Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The QM2

The journey to London from Spain was “unique.” You know that joke about mañana and Spain? Well, it’s not a joke…. Our plane was delayed by at least 4 hours; we missed our connection from Dublin to Heathrow, and ended sleeping in an airport hotel in Dublin. We flew to Heathrow the next morning. Aer Lingus took good care of us, and the trip was uneventful, but long.

We made it in plenty of time to board our luxury liner, with a slight knitting emergency, I was running out of sock yarn!!! We had to find a haberdashery in a department store to fill my sock yarn needs. Mission accomplished, though!

And that English Queen keeps following us around! She was in Buckingham Palace when we visited, and she was decommissioning the QE2 just before we boarded the QM2. This was a BIG DEAL in Southampton, thus the photographs.

Then you are supposed to drink champagne as you leave the dock. The Commodore then sounded the horn (?) and we promptly spilled half our glasses! That horn is LOUD!

The next morning found us relaxing on our balcony.


Then the days flowed by, filled with activities. There is soo much to do on a trip like this! There were only two things wrong – too much food(!) and there were quite a few passengers in the “elderly” category, elderly like the customers at the big Florida grocery, they would be walking down a corridor and just stop. Combined with the rocking of the ship, some passenger collisions occurred. But, God bless them for taking the trip and enjoying life, whatever their circumstances.

Mom was a little worried about iceberg collisions, but we didn’t have any of those. There was one or two rocky days, it didn’t bother me, but Mom was a little green here and there. She just rested, the weather changed, and she was fine.

We went to two shows, absolutely fabulous!, a lecture, and other activities. Now let me tell you about the dining. The Dining! Breakfast was a daily adventure, sitting with different people, meeting passengers from all over the western world. It turns out that many people take the Queen over the ocean and back as their full holiday! Four hours in Manhattan is just part of the trip, not the destination.

Lunch was a daily buffet adventure, as was finding a seat… and dinner – well, that was a highlight. We had wonderful dining companions from England, Wales and Maine. Mom and I made a plan to change our personal seats every day, so we could converse with everyone, and I think everyone enjoyed that. We learned about shipboard activities, the home life of our companions, and why they were travelling. Here is an un-official ship’s photo of our group. I'll add the official photo soon.

My personal highlights were blogging and e-mailing from the champagne bar and the middle of the Atlantic Ocean via satellite, and the daily stitching group that met, also in the champagne bar.

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