Friday April 19th
At Sea
The storms and icebergs are far behind us. Today the sea is calm, the sun is shining, but it is a cool 43 degrees outside.
We got all dressed up and attended the Senior Officers Cocktail party in the Queens Room at 11:15.
There were a few senior officers there, but not as many as I remember from past parties. They were mainly talking among themselves, which is not surprising as the guests were also talking among themselves. There really wasn’t much mingling at all. Captain Hashmi was actually the only person doing a lot of mingling, and he spent a long time chatting to guests. I am quite happy with my glass of bubbly, but the couple next to us explained that it was a cocktail party, and requested cocktails. No problem, their desired drinks were there in a jiffy.
After the cocktail party, we had lunch in the Verandah restaurant. The food was good, but it was better before the restaurant changed into a steakhouse. We used vouchers to pay for the meal, I’m not sure I would want to pay the surcharge unless I was celebrating something special.
After lunch it was time to collect our activity stamps for finding all of the objects on the scavenger hunt. Now lets see what exciting prizes will be in store for us when we redeem them tomorrow!
Apparently we are flying a classic Cunard flag today. It is a flag from the original Queen Mary; a guest had brought it on board with them. Today is the first day when it would not suffer damage from the wind, so Brian went out on deck to take a photo of it, but had to retreat inside before he could take the photo he wanted, they were closing off the outside decks again. The wind has returned. However, the flag looked great.
Tonight was our last formal night, and the Masquerade Ball. When we arrived at our table for dinner, we were graced with the presence of Her Majesty and Prince Philip, aka Jane and Peter. In the spirit of the theme they had bought masks for all of us! It was such a great idea, and we had fun wearing them, although it did impede consuming our food. The rest of the dining room also seemed to be intrigued, and people came by to take our photos!
After dinner we all headed off to the Royal Court Theater to watch the production show “Rhythm of the Night”. We have seen it before, but I can watch it over and over, I love the singing and dancing, and the energy that the singers and dancers have. They are amazing. I am really going to miss their shows when we disembark.
As I headed back to our cabin reality was setting in – tomorrow is packing day. This also includes dismantling all of the extra items we bring along to give us more storage and personalize our space.
Here are some of the things we have:
We always bring along thin velvet hangers as these take up less space, and there are never enough hangers supplied. Brian has his over the door shoe rack, giving me more space at the bottom of the closet for all of my shoes.
In the bathroom we have extra caddies in the shower,
and an extra storage shelf that goes above the 2 they supply.
Magnet hooks on the walls give us more space to hang things up, and we use a magnetic clip to hang up our calendar, so we can keep an eye on our plans for the day, and hopefully not miss things (doesn’t always work).
I always tease Brian about his need for bungee cords, but they do help keep the bathroom door open when we are getting ready in rough weather, and the duct tape came in handy when the little plastic bag in which I store my earrings sprung a leak.
We love taking along the scratch off map that our daughter gave us before our world cruise – we take it on each long trip and track our progress around the world. So many more places we need to visit!
Finally here is a photo of the bedside table, requested by a fellow traveler. I hope it’s helpful for her! I certainly appreciate seeing what the storage options look like as I am planning my purchasing and packing.
Oh, and as a heads up, unlike Victoria and Elizabeth, Mary does not have under the bed storage drawers. It certainly makes getting suitcases that are stored under the bed more accessible, but they do come in handy for those pesky extra bits and pieces that don’t seem to fit in anywhere!
That is a wonderful picture of you all at the table….you look like a fun group!!
Patrick
Those masks are ridiculously realistic! When we arrived at the table and saw Peter and Jane I couldn’t stop laughing, they are such a fun couple 🙂
Thanks for posting the picture of the end table. That’s exactly the view (plus your measurements) that I needed.
I totally forgot that the QM2 doesn’t have under bed drawers! Thanks for mentioning that. We’ve been on the QV for the last few voyages.
I did notice that your shoe hanger was narrow to fit the double wardrobe door. I think there is also a single closet door that’s a little wider, right? I want to bring my shoe hanger but I may have to cut it to fit a narrower door.
On QV and QE Brian’s shoe hanger fits on the single closet door, but in our cabin on QM2 this time, the tie hanger was on the large door, so we folded the shoe hanger in half and placed it on one of the double doors. Half the amount of storage space, but it worked for this trip 🙂
Oh sorry…forgot to ask one thing. I love your shower caddies, I WILL get those. I thought the QM2 had under storage (unlike the QV). Maybe those shelves are too narrow though. I don’t remember what the space looked like.
Thanks again for all the ideas!
As you can see, plenty of space for under storage, very helpful 🙂