Day 8 - Sunday 16 December - Transatlantic Crossing Day 1

Urgh. Woke up at 01:50. Damned insomnia? Jetlag? Very upsetting. Never got back to sleep, so zombie day.

The ship is rocking (mostly pitching, a bit of rolling) quite a lot. It's actually kinda nice in bed. But I could understand how people that get seasick would hate it.

View from our balcony, day 1 of the crossing

Had breakfast at Kings Court. Made myself wheat-free eggs benedict with hash browns instead of muffins :) I do like the fresh bread rolls though.

Stu at breakfast. Rough seas meant fewer crowds and we could get a window seat!

Pointsettia plants in the corridor - they were distributing these to all rooms

Mini Christmas tree and pointsettia plant we had for the whole cruise

Went down to the little single chairs on 3L so the sweetie could read and I could blog, and wandered for a bit as well.

View of the clouds from deck 7 promenade port side

Storm clouds over the stern of Queen Mary 2

Rough seas sloshing the pool water around

Then left the sweetie to read while I went and joined a tour of the public areas of the ship. It was mostly stuff I already knew, but I do need to go hunt for the hidden Homer Simpson in the North America sculpture.

Then I went and did the jigsaw for a while.

At 12:15 we went to Illuminations to hear a talk by Bill Miller - Floating Palaces - The Great Atlantic Liners. It was really good, we both enjoyed it. There's another three by the same dude to come.

Bill Miller giving his talk on Floating Palaces - The Great Atlantic Liners

Lunch was pretty crowded at Kings Court after that because so many people all went at once after the talk.

After lunch (and a bit of a wander around the ship) we just collapsed. Two nights in a row of epic insomnia were killing me, so we had a nap for like three hours.

Deck 7 promenade on the Queen Mary 2

Deck chairs on the Queen Mary 2

Stairway from deck 8 up to the deck 11 Grills Terrace - never been up these before!

Deck 11 Grills Terrace

Deck 8 pools from deck 11 Grills Terrace

View of the clouds from our balcony

Stu relaxing in the bed

We got invited to the Grills meeting of the Captain. Although we didn't actually meet him hehe. It was definitely a LOT less crowded than when we went with all the Britannia peoples last time. Met a nice couple - Tracey and Terry. Only managed to grab two glasses of champagne before they whisked it away for the welcome and senior staff introductions.

Here's the numbers of passengers for the top countries on the crossing - Australia - 53, France - 66, Canada - 66, USA - 500, UK - 1678. And there's 19 dogs and 1 cat.

Kaz and Stu in the Queens Room at the Captain's drinks

Captain Aseem Hashmi welcoming Grills guests

Captain Aseem Hashmi and the senior officers of the Queen Mary 2

Stu and Kaz dressed for dinner in the Clarendon Fine Art Gallery

We might have gotten called by the pub on the way to dinner. Had a couple of drinks before finally heading up to dinner. So we were a little later than the others. Ooops. :) Dinner was a lot more relaxed after a couple of drinks, although I did end up quite full.