June 20th
Not in Alesund

It was still light, and the ship continued to rock and roll when I went to bed at 1:30. I was looking forward to a nice night of being rocked in bed, but I fell into a deep slumber, and when I awoke this morning there was very little movement except the vibration of the bow thrusters. I looked out of the window, and it looked like we were close to Alesund.

Captain Wells had warned us at sail away yesterday that it might be too windy to dock in Alesund, but things were looking very hopeful.

My hopes were dashed a few minutes later when he made an announcement in the cabins (only really important notices, such as the fact that the ship is on fire, are usually heard in the cabins) that despite efforts with the thrusters and help from tugs, the winds were too strong, and we were going to have to miss Alesund. I had really been looking forward to our Hjorundfjord cruise, the fjord having been described as “one of the most magnificent fjords in the whole of Norway”, but it was not to be. A sea day on QM2 is definitely something to enjoy!

The entertainment team very quickly put together a new programme for the day. There were all of the usual quizzes, dancing, bridge, watercolor classes, and deck games, as well as a movie, Victoria & Abdul, and Insight Lectures. These included the ever informative Bill Miller talking on “Cunard 175” and the wonderful Eric Founders talking on “”QE2 Fifty Years Famous: The Dramatic Birth and Life of Cunard’s most Famous Queen”, as well as Derek Teder presenting on “How to Look Good on Television”. So now we know should the opportunity arise.

Seeing as we will not be going on our Alesund tour, and thus I am saving money today, I decided to return to the gift shop to take another look at the Chopard Queen Mary 2 scarf there. Of course, it turns out, the price of the scarf is about 3 times the cost of the tour, but then I will always have the scarf, whereas a tour is here today gone tomorrow, except for the memories and photos of course. As it turned out, the scarf really isn’t that nice, and is actually quite inferior to the QE2 scarf I am wearing today, so I ended up not buying it right now. Maybe I will change my mind later. I love the way that things don’t ever seem to rushed when you are at sea.

I headed up to the Commodore Club. It was very full, but I did manage to get a seat with a good view of the waves. Despite the size of the waves, the ship is very steady today, none of the rocking and rolling of last night unfortunately.

One thing I have noticed on this trip is that although the ship doesn’t feel crowded as such, there seem to be far more people out and about in the corridors and public rooms than I have noticed on previous cruises. I actually rather like that. With 2,600 passengers on board you would expect to see people. It also means that you inevitably end chatting with someone when you are sitting anywhere around the ship. I have met a lot of interesting people in the few days I have been on board.

We met up with Jeff, with whom we had done the quiz yesterday, for today’s quiz, and were joined by another couple. The aim was to identify the name and location of several landmarks around the world. As world travelers you would have thought that would have been easy, not so. We even identified the wrong state for Mt Rushmore. We also got bogged down in details when identifying the landmarks, so ended up naming our team the “Over Thinkers”. We would probably have done better by just saying the first thing that came to mind. However, we didn’t, and we didn’t win any more stamps for our activity card ☹.

Ruth has been working diligently on one of the jigsaw puzzles, but when she went to continue to work on it after the quiz, there were other people there. We decided to play a game of scrabble while she was waiting for them to move on. The lesson learned is don’t play Scrabble with a lawyer who frequently plays Scrabble online. She used a whole bunch of words which I would never have thought were acceptable, but I was happy to take her word for it. The world of online Scrabble seems to be very different to a family game with the kids on a Sunday night. She was soon making high scores while I struggled to put even a pathetic word on the board. The final straw was when she was able to put the word “trounced” down with a triple word score to use up all of her tablets at the end of the game. A very appropriate word as it happens. Luckily the jigsaw puzzle became available before we could have a second game.

I skipped the World Club party, as Ruth is not a World Club member, and therefore had not been invited, and we opted for an early dinner at the alternative restaurant (Bamboo). They were serving Asian Cuisine and of all the alternative menus Bamboo is my favorite, and this did not disappoint. The food was beautifully presented, and delicious, and the service was superb. I love the Britannia dining room, but some time it’s nice to have a quieter evening, and change of scenery.

After dinner we obsessed about what tour to take in Stavenger, and then went to see the show. I had seen the acrobatic duo Power of 2 previously and they never fail to impress me, although I am concerned about what their joints are going to look like in 20 years time. I use my joints extremely carefully, and they are already showing signs of wear and tear.

We were ready for another snack after the show, but despite the Daily Programme saying that the aft section of the Kings Court was open, we failed to find any food so we went out onto the promenade deck and took photos.

I am upset that we had to miss Alesund today. I know that there was no alternative, but it feels like I have come a long way to see Norway, and I’m only seeing it from a distance. We really haven’t seen a decent fjord yet. Hopefully we will be in luck tomorrow.