Friday Sept 14th – 5th Day at Sea

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Hello from the Queen Mary 2, somewhere still at sea. Today we start with some sad news about our granddaughter, Tessa Brink. We were told that yesterday she fell and broke her right arm – both bones. She currently only has a splint but after the swelling goes down a little, she is destined to having a cast. I thought we had left clear instructions for “nobody to get sick” while we were away, but we should have also said “don’t get broken” either. We hope she starts feeling better soon and she heals quickly. David did the same thing to his left arm when he was a kid and look how he turned out – well that’s not because of his arm.

We got up before 8:00 today and went to the dining room for a nice breakfast. We both had bacon and eggs, but Janet had French Toast and David had Waffles. Of course there was juice and a fruit course, with pastries and tea for Janet and milk for David. Then we were off to start our day.

It is “that day”. Since we are beginners on Cunard with no benefits, we had to do our own laundry today. It wasn’t too bad because the machines are free (no cost) on QM2, but there were only a few machines and many people wanting to clean their clothes so there weren’t many free (available). We used them fairly early in the morning, but there were lines of people waiting for a turn to use them all through the afternoon. Anyway, we got enough clothes cleaned to last us until next week when we can probably find a regular laundromat in London.

Janet was also able to get good satellite/internet service and was able to do lots of household computer business. So the bills have been paid and all the mail has been read. Later in the day she saw pictures of Tessa on Facebook. Out in the middle of the Atlantic the service has sometimes been spotty and occasionally the connection would drop, but as we get closer to Europe we should have improved coverage the rest of the vacation.

Something which we have often encountered on other ships is a lack of elevators or elevators being small and often crowded. We have to give credit to QM2 in that we have never really had any problems getting an elevator when we wanted one. Here they are more plentiful, and seem to be larger, so we have been quite happy with that element.

Today was once again a 23 hour day. So David went down to the Grand Plaza to watch them ring the ships bell today. He also got a few other photos around the ship. Then it was time to go off to lunch, since it was after 1:00 and we hadn’t eaten since about 8:30. Psychologically you get hungry by just looking at the clock. We went to the pizza buffet where Janet got chicken and pepperoni pizzas and David had Tuna w/ peppers as well as some lasagna. Then we got a little dessert. After lunch Janet went back to the cabin to do some needleworking and David wandered around taking a few more pictures.

At 3:00 Janet went to her Knitting and David went down to the Chart Room for a beer. This was a nice quiet way to wrap up a fairly restful – unstructured – day. David is not especially good at being restful, but he got to read more of his book and Janet made more progress on her scarf.

It is time to announce the results of our unofficial survey. On our earlier cruises we were able to gather “age statistics” about our fellow passengers, and we would proudly exclaim that we were still in the younger half. More recently it has been harder to get that information and in many cases there have been enough children or younger adults that we haven’t bothered. On this cruise we have no published age figures either, but our opinion is that there are quite a few people who certainly look older than us. There are indeed a small number of children and a few younger couples, but it strikes us that on QM2 there are many more older folk – at least according to our eyes. So without any real facts to back it up, we once again declare ourselves to be in the younger half. Yeah!

Tonight was the final Formal Dinner, and our last dinner with the higher standard of dress. So we got fancied up once again and went to have another feast. This evening Janet had Lobster and David had Beef Wellington. This was after an appetizer course and before dessert. While we were dining they had a brief celebration with the “parade of the chefs”. On Princess they have the Waiters parade through the dining room to receive applause from the diners. Here on QM2 they have the Chefs parade and then the head chefs were introduced to everyone. It was a nice way to thank them for cooking such good food all week.

After dinner we stopped at the Godiva shop to get a Milk Chocolate Mocha Coffee for Janet. Then we went to the Royal Court Theater for a song & dance show from the ship’s performers. Tonight it was called “Rhythm of the Night”. It wasn’t amazing but it was fast paced with lots of speedy dance steps and peppy songs. It was nice entertainment.

That wraps up another restful day at sea. Everyone please try to stay healthy tonight!

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Photos

QM2 Ship's Bell
being rung at Noon

Looking Astern
couple of thousand miles to New York

Comments

[Jerry and Joyce]

Happy travels.
We are enjoying your reporting. Fair and balanced!!!!!!