New York

July 1^st, 2025

Today’s the day!

We arrived at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at 1:30, we were directed straight to security, we filled out Canadian customs forms, had our photos taken again, and in no time we were on the escalator and on our way to the ship.

Our boarding passes were scanned, and there we were on deck 3 looking at the Grand Lobby flower arrangement, listening to the piano music wafting up from deck 2. There is no other ship that makes me feel the way I do when I board Mary. It is pure excitement and joy.

We stopped off at the Carinthia Lounge on deck 7 to report to our muster station, climbed the stairs to deck 8, and there we were – right outside our stateroom. So were our suitcases. It was 2:00 PM. Not bad at all.

Despite the lifeboats in front of our balcony, we do still get a small view corridor.

I looked for the Pol Acker in the ice bucket to assist with the unpacking. There was no ice bucket and horrors nor was there any Pol Acker.

It had been replaced by a half bottle of Cunard blanc de blanc. What is this I wondered? I looked it up online.

The Cunard website said:

In 2018, Laurent-Perrier celebrated half a century of its Cuvée Rosé – the original “modern” rosé champagne – which was born in 1968 by defying conventions and using innovative wine-making techniques. The brand’s innovative spirit continues into the present day, with the recent launch of its latest champagne, a Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature.

Could this be the same bubbly that was in our half bottle? I picked it up to open it. It was warm. Not only was it not in an ice bucket, but it didn’t appear that any attempt had been made to cool it down. Tasting it would have to wait, and I placed it in the fridge and approached the unpacking.

Meanwhile there were several frantic announcements requesting some guests to call the pursers office. It was becoming quite evident that they were going to miss the boat. At least our next port, Newport isn’t too far away.

Then the captain made the announcement that our departure was imminent. It was captain Hashmi! Yay! My favorite captain.

Due to the rain, the sail away celebration had been moved to the Queens Room, but I was not going to miss us sailing past the Statue of Liberty, so we found a spot out of the rain on deck 7 and watched us slowly sail away.

It was actually quite unpleasant out there, and once we passed the statue we headed back to our stateroom. I love to watch us go under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, but I decided that I could trust that captain Hashmi would get us safely out into the ocean, and there was that half bottle of bubbly to be consumed.

Or not as it so happened. As hard as we tried, we could not open the bottle. Now I have to admit that we are both quite skilled at opening champagne bottles, but this one defeated us. We could have resorted to violence, but there wasn’t a weapon in site.

Several years ago, Brian was out of town staying with our son. I had the same problem, my champagne bottle refused to open. I texted Brian for advice, but all he said was I would just have to wait until he got home.

Just then I received a text from our son with a link to a YouTube video showing someone sabering a bottle of champagne. What a wonderful son I thought. I watched the video several times to make sure I would get my technique correct. Then grabbing the biggest kitchen knife I could find I attacked the bottle with great gusto. All of a sudden there was glass and champagne all over the kitchen, not to mention all over me. My attempt at sabering the bottle had not worked well at all.

I texted my son and told him what had happened. It was a while before he got back to me with “Mom, it was a joke”.

I didn’t think it was very funny. He knows how serious I am about my champagne and now I had wasted a whole bottle and had to clean up the kitchen. Not to mention remove shards of glass from my hair.

So as much as I was eager to try the Cunard bubbly, due to the lack of an available weapon, we put the bottle back in the fridge and will try again another day.

Luckily there are plenty of places on board to procure champagne, so we got dressed for dinner and met up with friends in the Champagne Bar where it was all too easy to get a glass of ice-cold bubbly. All is well with the world.

Lately we have become creatures of habit always requesting a table for 2 near the tapestry in the Britannia dining room. We arrived at 8:30 and were escorted to our table. Not only was it not a table for 2, but it was a table for 10 near to the window. For a moment I thought I should complain as my request for a table for 2 had been very clear. Then I remembered several past voyages where we have sat at this table and met so many interesting people. Clark was always our waiter, and he was simply perfection. No doubt the maître d’ was very busy and we didn’t want to bother him by asking to move, so we decided to stay put and see what developed. After all it’s only 2 weeks, and could be interesting.

We were joined by one fellow diner, and then just as we were finishing dinner a couple stopped by to say they had been confused, but would be joining our table tomorrow night. So there are 5 people and a table for 10. We are halfway there.

After dinner we went to the show. A very exuberant cellist, EvenkaCello, gave a very unique performance on her electric cello. Not quite the Brahms Cello Sonata I was expecting to hear, but she did play one of my favorite solo cello pieces, the Bach cello suite No 1so I was happy. She is an amazing performer – and I enjoyed her interpretations of Queen as much as I enjoyed her Bach. It was definitely something completely different.

We decided that the Commodore Club could wait until tomorrow and returned to our stateroom after the show.

There were 2 Cunard chocolates waiting for us. All is not lost. Some standards are being maintained!