Monday, June 25, 2012

QM2 Trans-Atlantic Crossing Day Six


This morning we spent about hour in the Canyon Ranch Spa to luxuriate in the Aqua Thermal pool, then to the steam room.  I had two interviews scheduled this morning, one with the Chef and then the Chief Engineer, all before noon.  After my interviews I took a few more pictures and went up to deck twelve to catch the ship’s whistle again on video.  When QM2 opens up her voice it’s thrilling to hear those powerful Whistles. 

Lunch was in Princess Grill and we enjoyed continued conversations with our tablemates, and of course fine dining.  It was a challenge for me in retrospect, to manage my time onboard…it seems we spent an awful amount of time in the restaurant eating and socializing…and I kept thinking I need to get this footage or that footage, or explore the ship more.  I was also regretful that I didn’t see as many shows because we were either in the restaurant or too tired.  Some of the shows start at 10:45pm and by that time we had both had a long day of creating video, taking pictures, exploring the ship, so we were tired and ready for sleep.  It doesn’t help our time management situation since our suite is so ridiculously comfortable. 

This afternoon we filmed in the Commodore Room that has fabulous views forward over the bow. It reminded me of the Observation Lounge on the original Queen Mary.  I couldn’t get enough of the ship’s library, in fact I found a few books I absolutely must get….Ted Scull’s books and Daniel Butler’s book Cunard Line’s history.   Also, “The Queen Mary The World’s Favourite Liner by David Ellery” was one of the best books on Queen Mary I have ever seen and I’m surprised I don’t have it in my own library of Queen Mary books.

I scheduled to meet a fellow passenger in the Chart Room at 6:00pm then a young man at 7:00pm.  What a great surprise it was to have this young man come up to me and said, hey are you Barry Vaudrin that makes the Youtube videos?  He said, it’s because of your videos you made on the Queen Mary that I’m here on this trans-Atlantic crossing right now.  Basically he heard that his grandmother crossed on the original Queen Mary and so he was searching for videos on Youtube and found my Cruising Authority videos featuring the Queen Mary. My videos inspired him to go see the original Queen Mary in Long Beach and that sparked an interest to cross the Atlantic on the QM2.

It was our final dinner in the Princess Grill and we enjoyed further discussions with our tablemates.  Actually, they were people at neighboring tables.  It was yet again a fabulous dinner.   When we returned to our suite, my wife had one less thing to worry about….our cabin steward packed our luggage for us.  We put our large piece of luggage outside of our door and went to bed.        

1 comment: