Day 6 - Sunday 19 March - At Sea

I slept pretty well from 01:00 to 06:00. Then I woke up and saw that the GPS had stopped recording. So got up and hung it over the edge for like ten minutes trying to get a satellite but couldn't. In the end I left it tied up outside in the hopes that it would start again and tried to get more sleep. And failed (to get more sleep). Being hungry certainly didn't help. Eventually the GPS did start up again (it's now hooked up outside in a snaplock baggie), and I checked that the breakfast buffet was open til 11:00, so dozed for a bit.

At about 09:30, after I'd gotten ready, I went down to ConneXions to pick up a ticket for the day's planetarium show. There was three different desks on either side and in the middle labelled as ConneXions, but noone around. In the end I asked a passing crew member. Turns out the middle desk has a plastic stand filled with tickets, and you just go and take them for the time slot you'd prefer. Simple, once you know how.

Once Stu was ready, we headed up to Kings Court for breakfast. Again, another huge buffet with all sorts of tempting things, but I was pretty restrained.

Breakfast at Kings Court

After breakfast (it was 11:00 by now) we went to see the Port Lecturer, Graham Howell, talk about Nagasaki and the tours the ship does there. They'd already done talks on Shanghai and Busan before we boarded, but they're recorded and you can watch them later on the room tv.

Queen Mary 2 life ring on deck 7

Deck 7 promenade

Deck 7 promenade

After we were back at our room they had the 12:00 update. But they don't play it in the rooms, just some of the public spaces. We tried to find the channel they were showing it on, but the tv is a bit dumb and doesn't let you just scroll through the channels. And the guide for what each channel is only appears after you go to the channel, and then it's lost again if you scroll round the end. Don't know if there's a printed guide anywhere, might have to make one myself. We never did find the announcement channel, but found a few that *might* have had it, if we'd found it in time.

Stu on our balcony

At around 13:30 we headed up to Kings Court for lunch. It was going to be a fairly small lunch until I tasted some of Stu's Spanish pork dish and went and got a little dish for myself heh.

At 14:30 we went to the day's planetarium show - Search for Life, narrated by Harrison Ford. A planetarium at sea is certainly a novelty!

Stu outside the Illuminations Theatre

Illuminations Theatre showing the planetarium dome in place

After the show we headed up the library on deck 8 forward to have a look. We got the impression that the half dozen seats facing forward out the windows get filled very quickly and stay filled all day. I was quite amused by all the books on the Titanic :)

Stu in the Queen Mary 2 library on deck 8

Books on the Titanic in the Queen Mary 2 library

Came back to the room and watched Graham Howell's talk on Busan.

Then we had a snooze. Because we were tired.

View of the South China Sea from our balcony

When I woke up I made up a little tv guide. And we watched a documentary on the construction of the ship.

Then we got ready for dinner - the first of the "formal" nights, where I wore my $8 Vinnies dress, yayy Vinnies! We went and had a drink first in the Golden Lion pub ($15USD for two pints of beer - pretty good value actually!).

Dinner was lovely again. Stu had an empanada, sea bass, and souffle, and I had mushroom consomme, beef bourguignon, and strawberry and frangelico parfait. Licia tried to talk us into going to the Beatles show, but we just wanted to go to bed. Note to self: don't take uncomfortable shoes off during dinner - it just makes them a lot more uncomfortable trying to stuff them back in again at the end of dinner...

Deck 5 corridor