already apparent - we were not going to be the youngest on board, and judging by the ripped up tshirt worn by a guy about our age in front of us, we might not even be the poorest!
When we got inside the main check-in building the lady behind us pointed out one of the guest entertainers that would be onboard standing over in a corner talking to two ladies, an actress called Celia Imre. The name did not ring a bell and I couldn't really see her face under her bucket hat she had on to see if I recognised her from anything. Not long after we had to part the line in front of us so Ms Imre could be ushered past and then presumably onboard. Eventually we made it to the front of a queue about an hour after we arrived at the terminal and got checked in, showing our passports, ESTA visas for entry to the US, and a credit card to be registered for onboard payments. We then got given our swipe cards - they are the keys to our cabin, but also for buying things onboard as there is almost no cash payments. We were then directed to security, which we went through with little bother. This left one final thing - boarding the ship itself! We walked the long glass gangway until it ended, handed over our cards for scanning, and then proceeded into the upper level of the Grand Lobby. We were greeted with "Welcome Onboard" by one of the staff as we entered, Sasha replying "Thank You" and I smiled and gave a nod but Sasha swears I ignored her and was just looking around in awe! We joined a line for the lifts at Stairway B where an attendant was directing people how to get to their rooms. We had to get some guidance from the attendant as how to best get to our room, but it was fairly straightforward and we found it with little problem.
Queen Mary 2 is a large ship. When it was built in 2003, it was the largest passenger ship ever built, a status it only held for a few years before being superseded. I think its something like the 15th largest passenger ship in the world but it is the most spacious in terms of size vs passengers, and of course it is the largest Liner ever built. What is a Liner? basically, a very large ferry designed to travel a particular route year round, and technically QM2 and its famous predecessors fall into the category of Luxury Liners. The Queen Mary 2 can cross the Atlantic year-round in any weather, whereas an ordinary Cruise Ship is not designed to cope with the Atlantic winter weather. The two other Cunard Ships, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria are not liners - they are just a form of enlarged Cruise Ship and while capable of crossing the Atlantic in summer, cannot do so in winter. Naturally, its cheaper to build a Cruise Ship than it is a Liner! Most cabins on the ship are on Decks 4 to 6 and 8 to 12, but ours was on Deck 13 - a set of cabins added during a big refit in 2016, replacing an underused swimming pool area behind the ships bridge area. Our cabin, #13015 was in the middle of the deck - so no windows, it was cheaper because of that but we figured we don't need a window - there's going to be nothing but sea to see out there the entire time anyway! Our room was reasonably spacious, and our checked luggage was already in the room. It was now 3pm - about 2 hours until departure, although we heard an announcement saying that departing would be 4.30pm. Not long after our cabin steward Eduard came and introduced himself, and told is that at 4.30 there was also a lifeboat drill that we would be required to attend at 4.30 on Deck 7. Since we wanted to watch the departure and the evening dress code kicks in from 6pm, we decided we'd go to the drill in our fancy clothes and afterwards straight to the open decks for departure.
Cunard ships have strict dresscodes in the evenings. There are two kinds of dresscodes - "Smart Attire" and "Formal". Smart Attire was today's dresscode, and for men means a suit with shirt and appropriate shoes but a tie is optional; for the ladies, a cocktail dress or smart outfit. Sasha wore a black cocktail dress and some ballet flats, and I wore a black suit that I had worn for work in the UK, a purple-and-white striped shirt and I also opted to wear a black tie. All of my outfit had been procured from Primark during my time in London, so although looked good was hardly high fashion! My shoes though were black dress shoes 2nd hand from Uncle Wayne - he'd bought them for when he was getting married to Sally, wore them the once and hadn't had occasion to wear them again. So he'd very kindly donated them to me - we're the same shoe size! One thing I had to do before getting dressed was iron my shirt, so I went down to the laundromat on Deck 11 and found a free ironing board and iron. There were two other ladies in the small laundromat room, both were Australian and one was part of a contingent of over 100 Australians who had done a cruise on Queen Victoria, another on Queen Elizabeth and now Queen Mary 2 - all cruises back to back! The other lady had also done the other two Queens but had done some traveling in between cruises, and she was having an issue - she'd put clothes in a washing machine but it was spinning without any water, and she was trying to get hold of someone to get it fixed with not much success. Before I left she'd gotten through to someone and they were sending a technician up.
I got dressed, and Sasha spotted our table reservation card for the Britannia Restaurant. All cabins are assigned a restaurant - if you've paid megabucks for the super fancy cabins you dine in the Queens Grill or Princess Grill, but for most you get a timed sitting in the Britannia Restaurant for either 6pm or 8.30pm. You could choose online what table size you wanted to be at - a table for 2, or a shared table that sits 4, 6 or 8 people and what sitting you'd like of the two. We'd chosen 6pm so we had more freedom of choice for times of the various activities and a table for 6, as having table companions to talk to would be nice and if one couple were boring then the other couple should be okay - or so we reasoned! However our table reservation card said we had the 8.30pm sitting for the whole cruise - so after talking to one of the cabin attendants I went to the restaurant to try and get it changed, but no one was there bar a single waiter. He said to come back at 6 - the rest of the staff had gone to prepare for the lifeboat drill, for which it was nearly time.
So back up to the room, and when the alarm sounded we followed the instructions of getting the lifejackets out of the wardrobe, went down the stairs to Deck 7 and filed into Muster Station A, which is the onboard gym. Most people were still in their casual clothes unlike us, which might have been sensible as it was quite hot in the Gym. We ended up in a corner next to a group of 6 mainly young people who looked to be mid-20's and a few older passengers who sat on the bench presses for seats. After a little bit I noticed that someone appeared to be staring at me fairly intently - I caught her gaze, which broke her stare and she started looking elsewhere. She had a full face of fairly heavy makeup, was wearing a lifejacket and a yellow hat that said staff - clearly she was one of the crew that was at the drill to help demonstrate how to put on the lifejackets, which she did when the time came although not before someone out of eyesight in the gym fainted in the heat. When this crewperson took off their lifejacket as part of the demonstration we noticed she wasn't wearing a Cunard crew uniform like the others but what appeared to be a playsuit. After we had put on our lifejackets we were free to go, and on our way back up to the room Sasha and I conjectured that maybe the lifejacket demonstrator girl was maybe one of the dancers in the theatre onboard.
It wasn't long before we're being asked for our food choices - Sasha and I had to ask the waiter what the menu all meant. He explained it very well - appetisers are the first course, salad is an optional second course, the entrees are the mains and dessert is dessert. As for the Canton Ranch Spa Selections - it is indeed a weightwatchers-type meal suggestion but you can cherrypick the items from it to have with your meal, its not a set menu. With that sorted we ordered our appetizer, entree/main and dessert. For me, I had duck terrine, Roast Pork and Ice Creams. Oh and an important point - all food onboard is included in our ticket, as much or as little as you want. For the next 7 days we could forget that we were backpackers trying to watch our pennies on food and have as lavish a dish as we felt like!
Drinks though, are not included. This is where they get you - and we knew that before getting onboard. You are allowed to bring onboard one bottle of wine/champagne per person but that was it, so Sasha had been long planning on sneaking vodka in our luggage by putting it in a mouthwash container, which we did. The night before our cruise though we read some forums which said the alcohol policy was not enforced by Cunard and that effectively you could take as much as you like. So we bought a 1L bottle of vodka and stuck that in our luggage as well - and it got through no questions asked. We figured that we could buy soft drinks and mix the vodka with it, fir cheaper than buying alcohol onboard and we could drink the two wine bottles in our room - you could take them to the restaurant to drink if you wanted but corkage was a whopping US$20! So for our first night onboard we decided to buy a bottle of wine to have with dinner as a celebration - but as you can imagine, there was a lot of selection and not much was cheap! We knew this having seen the wine list online previous, but finding something wasn't easy until Sasha said "I wonder if there is German wine in here". Our table companions pointed us to the right page, and we found a bottle of White from the Mosel region for $27 - the cheapest I saw anything in the list in my cursory look. So we got that, as did our table companions! It proved to be very tasty and just like we'd hoped. We did learn one other, important thing - water was free, and they kept refilling your glass as soon as they noticed it was getting low.
Over dinner we got to know our table companions - they were from Liverpool, in an area called the Wirral. They were very surprised that we knew where that was, and not only that but we'd done the walk out on the beach to one of the islands. This was their first Trans Atlantic crossing and cruise with Cunard, but they'd done a cruise before. Both were now retired and it was one of their first forays into travelling around in their retirement. We knew we wouldn't get to dine with them the rest of the trip, but we bade them farewell and hoped we'd run into each other some other time during the journey - its a big ship, but again its a fixed space! We also hadn't quite finished our bottle of wine with dinner and we were asked if we'd like it kept for tomorrow night's dinner or did we want to take the bottle to our room. After ascertaining whether it was possible to drink anywhere on the ship, we chose to have our glasses filled up until the bottle was empty, and take the glasses with us.
The welcome show was part-showcase and part introduction. It started off with a few song and dance numbers performed by the 4 Royal Court Theatre singers, and the 12 Royal Court Theatre dancers. There were 2 male singers and 2 female singers, and 6 male dancers and 6 female dancers - all would have been under the age of 30 or early 30's at most. Sure enough, amongst the female dancers was our lifeboat drill instructor - we would later find out her name is Tiffany and she's actually the Dancing troop manager. The dancing girls were very polished and in sync with their dances, but the same could not be said of the male dancers. They seemed messy and one in particular who looked like he was 14 years old (I'm sure he wasn't) was out of step most of the time but he looked like he was having the time of his life! The entertainment director, Angela came on stage after a bunch of the dance and singing routines and explained some of the activities and talks. She also explained that from 6am until midday she would host what essentially is a Breakfast show noting the different entertainment offerings for the day that would screen on a 20min loop, in addition to the daily programme which would be delivered to our room each night. We also had some songs performed by the singer from the Ballroom onboard - a young man from Sydney in an ill-fitting suit called Brad Reynolds, and he was trying to pitch to the audience that they should come to the dancing held every night in the Queens Room but kept saying it doesn't matter if you don't know how to dance and that its ok if you fall over. Not the most successful pitch I dare say but he could sure sing, Michael Buble-style. The show finished off with the singers and dancers returning to do a Neill Diamond tribute act of a few songs - to a very audible groan from one section of the audience when it was announced!
After we had a little wander around the ship before we noticed that there was colour in the sky outside so we raced up to the outdoor area on Deck 12 and got a range of photos of the sunset. After this we walked the short distance to our cabin on Deck 13, spent a long time studying the program of the next day's activities and deciding on a course of action. The last thing before going to bed - setting our clocks back an hour, as 5 of our 7 nights consisted of 25hr days in order to be the correct local time when we land in New York.
Day 2 - Exploring The Ship
After lunch we continued wandering and exploring the ship, to get our bearings and find out where everything was. We discovered at the forward end of Deck 2 some juice and tea/coffee machines near the Connexions desk, which you could help yourself to and were like the ones in the buffet restaurant. They were not too far from Stairway A, the only stairway which led to our cabin on Deck 13 so we got two glasses of Orange Juice, took them up to our room and added some of our vodka to it. This then set the pattern for the rest of the trip!
At 2.30pm we joined the already long queue for the Planetarium, and went in and sat down ready for the 3pm showing. The Planetarium is the only one at Sea, and is a dome which gets lowered over a special group of seats in the main Movie/Lecture Theatre called Illuminations. Some of the seats were a bit tired or broken - they either wouldn't stay up, or they wouldn't recline all the way back, or some mix of the two which is very surprising given the ship had a huge makeover and refit a year ago. Sasha kept having trouble reclining her chairs (we moved once) and they seemed chunky. The show we watched was called Infinity Express, voiced by Laurence Fishburne (from the Matrix) and to put it mildy, it was Lame. The concept sounded good but the execution was pretty boring, I have to say I left the Planetarium at the end feeling like that would have been a waste of money if I'd paid for it. The Planetarium itself worked pretty well though, it just needed a decent show to be screened in it. Infinity Express was not it.
After a fairly full on day, we walked all the way along the entire length of Deck 2 from the Ballroom to Stairway 2 and went back to our room, put our clocks back an hour and went to sleep.
Day 3 - Its Nice Inside
We had a bit of a free morning with no activities on the schedule that took our fancy, so we wandered around the ship a bit more. There was now a bit of cloud, and the sea didn't look quite as flat. We ended up at one of the game tables in the corridors which flank the Royal Court Theatre, with a box of Scrabble so we decided to have a game. I went first, and the only word that I could spell with the letters I had just happened to be "TITTY". A lot more sensible words followed, with Sasha ultimately winning the game with the most points.
It wasn't until after we were on our way back to our room that I said to Sasha maybe we should have held off on buying the picture with the Captain and tried to get a selfie with him when we were just talking to him!
Day 4 - Foggy Times in the Atlantic
We went down to the Britannia again, at the proper time and this morning I wanted something other than eggs and bacon for a change, so got Pancakes and Fruit. Sasha went with Eggs Benedict, with all the sides and a V8 juice as well as a coffee! Following breakfast, back to our room - and we noticed that the door I'd stuck my head out before was now barriered off and locked. Even the doors leading to the main outdoor area on Deck 13 were closed off, and in the corridor you could hear the fog horn blasting every so often but I couldn't hear it in our cabin.
Following the washing expedition and Sasha's doze, we headed around the ship and found the outdoor walkway on Deck 7 was still open so we went around it twice in the fog. It was dense, you couldn't see one end of the ship from the other but it wasn't cold - though a bit windy.
There was a theatre performance in the Royal Court Theatre in the afternoon, performed by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, or RADA, and we wanted to make sure we got a good seat so we waited outside the Theatre early before the doors opened, and during this time we got talking to one of the Royal Court Singers. He gave us some good tips for Washington DC and Chicago, and when we went in we got ourselves a good spot in the 2nd row. We sat next to a family from the US, who we got talking to and they were saying the morning's lectures had been packed out - perhaps with the foggy weather, everyone's turned to indoor activities. We'd passed on the morning's lectures - one was by the aircraft guy probably talking about flying again, and another was on something called Fibbonaci's Numbers which hadn't interested us at all although the US Family assured us the lecture had been really good and fascinating. The RADA show was Much Ado About Nothing, it was quite excellent and the actors performed extremely well. As it turned out, the group of RADA performers had been the group of 6 young people near us during the lifeboat drill.
On our way up to our room, we passed Celia Imre in the hallway, and got not only another smile but a Hi this time! While in our room we turned on the TV to see what the onboard channels were showing, and happened upon a small video being shown on loop which was an interview with the Naval Architect of the QM2 talking about how he designed the ship and how it came about. In a nutshell, the guy was a Liner buff and happened to be the one called upon to design the only Liner of the 21st Century because of it. He had to convince Carnival that they needed to build a proper liner and not some cruise ship-liner hybrid, and to go for broke and build the largest passenger ship in the world at the time, but he succeeded and then designed all his favourite features from the famous Transatlantic liners into his new design - the Queen Mary 2. While we were watching this, we were scouring the program to find what time the Lecture about the Meteorite was as we'd both thought it was different times. As it turned out, both those times were listed on the program in different spots - 4pm in one spot, and 4.30pm in another. One was a typo, and one wasn't. But which was which? the safest thing was to go for the earliest time, and work on that basis.
So that's how we came to be in the Illusions Theatre just before 4pm, and found a packed-out theatre watching a Flamenco Guitar performance by Adam Westcott. We stood up the back and watched the tail of this performance, which was very good, and once it was over much of the theatre flooded out. We had to wait for a gap in the people coming up the stairs before we could attempt to go down, and Sasha asked me when should she start attempting to head down. I scanned the staircase, saw a gap and said to Sasha "After Bruce Forsyth". It just so happened the Brucie was the last person in that bigger crowd who was coming up the stairs, and I don't know if Sasha knows who Bruce Forsyth was exactly but we'd seen this guy quite a few times over the last few days and I'd kept pointing him out that she knew exactly who I meant! The Meteorite Lecture was about a Meteorite which landed in a place in the UK called Appleby Bridge about 100 years ago and the lecture was hosted by a journalist who had moved to Appleby, heard about the Meteorite but couldn't find much information so had gone out and pieced it all together and written a book about it. He even had managed to wrangle out of the British Museum (who own the Meteorite) a sample on loan to bring on board the ship - so at the end of the lecture, on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, we held a fragment of a Meteorite! Or should I say, Meteorites - as there was more than one. In addition to the sealed sample of the Appleby Bridge meteorite, was a few meteorites from the Lecturer's own personal collection (one 2,500 years old) and we could handle the bare rock!
The fog had encapsulated the ship all day, and with it the winds had gotten worse over the day. The doors to the outsides on Deck 14 and Deck 13 had remained shuttered, and every time we'd gone past that door where I'd poked my head out onto Deck 14 there was a constant whistle of air pushing its way through the edges of the door. With the wind came choppy seas, and while the large ship had been rock solid smooth so far now we were able to feel a rolling motion which had been a bit worse prior to dinner but got a bit less. I had noticed just before we left dinner on the information page on the TV that the ship had been slowed down - no longer were we doing 22 knots, but we were down to 16 or 17 and we were still rocking a bit. The same page noted that the winds were Force 6. After dinner we went back up to the room to grab some more drink to take to the evening's performance, and the same info page showed the ship had sped up again to 21 knots. With it, the rocking motion was getting more noticeable.
The performance that night was by some Pianists called Worby and Farrell, who both play on the same piano at once - which is amazing to watch and requires enormous teamwork on their part! They were also quite funny and a lot of their performance was mixed with comedy. While in the theatre, the rocking motion of the ship seemed to move into pitching, and although we were on Deck 2 where the feeling should be lessened you could feel it and not ignore it. We must have crashed into an especially large wave as part way through the performance, the boat shuddered in the way that they do and a lot of people let out a gasp. Sasha was starting to feel a bit queasy with the rolling but wasn't bad enough that we needed to go back to our room.
Day 5 - Interviews and Different Food Choices
So the previous day had gotten a bit rocky, which is partly what prompted our sleep in. It had been a bit calmer today, but all those outdoor areas had been shut still, the fog a bit foggy still and the ship had been going slower most of the day. However by the afternoon the ship had sped up again - 21.7 knots, and the outdoor area of Deck 13 was now open even if Deck 14 was not. Outside it was still quite windy however!
Afterwards, we wandered out towards the outside part of Deck 7 as it was getting dark. Well, only I went outside into the blustering wind while Sasha stayed safely inside. The reason I wanted to be out here - we were at the time where we would be making our closest approach to the spot where Titanic lay under the Atlantic ocean. I mean I knew I wasn't going to see anything - it was just over 100km to the north of where we were (ships sail a more southerly route since Titanic sunk, because it avoids the risk of icebergs) and of course there was 3.8km of ocean depth to contend with too. But this was likely the closest I'd ever get to the fabled ship - and I wanted to snap a photo of virtually nothing, knowing that the spot of that tragic night where it sank was somewhere in the distance.
Day 6 - Sport and Masquerade
Cunard is supposedly the only cruise line that offers Fencing as a sporting class on its ships. The first morning Fencing had been on the programme, and we'd thought about doing it but as the programme stated that only the first 12 people could participate and its timing was awkward for having breakfast we thought we'd leave it to the next day or the day after. What we didn't realise was the next day, was class Fencing B - you had to have attended the first fencing class. They don't offer Fencing classes every day and this was literally the next opportunity, and considering how close we were getting to the end of the cruise, it would be the last! Everyone who was showing up in the Ballroom early was anxious to be in that first 12, but in the end we had a total of 9 - apparently the first class had been the maximum of 12, with Celia Imre participating too. Our Tutor Declan took us through the basics, had us suit up in the suits (it got quite warm) and by the end of the lesson we were just beginning facing off with other people. Somehow in amongst all this, when practicing the lunges (minus any swords) my glove came off and I managed to accidentally kick it very high - almost right into the chandelier!
Luckily as soon as we entered the kitchens the conversations stopped and somehow through the line getting a bit held up and then some of it bypassing some of the area, they kind of skipped ahead of us past a lot of stuff. The whole kitchen was a big mass of Stainless steel preparation surfaces and equipment - though the place had been cleaned prior to our arrival and no doubt will be again after we left, there was still a lot of food preparation going on. The tour was mainly hosted by Reggie, the Chef from the Fruit Sculpting demonstration and at one stage he told our little part of the line that they had 1600 Lobsters on board which would be on the menu tonight. When you consider we were on a full sailing and total capacity of passengers on the ship is 2700 people, not everyone was going to get Lobster - particularly if you were on the later dining round in the Britannia restaurant but they must have their guesses on how much of what kinds of food they need to have down to a fine art by now.
Day 7 - Sun, TEa and More Sport
Day 8 - The Arrival
The previous day Sasha and I had been discussing strategy for watching the arrival into New York. We knew it would be an early start, but we wanted to get a good spot and not miss out. But where would be a good spot? we had 3 contenders - the bow viewing deck area on Deck 7, the open viewing deck directly below the bridge on Deck 11, and the sheltered viewing deck above the bridge on Deck 14. Since the weather was not going to be raining or bad, there was no reason to be on the shielded and view-restricted Deck 14; and I was concerned some of the propeller blades and cranes on the bow deck on Deck 7 might limit some of the views. Deck 11 seemed perfect to me, but the key would be to get there early enough to get a spot at the railing else we'd be sunk. We knew that we'd pass under the Narrows Bridge at 4.45am, so we thought we'd aim for 4.30am but after talking to our table companions who wanted to do the same thing and were talking of going at 4am. So if other passengers were thinking the same, then we needed to be out there before them.
So at 3.30am we headed out onto Deck 11, and found it completely empty bar for 1 person. This was great as it meant we had our pick of the spots, and at 3.45pm a small boat appeared and dropped off the pilot. From the minute we'd set foot on the deck, we could see the glow and lights of a city lit up in the dark with some skyscrapers - this was New York. By now a few others had arrived, but it wasn't until about 4.30am that most of the railing had been taken up ready for the transit under the Narrows Bridge. There was still enough room that I could race to the rear wing of the deck and get a looking back shot without fear of losing my main spot, but not long after that the crowds began to layer. We could see a lot of people assembling on Deck 7, and I'm sure there would have been a lot on the outdoor spaces on Deck 13 and 14 also. New York got closer and closer as the day got lighter and lighter, and suddenly as we rounded a corner we could see the small silhouette of the Statue of Liberty all lit up.
Summing Up
As a kid who was interested in the Liners, I once hoped I may cross the Atlantic on the QE2 which was at that stage the last Liner crossing the Atlantic. I remember finding out about a new liner being built as a teenager, being excited and then being thoroughly unimpressed when I saw the resulting ship - the Queen Mary 2. It was a liner but it seemed to lack any charm in its design and although it incorporated different features which were borrowed from the great ocean liners of the Golden Era or later - the whaleback on the bow from Normandie, the front of the superstructure which was meant to echo the Queen Mary, the squat funnel which mimicked the QE2's iconic funnel - it all seemed a bit slapdash and to lack a cohesive design of its own. Seeing the ship for myself for the first time in 2012 made me appreciate the design and look of the ship a bit better, and now having been on it the ship really does have a character of its own - it may never have the elegant lines of QE2, but it is still far more elegant than your typical cruise ship. I was particularly impressed with various little aspects of the design - the QM2 is a liner designed by a liner fan, who has thought very long and hard about what he would like to have on board a liner if he were a passenger. The viewing Deck on Deck 11 is provided for no other purpose I am sure, than for giving an amazing view for that Trans Atlantic arrival into New York and that's just one little touch that I will recount here. QM2 might be the largest liner that will ever be constructed - it is as tall as it possibly can be at the funnel to fit under the Narrows Bridge, and it is as long as it possibly can be to berth at Southampton. Certainly it is a ship that will have a long service life ahead of it. Having been on board I was curious to know what a lot of the interior was like prior to its multi-million dollar 2016 refit (apparently the most expensive in Cunard history), when our cabin had been added. Having since seen photos of the previous interior, I do think I much prefer the current layout and fittings.
Queen Mary 2 has never held the famed Blue Riband, and there's never been an attempt to attain it - the truth is the ship can't possibly go fast enough to try and capture the trophy held by so many famous liners. Queen Mary 2 was originally designed to cross the Atlantic at a speed of 27 knots which is quite fast for a large passenger ship, doing the trip in 5 days and it was given 4 propellers for this purpose. It did do the trip in 5 days for the first few years, just like the QE2 had but at some point they slowed the crossing down to the current 7 nights/8 days. The reasons seemed to have been twofold - spend less money on fuel (going faster consumes a lot), and also people end up spending more onboard. Having done the 7 nights, with the bewildering array of entertainment on board I struggle to think how action-packed and even rushed that 5 day crossing must have been. 7 nights feels about right to me!
Our departure from Southampton marked a milestone for us - our departure from Europe after nearly 4 years of living and traveling there, and also the start of Part 4 of our trip - the shortest part, just lasting the week that we would be aboard the ship. Strange to think too that for those 8 days, we were not in any country - the ship might be technically under American rules, and as its registered in the Bahamas it has to adhere to Bahamian laws, but as we were "in transit" we were between countries for all practical purposes for 8 days - we weren't even in any country's territorial waters for most of it. My mind boggles a little with that! Also, our arrival in New York marked the beginning of the last part of our trip - our travels through North America before heading back to the Southern Hemisphere to live. It was certainly an amazing way to arrive in the USA, and also I have to say I was very pleased to not have to worry about our bags or packing anything for a whole 7 nights!
So while our trip aboard Queen Mary 2 was fantastic and very much enjoyed, it won't be forgotten in a hurry. Not just with memories - I am certain that the podgy belly I now sport (which I had virtually lost while in the UK and Germany) is solely the product of over-indulging in fantastic food aboard the QM2 and then having to deal with American food for 4 weeks after that. My podgy belly is proving a bit hard reminder to shift at the moment!
And lastly - a massive thank you to Sasha for a myriad of things - firstly for being open-minded about the idea and the expense, secondly for encouraging the idea and lastly for the fantastic time we had on board. I know that if I had not met you, I probably would have given the trip a shot by myself and while it would have been a nice experience it would have been nowhere near as amazing as the trip was with you. I can't wait until the next time we can have an adventure like this!