We decided to go by boat rather than fly as we thought it would make a nice change and we had never sailed the Atlantic, so booked our cabin on the Queen Mary II.

Still not in full retirement mode when I made the booking 3 months out and decided 1st Class was too expensive – bad move!  Our cabin was mid-ships on the 8th deck with a veranda, which made it very light and airy, so pretty good accommodation, plus our Filipino steward was fabulous.  Now we can really move into AngryAnglo mode!  It started to grate with the formal attire nights; black tie requested but, a suit and tie is accepted!!  And this applied to the whole boat after 7.00pm, even if you were eating in the cafeteria or one of the pubs/bars, it was still DJ required!  I mean how stupid can you get. Quite accept that the dining rooms and restaurants have this code, but if I want to slum it in another area, I should be able to do so – give me a break.  Other nights it was jacket for dinner, which is fine and I quite like.  I did bring a suit purely so we could eat dinner on these “formal” nights, but my DJs had gone to Goodwill; I was now retired damn it. We did meet people who revelled in the formal ball nights. One lady had brought 5 ball gowns with her! Considering we were on a cross between a floating old people’s home and a bad golf club it was all so pretentious it made your head spin.  We had opted for the early seating for dinner – another mistake – which was 6.30 pm rather than the 8.30 pm slot.  We were on a table for 6 so we could meet people; an older couple with the lady a great character, and a NZ couple in their 50s who had sold up and were moving lock stock and barrel to the UK. (you’ll be sorry!!) They loved ball room dancing and she was the lady who had brought the trunk of ball gowns! Dinner partners really good, but not so much the food. At our first meal, Ann’s steak was inedible, with the other courses very average.  However, an excellent wine list at duty-free prices with knowledgeable wine stewards, so not all was lost.  It did mean that we ditched our dinner slot and sorted our alternative dining venues. Our go-to dinner spot became the Veranda Restaurant, which had amazing food, out standing service, and lovely view of the ocean.  The $30 “supplement” for using this restaurant was worth the price.

Also, the cafeteria was excellent with a mind bending array of foods, which were well cooked and presented, but this couldn’t be replicated in the Britannia dining room – strange! We also belatedly found out they did ethnic pop-up dinners that were only announced in the so-called ship’s Newspaper.  This product was so bad it was amazing that Cunard would actually put this out to its guests, but there again were on the old people’s home/golf club cruise, owned and operated by Carnival Lines.  We did attend two of these dinners, one Indian, and one Mexican, both excellent!  Mind you on the Indian dinner I was refused entry by the Maitre ‘D until I put on a tie.  In a heartbeat my dress rebellion was quashed by my love of Indian food.

Next lot of rants coming up.  In their marine wisdom Cunard had decided to change the clocks daily at 12 noon, but this was never accounted for when attending courses or various other reservations!  Once again so stupid it was mind boggling.  The courses offered were pretty pathetic and seemed to mainly comprise of minor lefty newspaper correspondents who liked listening to their own voice.  The one good speaker was a retired British general talking on Iraq and the ME.  We actually did this via a tele-repeat in our cabin because we missed the actual lecture due to the stupid time change issue!  Ann decided to try the water-colour classes, but after 30 mins of draw this line, etc., the woman running the class left never to return.  End of painting classes for Ann. There was a small, but well equipped gym that was totally unmanaged, so you would head for you next piece of equipment only to find a 70 year Bronx maiden in street clothes, complete with hand bag, screeching at her husband to make the thing work!  I was waiting for one of them to get caught up in a moving part and be throttled into silence, but it never happened.  Now we’ll move onto the internet system on the ship.  You had to buy on-line minutes at an exorbitant rate, but the system had a 4-step log-on / log-off routine that did or didn’t work!  Which meant if you didn’t log off properly your stayed on-line and your minutes disappeared.  After spending $180 we very quickly we gave up, and decided communications could wait until we landed.

We did attend a couple of wine events that were really good, mainly due to the fact that there were 8 sommeliers on board. The Belgium boss was a Master Sommelier and 6 of the other 8 were about take their Masters exam, all of whom were Indian.  Got to know 2 of them through these wine events and dining in The Veranda – really nice and very good at their job – impressive!  These chaps and an amazing duty free wine list meant we drank very well.  During our pursuit of wine and booze we met a young Russian couple who were very good company.

Of our 7 days at sea only the first leg from NY to Halifax, NS was nice sunny weather.  As we sailed into Halifax it started raining and the fog rolled in, and so it remained until we neared Southampton.  Mind you it was rather nice going sleep at night with our veranda doors open and hearing the waves crashing and fog horn booming.

Then it was into Southampton.  As soon as we were in the channel were told we would not be docking at the new Cunard Queen Mary berth, but at the old terminal.  Did not sound good!  Called the company that we had booked our car and driver with to let them know the change, and then got with disembarking drill, marshalling points.  Our bags had been placed outside the cabin the previous night, but obviously getting a thousand odd people off complete with luggage, is quite a logistics feat, but as they had done this before we assumed it would go reasonable smoothly.  Wrong yet again!  The normal 30 min disembarking time dragged past an hour with annoying announcements saying they were having problems with gangways engaging.  Scrambled around from deck to deck for a phone signal to update our car people and to try to see what was happening with the gangways.  It appeared that normal wharfie procedure was in operation – a well used forklift to move and jiggle the ramp while large hammers were applied to various sections. What I did notice was that a small gangway was in use taking bags off – positive. After further time I saw a single gangway was in use towards the bows, so grabbed Ann and our bags and headed in that direction while the loud speakers instructed us to stay at our stations ready for our turn in getting off.  Right!  Found a queue for the one and only gangway and after about 15 mins or so we were in the baggage hall trying to locate our bags.  A really switched on porter asked for our deck and cabin number and then headed towards a stack of luggage where we actually found all our stuff.  We then said we had a car and driver waiting, we hoped, which to our switched on porter was not a problem as we followed him at a gallop through a series of doors and found our man!  Needless to say super porter received a sizeable tip.  An hour and forty-five mins later we were on the doorstep of Railway Cuttings waiting for Georgia to dash back from work to let us in.  We had made it.

As we relaxed that night ( a relative term in a house with Silas, Lizabel, and Arthur) and regaled Neal and Georgia with our tales of the sea, we vowed that was our last cruise!

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