days_unfolding

You may recall that I had booked the Queen Mary 2 transatlantic crossing from Hamburg to New York City. About a week before departure, I got an email that there was an issue with the ship and it couldn’t dock in Hamburg. Instead, they would bus the passengers from Hamburg to Bremerhaven instead. This was a minor inconvenience, but I certainly would have liked more notice. And it was a bit annoying that they didn’t confirm the bus time until late afternoon on Friday when we were departing on Monday.

I had chosen the first bus time in the morning and took a taxi to the Central Bus Terminal. Several people were waiting around and there were two people from Cunard checking off passengers. There was a bit of a wait before we left and the ride was about 2 1/2 hours. We did have a brief comfort stop and I have to say that the facilities where we stopped didn’t reflect well on German infrastructure. We did, eventually, get to the Columbus terminal in Bremerhaven, where we had to go through assorted checks of our documents (for Americans, this meant passport, boarding pass for the ship, and UK ETA). Then we got on another bus to the ship itself. It turned out that they were supposed to have given me the ship ID card, but had failed to. There were two German men who had the same problem and they made us wait outside in the cold and windy weather before they made new cards and let us on. Apparently the people on the afternoon buses had even worse issues and some of them had to wait as long as three hours before their buses left Hamburg.

Fortunately, the actual voyage went more smoothly for the most part. I had booked an inside stateroom on the grounds that there would be plenty of places other than my cabin to hang out in. That was pretty much true, but I did get in an afternoon nap most days. While I had time for reading and doing puzzles and crocheting, there were enough activities that I didn’t have time for everything I wanted to do. Because I was traveling alone, I made a point of going to many of the twice daily solo travelers’ get-togethers, which were a great way to meet people. In fact, one of the first people I talked with turned out to be someone with whom I have a mutual friend. They have several lectures during the day and I went to some about nuclear energy (e.g. the Manhattan Project), cinema (one on Alfred Hitchcock and Daphne du Maurier and one on Busby Berkeley and Carmen Miranda), a couple of art talks (one on Banksy and one on art as an investment), and (a particular highlight) two by Marcel Theroux (son of travel writer Paul), who talked about making documentaries in Russia and North Korea and about his true crime books. Of course, I played trivia and, in fact, the team I was on for progressive trivia came in second and we won some Cunard-branded tchotchkes. There was also plenty of other entertainment available, especially all sorts of music. For example, I went to the afternoon tea one day, which had a harp player. I also listened to an Irish folk duo a couple of times and to a cocktail pianist who played a lot of show tunes. A couple of people I met sang in the passenger chorus and I went to their concert, too. I didn’t find time to work on the jigsaw puzzles that were set out among the game tables where a few people played board games. I also enjoyed the library which is claimed to be the largest one on any cruise ship.

The food was, in general, reasonably good. There was a wide enough variety to satisfy most tastes. I always ate dinner in the Britannia Restaurant. They had given me open seating, which meant I could show up any time from 6 to 9 p.m. If you want to sit alone, you can, but I always asked to share a table and, except for one night where there 7 people at a table for 12, making it hard to talk to anyone except whoever was right next to you, that worked out well. I met some very interesting people, including one of the lecturers (whose talk on police malfeasance I had missed) and a woman who had worked as a crystallographer. I sometimes ate breakfast or lunch in the restaurant, but more often went either to the Kings Court Buffet or to the Corinthia Lounge, which served “light fare,” e.g. fruit plates and pastries for breakfast or salads for lunch.

I was a little surprised by the demographics, by the way. Yes, there were plenty of older people. In my mid-60’s, I was probably close to the average age. But there also several younger passengers, e.g. a young man who had been studying in London for a couple of years who was returning to New Jersey. The largest number of passengers were (not surprisingly) British, followed by Americans and Germans. On Friday night, they offered a Jewish religious service and the attendees were from several countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, and Canada as well. (By the way, the guy from Germany who volunteered to lead the service had an excellent voice. And Cunard supplied kosher wine, challah, and gefilte fish.)

One other thing I should mention is that I have some friends who told me they would never take a trip on Cunard because they don’t want to dress up. During the day, you can wear pretty much anything. The general dress code for most evenings is “smart attire.” I generally wore one of two dresses I’d brought with me or a nice set of slacks with a twin set, i.e. pretty much what I used to wear to work. There were two gala nights and they tell you the theme long before sailing. I absolutely love getting dressed up, so for the Black and White Gala Night, I wore a full length black dress with an elaborate white neckline. I also had on my grandmother’s amethyst necklace and earrings.



The other gala night’s theme was Masquerade and a bit over half the people wore masks. I opted to wear my longish purple dress and my Mardi Gras themed Lunch at the Ritz earrings.



I got plenty of compliments on both outfits. And I enjoyed seeing what other people were wearing. (There were even a few men in kilts. Drool!)

But there are some people who never dress up and they were free to eat in the pub or the buffet on those evenings.

There was always a show (performed twice to accommodate both early and late diners). My favorite of the performers was a woman named Lorraine Brown who had an amazing voice. For one show, she did a Motown medley and a series of Shirley Bassey songs. Her other show was focused on Dionne Warwick. As far as the other shows, I was disappointed in the Broadway show, which started out fine with songs from West Side Story and South Pacific but ended up with several numbers from jukebox musicals. I don’t go to Broadway-themed shows to hear songs by Carole King, Tina Turner, Abba, and The Temptations. Nice dancing, however.

Overall, I enjoyed the transatlantic crossing much more than I’d expected to. I even got this iconic photo as we approached New York at the end of the trip.




Cunard offered bus service to the airports and to the train stations. I decided that, given my large suitcase, it was worth the 60 bucks to Penn Station (roughly what an Uber would cost) instead of coping with the subway. Marriott status proved useful again as I was able to get early check-in (without a fee) and take a nap. Overall, I would take the QM2 again, though I still prefer small ship expedition cruises.