Hello from the middle of the Atlantic! We have snagged some ship WiFi and are checking in from the (very) high seas aboard the Queen Mary 2! Our captain has had to alter our route to New York City to try to stay out of a “low pressure weather system”, so evidently we are quite a bit south of his “usual” path for crossing the Atlantic. Even so, we have ocean swells of up to seven feet today and this boat is surely rockin’!

I guess it is because they also left from Southampton like we did, but for some unknown (and ill-advised, imo) reason, our ship’s route actually shows us where the Titanic went down with a marker on the path we are following. Umm… not a reminder I want while at sea in the winter, Cunard. Ya’ whack.

Ship Shape

We are adjusting to life on the Queen Mary 2 quite well, I must say! Despite the fact that we are some of the youngest people in board (stop laughing… I’m not even kidding!!), we are meeting nice people and having a great time. It’s definitely more “tame” than our last Celebrity cruise with fewer options of things to do each day, but we are also perfectly content to sit and read and watch the waves, so it suits us. That said, it is still a regular “cruise ship” in that we have plenty of meal options, shows and activities, and a wonderful cabin steward to clean all our messes and make our beds. Love that!! This ship is pretty immaculate- there is always someone cleaning and polishing, and lots of hand sanitizer and hand wash stations everywhere, so they are doing their best to keep us all healthy. The buffets are also manned by cruise staff to portion out servings for you which is good for cleanliness, and bad for controlling my portion sizes, as most of these people do not seem to believe us if we say “just a little” or “just one piece.”

No Time for Boredom

Rob noted in our last blog that this cruise is the kick off/first leg for QM2’s 108-day world tour. We’ve met many people staying on for the entire world cruise, and others staying on for just one leg (like us) or several legs. As such, it is very heavily weighted with retirees on this ship who have that kind of vacation time available. However, much to my surprise, there are a few “young people” on board, even some families with children, and I met some honeymooners as well. It’s nice to have the mix, as I really miss kids if we aren’t around them for long. Although we saw many people boarding with pets, sadly I also haven’t seen much of them, either. I know they have a kennel/pet walking area on board, and even though I lurked there, no kitties or pooches to pet. Ah well…

We’ve been keeping busy on our own and doing some of the ship’s activities. We’ve joined some older couples from the UK to form an international trivia team and we have played trivia together the last few mornings (they have several sessions a day). My favorite part about playing with them is that when it was time to choose a team name, they suggested “US/UK”, so yeah… our team’s official name is pronounced “You Suck.” Obviously we’re not winning anything, but we are having some good laughs! Will try to remember to get a photo of “the team”’one day.

Yesterday we spent almost the entire day working on a ship scavenger hunt. In the morning the activity team gave us a sheet of ten pictures of things from around the ship, and the quest was to find all ten items and take pictures of someone from your team by the items within 24 hours. We have now explored this ship from top to bottom, as our step count can attest to, but we successfully got all 10! It was tough- most things were small parts of paintings located around a ship FULL of paintings, and even asking staff/crew to help didn’t often yield positive results, but we persevered in the names of pride, stubbornness, and competitiveness. 😬

Rob posing artfully next to some of the items we had to hunt down:

Fun fact: the QM2 has the largest library at sea. It is truly impressive, and we could read for years and still have plenty of options. Lovvvvve finally having REAL reading time.

While I shudder to list “eating” as an onboard activity, it would be neglecting a significant portion of our days if I didn’t mention it at all. So far, the food on Cunard (the parent company for the QM2), or at least this ship specifically, has been really, really good. In fact, although we are on our way to becoming fairly loyal to Celebrity Cruise Line, I have to say the food has definitely been better on Cunard than it was on Celebrity (certainly compared to our October cruise on the Solstice). We have had very good meals in the dining room, the buffet, and all the side places as well.

High Tea

There are, naturally, many lovely British touches to this ship, including their afternoon observance of “high tea.” From 3:30-4:30 daily, you can go to the dining room where the bell rings at 3:30 and gloved, uniformed servers come out and bring rounds of tea, finger sandwiches, and pastries. It’s so awesomely British, and also has some very tasty treats, not limited to the best scones I’ve ever had. Being very American myself, I can’t truly say I’ve given scones more than a handful of tries in my life, but these are so far ranking up there at the top of those I’ve tried. You also don’t have to dress up for this tea, which bummy cruise me appreciates.

The Brits, as a whole, do seem to take their tea quite seriously. Yesterday we were in the buffet where Rob has taken to making a daily cup of iced tea for each of us (iced tea is NOT a thing in the UK). As he sat at our table with his cup of brewed hot tea and his cup of ice and he slowly poured the tea over the ice, we noticed a nearby passenger staring at us and the man said “What’s that you’re up to? Are you pouring TEA over your ice?” <insert horrified British face here >. But then he must have had a change of heart because after observing for a while he starting cheering us on “Brilliant!” “Well done!” It could have just been his British sarcasm, but we’ll take our “Brilliant”s when and where we can get them. 😂

Captain’s Got Jokes

So tonight we were invited to the Captain’s cocktail party for all first timers aboard the QM2. It was a really nice event with good snacks and free drinks- basically, the LeBeau Love Language. They introduced all of the first officers, and the captain spoke and told us all that the “The ports are just interruptions.” Pretty funny.

The other day we were at the elevator, and the captain stepped aboard with us. We told him “We are not going up” when he pressed the button of the (higher) floor he wanted, and he said “Oh no! We’re going down!” He then stepped back and said “Whoops- I think I’m not allowed to say that!” and we all had a laugh. This captain has jokes!

We’ve got four more full days at sea before we arrive in NYC. Looking forward to seeing what the next few days hold! Thanks for adventuring with us!