QM2 Southampton-New York, 15th Dec, 2014 - Live Blog

My mother and I are in the final stages of packing before embarking on the QM2 on Monday for her Westbound crossing, Southampton-New York. We have a balcony cabin on deck 4 which should be very handy for making elegant entrances down the sweeping staircases of the Britannia Restaurant.

I will be with iPad and internet package so I thought I would start this thread ready for me to blog to once onboard. I will hopefully be including photos as I go too.

This is only my second Cunard voyage, the previous one being the same route on the QE2, three weeks short of nine years ago. That was the first leg of the QE2's World Cruise (photos below). Since then I have been unfaithful, sailing with Royal Caribbean and, latterly, MSC. None of these, however, has been a 'regular cruise', rather all were repositioning voyages all involving at least two continents.

It will be interesting to compare the lines. On the QE2, I had no idea that Cunard were trying to be 'British'. I found everything very 'American' - food, drinks, the language used in the menus and by the staff. I couldn't even get an egg cooked in the traditional English way - cooking just the top of the yolk without turning it over! Now that I know Cunard is something of a 'British theme park' for Americans, this particular Brit will have a very different perspective. I will have to see if I can discover that 'inner-Brit' within me. For the record, I am from Yorkshire but have lived all over England and in Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey. I am comfortable with people from all cultures but that does not stop me enjoying making the cultural observations :).

So to start us off, I will begin with my previous Cunard encounter. This is the QE2 departing Southampton 3rd January 2006 on her World Cruise on a freezing, foggy evening with the Salvation Army Band playing us off from the quayside.

We took advantage of the blanket tucking-in service of the QE2 stewards.

The last time I saw the QE2 was 21st May, 2009 when The Legend of the Seas called in Dubai on her way from Singapore to Rome. This was the heart-wrenching scene of her in undignified, idle retirement as we were leaving.

Stay tuned for my all-new Cunard experience and my first time aboard the Queen Mary 2!

If there are any specific requests for information or photos while I am aboard, please post them here.

We'll be joining you and will look forward (on our arrival home - purposely cutting myself off from the Internet for the voyage) to seeing how our experiences compare. And nice to think we'll have a photo record of the trip without having to take a picture!

Skipper Tim - Great photo of the QEII, I do miss the her. I'll be following your posts. I'll be embarking QM2 when you arrive in NYC and will be meeting friends onboard so this will be helping with the anticipation.

We are in London for the weekend ahead of the voyage on Monday. Similar to AlexDouglass, I will be in an internet blackout for the week and look forward to comparing notes post journey.

Smooth sailing to all!

Looking forward to your blog, photos and your impressions. I have no doubt that you will thoroughly enjoy every minute on the beautiful ship.

Have a wonderful crossing. I think I'm in the minority here but I much prefer QM2 to QE2. I hope you love her as much as I've grown to.

Roy

I will be looking forward to reading your thoughts over the next week! I hope you and your mother have a wonderful cruise!

I must laugh ever time I hear Queen Mary2 is an "American" ship..CPCL is an international company..Cunard is managed right alongside P and O at the UK headquarters..The sailings from NYC have taken a large drop in recent years with less crossings and just 2 or 3 cruises...and the percentage of US passengers is now less than half vs UK and others. The "British theme" marketing is from the UK managment..I for one would like Cunard to go back to its Ocean liner historic style marketing as was done in the early years of QM2..

Hi Skipper Tim,

A huge "Bon Voyage!" from me :) , I've enjoyed the last two December 15th WB QM2 crossings (2012 & 2013), had wonderful trips and have fantastic memories despite some very "interesting" weather (code for very rough seas with many lumpy bits).

Photos from those crossings can be found via the link below under Winter Crossing 1st & 2nd.

Be sure to explore everywhere on board, there are a few so-called "hidden" corners (like the outside lifts and the Atlantic Room, to mention three... ). You'll find QM2 far easier to find your way around than QE2.

I hope you and your mother both have the most superb time on board the incredible Queen Mary 2 :) , looking forward to seeing your photos and reading your reports.

Thanks for all the best wishes and suggestions.

Having just left Coventry, we are around half-way through our six hour train journey to Southampton.

Already we have been entertained by an independent financial adviser telling us he had nothing in common with the rest of his profession. He reads the guardian, plays chess and holidays in France while "they" are generally right wing, self-important and read the Telegraph, "or worse". "Actually", he added, "you can be forgiven for reading the Telegraph but not the Daily Mail or Express".

We required two connecting trains to get us to Manchester and the first of the day was cancelled. This was not a great start but we managed to make up time and are back on track with an ETA at the dock of 2pm.

Anticipation is running high ....

I must laugh ever time I hear Queen Mary2 is an "American" ship..CPCL is an international company..Cunard is managed right alongside P and O at the UK headquarters..The sailings from NYC have taken a large drop in recent years with less crossings and just 2 or 3 cruises...and the percentage of US passengers is now less than half vs UK and others. The "British theme" marketing is from the UK managment..I for one would like Cunard to go back to its Ocean liner historic style marketing as was done in the early years of QM2..

I don't know why some people continue to consider Cunard to be a British ship .... What is true is that Cunard has been founded by a Canadian and was used to ensure mail delivery between the UK and the US. After that and until today it has been sold and resold again on an international level. It has offices in the UK, in California and Florida and in other parts of the world as well, and the ships are registered in Carribbean tax havens. The ships' interior architecture is what people generally believe is British, but it is art déco.

What really matters today is that the majority of shares are in the US, where the company's policies are made. Cunard UK is a trademark within a large international company, that's all :rolleyes: .... but all this does not prevent me to consider Cunard to be my favourite line :p.

Testing photo uploads.

Coventry by Tim Millea, on Flickr

I'm looking forward to reading along. My family is sailing QM2 for the first time next June, NY to Southampton. We've cruised many times but never done trans-Atlantic, so we're very excited about it!

Photo came out fine. Can't wait for more from the ship and your impressions. Enjoy!

Thanks for doing this! I'm looking forward to following your posts as I prepare for a QM2 crossing next month :)

According to a friend on board she has still not left the dock due to "technical difficulties" that were announced during the safety drill. That was per my friend as of 7pm Southampton time. Now it's almost 8pm and via the bridgecam it looks like she's still there...

If you are using flickr for uploading your pictures, plan for very long upload times. During the crossing on QE in January, I gave up uploading pictures when they took 10 minutes (of costly internet time) to upload 15% of one picture.

You might want to purchase iResize for your iPad. A kind reader of my blog suggested that to me and I was then able to upload pictures in seconds. It took me about four minutes to download iResize on the ship (it was well worth it).

Enjoy your crossing!

Sadly, at the time of posting, QM is still alongside. Our friends are on it and have just rang to tell me. They are on their way to the theatre so afterwards it looks like an early night. Hopefully, it won't be too long before all are on their way.

The bright side of sailing late, is that she will have to put on some speed to make up for lost time. Not quite the 32 Knots QE2 used to manager though but much smoother :D

The Port Southampton Cruise Schedule is currently not showing an estimated departure time for QM2 other than "15-Dec-2014 PM"

http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live_Information/Shipping_Movements_and_Cruise_Ship_Schedule/Planned_Movements/

Bridgecam shows her still docked. I hope the technical difficulties are not too great.

QM2 is still docked, I hope they get her underway soon.

We are onboard!

The first glimpse of the ship.

Embarkation was very orderly but did involve around a 40 minute wait before we could join the queue to check-in. As we arrived we were given an ebola questionnaire to complete and blue boarding cards marked 'X'. The current sequence was 'N'. So, yes, we had to go through almost half the alphabet.

Security was tight, much like a UK airport these days, with all outer garments, belts, watches, laptops and tablets required to be removed. Everyone in front of us was also removing their shoes. I awaited instructions on this point as it is a long way down for me. The security guy looked at my shoes but did not ask me to remove them - even though they were my formal shoes which I am usually asked to remove a airports (only to go through security :)).

We took our own luggage to save waiting for and because we both only had relative small trolley cases (they pass for hand luggage on BA).

I took a photo of the cabin just as we arrived before we spoilt it with personal effects.

We have what Cunard call a 'sheltered' balcony, i.e. in-hull. This was the view of Southampton from it.

A note in our cabin told us that we were allocated to first sitting and table 11. Friends Chung and her daughter Marie are aboard and I soon received a phone call from Chung to confirm that we were at the same table.

The muster drill was painless apart from a rude middle-aged man who reserved the only free seat at our assembly point for his wife who failed to appear and consequently made my elderly mother stand next to the empty seat throughout.

In the Daily program we were led to believe that champagne would be complimentary at the sailaway party. Quoting, "Toast our departure with a glass of champagne from our bar staff as we set sail for New York". As we arrived at the venue (Terrace bar at outside section aft on deck 8), we were met by staff holding trays of sparkling wine as they do when it is complimentary. The clue was the word "champagne" - it was the real stuff and charged for. We had just purchased the soft drinks package so opted instead for a 'Virgin Mary' each.

Soon it was time for dinner at a very early 6pm. Our table was just for the 4 of us and nearest one of the two main entrances. It was very bus and quite drafty. We were all dissapointed not to be a larger table to meet new people - something we regard as part of the traditional cruise experience. We agreed to request a change which was surely granted and will be at an 8-table in a much better position from tomorrow.

I had baby shrimp & grapefruit salad, cod then the cheese plate to finish. All were very good and the service superb. Having got accustomed to MSC, it is a shock to see such a sparse menu - just 3 courses instead of 7 - and in only one language instead of 5.

There was a glitch trying to obtain an internet package until after dinner when finally our details were recognised. Finally, we managed to obtain bath robes by paging our cabin stewardess whose name is Leah.

All aboard was at 4pm for a supposed 5pm sailaway but, as I write this, it is after 9pm, we have not moved and there is no sign of activity on the dock. There was a brief announcement about a "technical problem" but no expected departure time was given. It does not look like we will be moving anytime soon. My mother says, "at least it is very calm".

Until tomorrow. I hope we have left Southampton by then.

I hope you get underway this evening! I have about six friends on board and I'd hate for there to be any further delay in their crossing. By the way Skipper Tim, I was on the January 2006 QE2 crossing also and your picture from the deck really brought back memories of that somewhat frigid and damp sailaway!

Bon voyage, Skipper Tim!

BTW, the Port Southampton Cruise Schedule is now showing an estimated departure time for QM2 as "15-Dec-2014 23:59". Quoted from http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live_Information/Shipping_Movements_and_Cruise_Ship_Schedule/Planned_Movements/ -S.