Aboard the Queen Mary 2 - April 27-29, 2012

The first afternoon on the Queen Mary 2 (QM2) is spent reacquainting ourselves with the ship’s layout.  This ship IS bigger than the Queen Elizabeth and while we were on this ship 5 years ago, our memories are dim and the ship’s layout is unique.  In addition, our cabin is on the starboard side of the ship instead of the port, thereby reversing “forward” and “aft” relative to our previous cabin.  If you are left and right challenged, you can just imagine!

Grand Lobby

We agree the QM2 is a beautiful and amazing cruise liner - after walking at least 3 miles just figuring out where things are on the ship.  The promenade area displays brass wall murals representing the four seasons and four continents impressing us once again.   

Brass Wall Murals

Asia

Description of the blades picture

Our dinner table is still located right next to the same couple we sat next to on the Queen Elizabeth.  And the next table over is another couple we met on the Queen Elizabeth so we feel like we are still at ‘home.’  The food is excellent as is to be expected J

After dinner is the evening’s entertainment. Both the first night and the second night, the orchestra and the dancers put on excellent shows.  In addition, the QM2 has a planetarium theatre called Illuminations.  Daily you can pick-up tickets for one of the four afternoon prerecorded planetarium shows.  There are two different shows so we attend one our first day on ship and the other the second day.  

The speakers on the ship include:

-        Chief White House Correspondent, Ken Walsh
-        Art Historian, Seth Gopin
-        New York-Based Travel Writer, Theodore W. Scull
-        Art /Architecture Expert, Professor Neil Kent



The Blades

Each day we plan on attending some of their lectures throughout the voyage.  Those lectures we miss we can watch on the TV in our room later in the same day or throughout much of the next day.  There are also movies as well in the day and sometimes in the evening, “The Descendents” and “War Horse” to name a few.

This ship’s journey carries all different people and even pets (the QM allegedly has the only kennel-at-sea).  There are 9 dogs and 2 cats on board in the kennels, a woman announces on the elevator as she is going up to visit her dog.



Hitchhikers or Immigrants

We also discover on a morning walk that the ship is providing free passage to immigrants to New York – a small flock of birds is camping out on the Promenade deck.  We can only hope that the deckhands adopt them, just as the QE deckhands adopted a seagull emigrating from San Francisco to Honolulu back in February!

Now for the interesting people onboard (besides us of course) – former President George ‘41’ Bush and wife Barbara, along with several family members (looks like young women but not the other George’s daughters) along with their secret service protection.  We see Barbara walking the deck with a young woman, accompanied behind and in front by secret service officers.  Then, at the evening show, Barbara Bush along with various young women arrives and is seated, after which President Bush arrives, in a motorized scooter, to a standing ovation.  They patiently and graciously smile as many people flash pictures of them.  Thank goodness the ‘cruise paparazzi’ stop their picture taking once the show starts.  Hopefully the rest of their cruise will not be filled with so much ‘in your face’ picture taking.  By the way, they look pretty darn good for 88 and 86 years old.  And today, Sunday, we attended the Maritime Church Service and there in the same ‘pew’ were the President and Barbara with family. No pictures by us – you’ll just have to believe this story.

Another first – the Captain announced at noon that he had just conducted the first official wedding ever performed on a Cunard ship.  Rather remarkable since Cunard has been around since the 1840’s.  Wow!  Congratulations to Barry & Denise Maloney the lucky newlyweds who were also privileged to blow the QM2’s horn at Noon.

We are now, rapidly it seems, experiencing the rest of our whole-day catch-up we lost when we crossed the International Date Line in the Pacific.  The clocks have already been set back (or as the British say, “retarded”) two hours, with three more to go before New York.  More time to eat, read and reflect!

Almost around the World!  (And if this man in the picture can do it – seriously he was on the Queen Elizabeth too – anyone can do it!)