Voyage Day 6 - Saturday 2 August

The weather was now much clearer.

We took part in another two trivia quizzes during the day and the outcome continued to be the same – as a twosome, although we did team up with another couple twice – we tended to be 4 marks off the pace.  If we got 15, then the winners got 19.  If we got 12 – which we tended to – then the winners got 16.  The winners were often the same two women.

The talk was the second of George Takei’s two talks when he talked of his career in Hollywood – which was more than just a few series of ‘Star Trek’ – followed by another book signing with a further Q&A session to follow on the next day.

The highlight of the afternoon was the ‘Champagne Tea Dance’ (champagne was chargeable!) in the Queen’s Room and it was very busy.  This was followed by another formal evening.  We had a better day – they didn’t put the clock forward (although it will mean that they will put them on during the last day when we are trying to find time to pack!)  We didn’t have a siesta, but had already decided not to stay up late as the next day was the Royal Ascot evening when we probably would like to stay up late.

The show in the theatre was a selection of songs from Benjamin Makisi, described as ‘New Zealand’s finest tenor’.  He wasn’t a Maori as we first thought but of Papua New Guinea origin, although he now lives in the Portishead area of Bristol.  He was outstanding and got quite a standing ovation at the end.

Voyage Day 5 - Friday 1 August

The ship’s fog horn continued to sound through the night and into this morning.  It is almost inaudible in the cabin but can be heard 10 miles away by other ships.  This means that we have had a fog bank for well over 700 miles of this trip so far.  As yesterday, the weather is bright enough, as if the fog is only a thin layer with the sun almost peeping through, but yesterday was not a sunny day and we wonder what today will bring.

After breakfast the sky cleared and we were in beautiful sunshine.  At these times the sun areas on the ship are very popular.

We saw a Sky News report on the cabin TV this morning about George Takei, covering his highlighting of the poor treatment meted out to Japanese Americans following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  We then went to the second lecture given by the co-founder of The Byrds, Roger McGuinn.  Again he was an excellent speaker and is clearly an excellent guitarist and his talk included the time he was in a concert at Madison Square Garden with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and George Harrison amongst others.

After the talk we went walkabout, determined to make sure that we had discovered all the public areas on the ship.  It was then that we realised that there was a place called the Commodore Club in a fairly isolated place on Deck 9.  Was it a public place or was it reserved for those in the more expensive passenger grades?  It proved to be a quite lovely public bar at the front of the ship with very few customers but with fine views from the front of the ship and a very large scale model of the QM2 behind the bar.

The main evening entertainment in the Royal Court Theatre was ‘Singers in Concert’ with over 20 musicians supporting the four main ship’s singers who sang a compilation of well-known pop and musical theatre songs.  This was followed by ‘Party Night’ in the Queen’s Room with the poolside band Xtasea- instead of the usual resident band - playing a mix of dance and disco numbers with balloons released at 11.30pm.  We felt that it was the nearest we had got to spending New Year’s Eve at sea!

On ‘Party Night’ the six ‘gentleman dance hosts mostly wore outfits as for a ‘tropical night’

Voyage Day 4 - Thursday 31 July

We awoke to hear the ship’s horn sounding faintly in the distance and looked out to see a flat calm and thick fog.  We were now on the longitude where the Titanic met the iceberg and we were also much further north than the Titanic had been, so we hoped that no icebergs were lurking in the fog!

We had missed the live talk the day before by Roger McGuinn, co-founder of the folk rock band ‘The Byrds’ and this was now on the cabin TV.  We realised we had missed a good talk; he was very interesting and seemed such a normal, rather modest guy.

It's a long ship!

We met a retired associate professor of paediatrics who was to bump into us on many more occasions thereafter.  He was very jovial and very chatty.

We went to the first of the George Takei talks which was entertaining and he then moved to the library to sign books.  We went along and found the library and bookshop and the forward look-out area where you can walk the width of the ship below the bridge.

George Takei at his book signing after the first talk

We had our first lunch in the restaurant today.  It was hard to resist when Wiener Schnitzel was on the menu, served up with a very appetising warm potato salad.

We discovered the Boardwalk Café on Deck 12 with free ice cream cones – and the dogs next door.  We were eating our ice creams when we heard barking.  It took a moment for us to take in that we had heard dogs barking in the middle of the Atlantic and realised that they were being housed just round the corner on this high deck.  There is room for only 12 on each crossing and places are booked up for at least a year ahead.  Large dogs may need to be given a double berth and this reduces the number being transported below 12.  They have their own boarding staff but one of the ship’s two doctors doubles up as a vet.  The ones we saw were all beautifully groomed.  We discovered later that it costs $150 a day to have them on board.  Only assistance dogs are allowed in cabins.

The pub lunch today offered sticky toffee pudding, so the desserts there were picking up at last!

We were beginning to get out into the Atlantic proper by now.  Whereas we had seen some sea birds when we were up to 80 miles from either Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, there were no sea birds now. And yet, on Friday afternoon, in the middle of the Atlantic we saw one, but it was hard to identify it.

A selection of celebrity passengers from past years.  How many can you name?

We asked our wine waiter if he had ever seen any celebrities on board.  The ones he had seen or served were almost all professional footballers – Ruud van Nistelrooy, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand, but also Prince Philip, Russell Crowe and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.  He did mention an actress but we didn’t catch her name.  He had also met others when he worked in the hotel industry on Mauritius including the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and the Queen.

The lifts on board are excellent and we never have to wait long to get to where we would like to be.  Todd English is their specialty restaurant.  You ‘pay as you go’ for individual dishes there.

The Purser’s Office will provide a print-out of your on board account on demand and they are happy to take cash in part payment.  We suddenly realised that we each had an on board credit of $80, so that was a nice start to reducing our bill!

This is a normally a white plate!

The ship boasts that it has 33 musicians on board.  This is indeed impressive when you think how big this ship is but that it only has just over 2000 passengers.  Tonight, they put three of the ship’s bands together to create ‘Big Band Night’ and it was a great dance night.  It started at 10pm and ran till midnight and the quality of the musicianship was excellent.  As they played and as the passengers packed the dance floor to dance, they ran a loop on a screen behind the band - once again to emphasize the heritage which they feel Cunard has – lots of photos from many years ago of transatlantic voyages.

RADA - Arabian Nights