We have sailed on the Queen Mary 2 once before, in 2008, on a Caribbean cruise, and I had lots of frustrations with the crowds and the people in general and just the fact that this is not a luxury cruise line like we are used to. So I decided to approach this voyage with very low expectations. I had only two hopes: that I would sleep well, as I usually do being rocked to sleep on a ship, and that maybe I would see a few movies. I was expecting the embarkation process to be a nightmare, so for me it actually wasn’t so bad. There was air conditioning and a chair to sit in and I amused myself listening to podcasts, the only bother being the man who smelled like hummus who kept wandering over to where we were sitting and looking out of the window. We had chosen chairs far away from the crowds of people and I noted that we seemed to have self-selected into the “Friends of Dorothy” section, seated in between two gay male couples. We also were sitting against the window that looked out onto the ship and the gangway so a lot of people began wandering our way and leaning towards us and peering out the window when the gangway became disconnected. I assume this was not a dramatic event – I missed it – I think people were just checking the progress of getting it hooked back up especially when it became clear there was no way we would be able to sail away at 4:30. I believe it took us three hours in all to get on the ship but I was listening to Terry Gross interview Toni Morrison, who at one point said something that Terry found so funny that she snorted – I love it when Terry Gross snorts – so I was perfectly happy.

Once on the ship we dumped our stuff in our room, and then went up to the buffet to get something to eat. I went for roast beef, yorkshire pudding and roasted potatoes – which were all a little subpar – and also chose a macaron – those pretty colored pastries with cream in the middle. I have always wanted to try one and never had and I enjoyed my macaron enough that I went and got another. While we were eating we perused the Daily Program. The movie playing in the planetarium was Selma, which I would really like to see, but I knew I was too tired to sit in a movie theater that evening. There are also movies playing on the television. There are three different channels: documentary, comedy, and drama, with a schedule of movies for each day. I thought it was kind of funny that the drama movie that started off our cruise was Captain Phillips. At least it wasn’t the Titanic or The Poseidon Adventure.

Mary and I started out together on deck. It was cold out there and we were dressed for it. I have a blue plaid shirt that is flannelly on the outside and polar fleece on the inside – quite warm – and I put that on and tied my windbreaker around my waist. It was a little after 5 pm, not yet 6:00 when one is supposed to get into nicer clothing, and as we were waiting for the elevator this woman came around the corner, saw me in my flannel plaid, did a double-take, and then quickly composed her face into a very disapproving look and continued to give me the stink-eye as we waited for the lift. I laughed and whispered to Mary that I was getting the stink-eye, but I did decide to retire my flannel shirt for the remainder of the cruise. Even though that woman had no manners, dirty looks are a bit wounding to my sensitive soul.

Once outside we were among our people again – dressed appropriately for the weather and excitedly running from place to place to snap pictures and point out things, many of us grinning like maniacs when the ships got close to each other. But I was weary and knew I could not stay out there as long as Mary so I went back to the room and took off my offending flannel and then went down to the dining room to introduce myself to our waiter and get the menus for the next day because I have requested dairy-free meals. Then I went up to the buffet and had a meal of penne pasta bolognese with some sort of olive roll and salad. For dessert I selected something that looked like a tiny little meringue with half a strawberry and some pineapple on it and I brought that and some ice water back to the room.

Back in the room I opened the door to our balcony and alternately unpacked and paused to look outside at the last bit of land we will see for a week. Around 7:30 our room steward, Albert, knocked on the door and was unable to hide his dismay that I was in the room, in my pajamas. He kept asking, “Did you change your dining time?” and did not seem reassured by my claim that we had not changed our dining time, but had decided not to eat in the restaurant that night. The beds had been made up as two twins, despite our travel agent’s request for one king, so I asked him if he could put the beds together but told him he didn’t need to do it that night. In fact, I said, we don’t really need anything. This seemed to upset him so I agreed with him that we needed turndown and tried to stay out of his way while he did his work.

Mary came back to the room eventually and about 9 pm I had my meringue treat which also turned out to have some cream in it and it was DIVINE! I love meringue and kept seeing these gigantic meringues while we were in London so on my last night I bought one and managed to eat close to half of it, but it was way too much. My little treat of last night was perfect!

I climbed into the nice soft bed, a real treat after the very hard bed we had in London, started reading the New York Times from April 22, which I carried with me to both Italy and London, and turned the light out at 10:30. We woke up around 8 am but got to turn the clocks back one hour as we will do tomorrow morning also, so it was only 7 am and I had had 9 1/2 hours of sleep!

In our everyday life, we have a morning routine which involves waking up, pulling out our tablets and reading our email and the news and doing general aimless web surfing before breakfast. We bought an internet package last night of 260 minutes for $89.95, which works out to approximately 20 minutes each a day. (Ususally you get 240 minutes for $89.95, but we got 20 extra minutes for signing up on the first day.) This is not high-speed internet. It is achingly slow, so I know all I will be able to do in that time is check my email and upload to the blog. In anticipation of this internet withdrawal I have loaded podcasts onto my phone and downloaded the two latest issues of the New Yorker onto my tablet, plus my Kindle is loaded full of books. So first thing this morning I started reading The New Yorker instead of aimlessly surfing the internet, and it was kind of nice!

Before breakfast I showered. The fixtures in the bathroom are old and don’t look particularly clean, though I think they probably are pretty clean. We were provided with two bath towels, not particularly big ones, so I left a note for Albert asking for one additional towel. Then we went upstairs to the Kings Court Buffet for breakfast. I love Greek Yogurt and fruit in the morning and I didn’t see any Greek Yogurt so I asked if they had any. The headwaiter told me they have to get it from way deep in the ship somewhere and they couldn’t have any for me today but starting tomorrow they will have it hidden away in the Chef’s Galley and I can ask for it each morning. For today I had hard boiled eggs and American bacon and sausage and a roll. I think it’s a pretty good brakfast spread. We wandered around the ship a bit, including going to the library and book store. There is going to be a book club meeting later in the cruise to discuss a novel called Elizabeth Is Missing. It sounded interesting so I asked about it and was able to borrow a copy from the library. Then we came back to the room which hadn’t been made up yet so the prudent thing to do was to crawl back into bed. I started reading my New Yorker again and propped the balcony door open so we could hear the surf and I was asleep by 10:30.

I woke up at noon when the ship’s horn blew and the Captain made his daily announcement. We can’t hear the announcement in our room, which is great, but we turned on the tv to the ship’s channel so we could hear what he had to say. He let us know that we are heading into some nasty weather, most of it overnight. Mary took a shower and we were almost ready to leave for lunch when poor Albert arrived to clean our room and was again disappointed to find us present. We told him we’d be leaving in 15 minutes, but Mary, who answered the door with a towel on her head, reported that he didn’t seem very happy. We had lunch in the dining room at a shared table, with a young British couple, Charlotte and Richard and two older men from Stockholm who said they were brothers.

One of the items on the dessert menu is Spotted Dick, which we knew is a British dessert but didn’t know exactly what it is. I asked Richard and Charlotte what it is, and Richard told us that it is like a sponge cake with raisins in a custard sauce and that it is a fairly heavy dessert. Both Mary and Richard ordered the spotted dick and then Mary asked him, “Is your spotted dick a good specimen?” Oh, that Mary! Richard looked a little taken aback but then answered her question and then I saw him suppressing a laugh and whispering to his wife.

After lunch we decided to take a walk around the promenade on deck 7 before the storms arrive. We walked three laps, which is equal to one mile. Cunard has changed their smoking policy since we were last on the ship. People are no longer allowed to smoke in their rooms or on their balconies, which is great, but now the smoking area is the outside back of the ship on Decks 7 and 8. This means that anyone walking or jogging around the promenade has to pass through a cloud of cigarette smoke every 1/3 of a mile, which is a bit unpleasant.

Mary has been wanting to play $1 blackjack ever since we were in Vegas and we found a place with a dollar table but she could never get a seat at that table. The Daily Program for today, though, advertised $1 blackjack at 3:30, so I followed Mary down to the casino and sat with her at the $1 Fun 21 table and watched her play for about 45 minutes until I was kicked out of my chair by someone who wanted to actually gamble and not just watch. The casino is now completely non-smoking and that was a nice surprise. When I left the casino I went up to the buffet and had a scone with clotted cream and jam, the treat I was denied as we searched for it our last day in London. I added a butterscotch chip cookie just for good measure. Mary got back to the room about 4:30. She reports that she was up while I was at the blackjack table but lost when I left. (So sweet, see how we’re meant to be together?) (Note from Mary: All true, but I doubled down on my last hand and hit it, so now I’m up 50 cents.)

Now we are back in our stateroom enjoying the movement of the ship, the sound of the waves, and the blue sky out our window. There is even sunshine on the balcony. This is heaven. This is why we love cruising.