The watery highway that is the North Atlantic: you can fly over it in five hours or so OR you can take 7 days on the Cunard Queen Mary 2 as my husband and I did in September. This is a very mid-century way to travel and such a contrast to the airport/plane routine and all that stress and lost luggage!
On board, our charming steward, Johnathan, kept our cabin all neat and tidy. And then the food, we were in regular ‘class’, but we had an elegant dining room with a six-course menu. If you wanted something less structured, there was a great buffet restaurant area, with an extensive choice, seemed smoked salmon was available at every meal!
There were some expectations to keep us in line: after 6pm you were asked to dress formally. This turned out to be quite a treat, despite previous misgivings and some grumbles, I had bought two new dresses and got out jewelry that had not seen the light of day since Covid. And how wonderful to get all tarted up and just glide out of your cabin for an evening of dining and entertainment. (Read here: no in and out of cars, overcoats and snow boots).
There are no ports of call when you cross the Atlantic till you get to Southampton. So, as all your time is on board, there is entertainment and edification: lectures, concerts, classes, lounge music, theatre. I was able to enrich my art vibe with a daily morning watercolour course and several lectures on art from the director of the onboard Clarendon Art Gallery We heard about pop art with Warhol to Banksy which led us to Street Art and Mr Brainwash, Have you heard of him? Do click him up! An explosion of plagiarism (my take, apparently he does know many artists, so I guess they are OK with that)
But this ship is no village: over two thousand passengers (over one thousand crew). So the relationships were polite northern European – not chummy Canadian. There were little clusters- like my watercolour table: thanks to Joy, Dawn and Graham.
Before breakfast I would do a deck walk: twice round deck 7 was equal to 1.1 km. We were all rather diligent as we battled the wind on one side of the deck and coming back, got blown along. The crew kept putting out the deck chairs, ever optimistic, and though the sun often shone, that wind meant that after half an hour we would come in. It is totally ridiculous as I had complete confidence in the ship, captain and crew, but the phrase about deck chairs on the Titanic would go through my mind.
Despite the wind, the ship was very steady, those stabilizers. But in my favourite swim pool for a late afternoon swim – before I needed to get gussied up, the water would slosh around from side to side with the ship movement – such fun – you could catch a wave.
To keep us all in line, in order and up to the mark, every noon, the captain would take to the intercom and tell us where we were, our progress, as in our nearest land is Newfoundland…Aww, warmed the cockles of my heart out there on the briny expanse.
