CASHIPman

I was on Queen Elizabeth 2 sailing from Southampton, UK to New York when 9/11 happened. On the afternoon of the second day out, I returned to my stateroom and turned on the TV to watch some news. What I saw was image of the Twin Towers burning so I assumed that was a movie and change the channel. Obviously, it wasn’t. All channels were showing the same images. Shortly there after, the captain came on the loudspeaker and said, “I’m sure you all have heard about the tragedies that have befallen, New York and Washington today. As a mark of respect, dancing will be canceled this evening.“ It sounded like a silly announcement, but, really, what else could we do? 2001 was before widespread Internet on ships and the QE2 had one computer room with about 20 computers that would connect to the Internet. Pretty much the entire ship’s passenger complement waited on line to send messages to loved ones. Time at the computer was rationed to about 10 minutes per person so that everyone would be able to get a chance to use it. Life went on aboard the ship with many folks gathering in the Golden Lion Pub to watch news. We were due to dock in New York on September 16th, but, of course, New York Harbor was closed. We were diverted to Boston’s Black Falcon ship terminal. However, as we approached the port, we were stopped … there had been a bomb threat made against the cruise terminal, and we were made to wait until they sorted that out. Once we finally arrived in Boston, Cunard Line was spectacular. They had buses waiting take take everyone down to New York, and they had bused up stevedores from New York harbor to handle the ships luggage, etc. There were many passengers on board who were sailing to the USA to tour, but once September 11 happened many of them went to the cruise consultant‘s office to see if they could book passage on the return trip. Some were lucky, but an announcement was made shortly thereafter that saying the return cruise had been fully booked.

Feel better Mysty!!! We leave tomorrow. It was lovely to meet you and Mystyr!!

MV Silver Shadow at anchor in Savusavu, Fiji

There are only 13 Baha’i Temples in the world. The Baha’i faith places importance on the number 9 which is why each temple has 9 sides, (as is evidenced by the ceiling pic ). The lone congregant in the pic is @MuseCruiser 😂

Women’s Army Corps. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Army_Corps

But Mysty wanted chicken, IIRC and the kitchen served her, Mystyr and everyone in The Restaurant beef?

On one cruise we had ordered a special meal. That night the entire special meal we ordered was the meal they offered on the menu in The Restaurant. Didn’t make us feel “special”.

Including passengers and crew there are about 600 of us. If we’re not cleared by 2PM local I say we take to the tenders, storm the beaches and take over the country in the name of Silversea!!! Who’s with me?!? 😂

For our anniversary, the kitchen prepared for us an amazing Indian feast!! Onion Bhalji Vegetable Samosa Raita Chutney Chicken curry Lamb curry Pilau (rice) Cauliflower something Dal (lentil curry) Papadum Naan

Yellow Chartreuse is nearly impossible to find so I bought génépy, a worthy substitute, in Honolulu and gave it to Peter to hide for me so he can make the N&Fs. 😀

Views of King Neptune’s visit to the Silver Shadow! Good fun!

I wish it had been clearly stated by the Silversea rep.

We’re booked on the shadow from San Francisco to Fiji in JAN24 and purchased the business class upgrade to/from Chicago. After we booked, the documentation said that business class is only on international sectors. (I booked directly with Silversea and the agent never mentioned that fact!) Does anyone have any experience with this? If we’re flown Fiji-Hawaii-Chicago, will Hawaii-Chicago be in economy? I’ll be less than happy if we shelled out nearly US$ 5K for most of the air to be flown in economy.