Day One: Exploring The Ship

January 12, 2004: Queen Mary 2 – the largest, longest, tallest, widest and most expensive passenger ship in history (at that time) departed from Cunard’s home port, Southampton, on her Maiden Voyage. Gasoline was $1.55 per gallon, "Big Fish" and "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" vied for the top movie box office position and "Low Carb Shops" were springing up to serve the Adkins Diet set. QM2 docked in Fort Lauderdale 14 days later. In 2005, QM2 carried the first copy of JK Rowlings book "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to America.

November, 2011: To keep her "the bee's knees," QM2 underwent a refurbishment at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. Controversially, her registration was changed from Southampton (UK) to Hamilton (Bermuda). That ended 170 years of tradition. They redesigned the ships "Golden Lion Pub," put flat screen TVs in the staterooms and installed new carpeting throughout.

June, 2016: A more extensive 25-day refit costing $132 million occurred over several weeks at the same shipyard. Cunard "re-created" many of the public areas, redesigned both the "Kings Court" buffet and what was then the "Winter Garden" was turned into the "Carinthia Lounge." The "Todd English" restaurant was out and the "Cunard Verandah" was in. A Godiva Chocolate Cafe was added and every cabin aboard was redesigned. To keep up with the new trend of passengers traveling solo, fifteen new single ocean-view cabins were added; the space required came from the casino.

October, 2018: The Queen feels regal and fresh to me.

Here's a link to a documentary from our friends at the National Geographic Channel in case you want to delve deeper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XzJ8arbcKo

I will here endeavor to break an old habit of referring to ships using the feminine gender, "she." As gender has become more fluent, the style guides for the Associated Press and the New York Times recommend treating ships as neuter. The US Navy--and the Royal Navy--continue to refer to ships as "she" but, of late, the pronoun "it" has crept aboard.

Our Ship’s Master is, happily, Captain Christopher Wells, the same officer who commanded Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth in 2013 when I spent 36 nights aboard sailing Los Angeles-Honolulu-Pago Pago-Apia-Aukland-Tauranga-Napier-Wellington-Papeete-Bora Bora-Hilo-Kauhuli-Los Angeles. I became enamored with his daily Navigational Announcement which consists of information from the Bridge over the ship’s public address system. “Here’s the Captain,” he always began using a tone and tenor that made you take an instant liking to him.

Our Senior Maitre d'Hotel is Osman Pinaroglu. More about him later but suffice to say he is everything a Maitre d'Hotel ought to be but seldom is. The same can be said about Queen Mary 2. For us, for our demographic, for what we were seeking, she is initially perfect. Formal, almost but not quite stuffy. Gentile. Refined. Smiling but not overly so; never arrogant or better than thou. QM2 is more like I recall the old mustard commercials from years past: "Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?" one back seat luxury vehicle asked of another. "But, of course," came the friendly reply, ready to share knowing that the gesture would be, if asked, returned.