July 10th
New York
Usually I get up to watch us go under the Verrazzano Narrows bridge, and wave at the Statue of Liberty, but somehow, I missed it, and when I woke up, there was the port of Brooklyn right in front of us.
A familiar, but not attractive sight. It is also a very noisy port, and it would have been impossible to sleep any later.
The amazing 4th of July flower arrangement in the Grand Lobby had disappeared and been replaced by another magnificent arrangement.
We decided to take the Cunard coach to the airport, with a disembarkation time of 8:10.
The last time we disembarked from Mary it was in Southampton and it was total chaos. Today was much better, with only minor delays.
Our suitcases were waiting for us in the luggage hall, customs and immigration was a breeze, and in no time, we were in the coach heading to JFK.
The extreme heat had dissipated, and it was a lovely warm, sunny day. We had an excellent view of Manhattan from the coach.
Traffic was light and we got to the airport in very good time, so we were able to sit and relax there until it was time for our flight. Terminal 8 at JFK is really very nice, a great improvement on Terminal 7 where we used to go.
So that was that – our plane was on time, we had a relatively smooth ride, and we were home by midnight. It was a long day, the 3 hour time change always gets me. However, it has been an amazing week. I loved the tall ships, and the tall tides were great to see. Most of all I loved being back on Mary again.
It looks like you had a really fun trip!
It was. I do love Queen Mary 2, but she is really big – you get your 10,000 steps a day in by just going back and forth on the ship, and waiting for tenders, and queues for dinner and disembarkation are annoying, but there is still something special about her. Now it’s time to do the laundry and get organized for the Venture in a few weeks!