Day 3 On Board QM2

Day 3 Monday 16 March 2009

Last night Deb and I went to the Captain’s Cocktail Party for all those who embarked at Singapore. There were about 200 – 300 who were at the party which was before dinner. They actually had two cocktail parties – one at 5.15pm for those who were in the early dinner sitting, and one at 7.30pm for those in the 8.30pm sitting. We went to the 7.30pm party.
Deb and dressed up in our best outfits, and joined all the others in the Queen’s Room. We took some photos and will try to get them on line, but haven’t been having a lot of luck uploading photos as the satellite link drops out frequently. I will keep trying.
The Captain introduced all the senior staff on the liner, and we had some champagne and nibbles, before heading off to dinner. It was interesting to note that all the ship’s senior personnel were “senior” in age also.
Dinner was delicious – we had a chilled tomato, capsicum, basil & pineapple soup; followed by a salad – lettuce, tomato and small scoop of mashed avocado; then we had grilled lemon sole, with spinach, potato, zuccini and champagne sauce (served on the side), we have a standing order of steamed vegetables with our main meal, and they were served as requested. For desert I had a selection of mixed berries in a “florentine” basket. Deb had a passionfruit mousse. We also had a glass of wine with the meal. First time for alcohol – mine was a chardonay and was pretty ordinary. So – Suzan, you can see we are really trying to maintain the WW program.
After all that we went off to our cabin and hit the beds.

Monday 16 March
This morning I was up at the usual 5.30am and Deb woke at 6.00am, the morning tea arrived at 6.30am as ordered, then we decided to try the pool as the outside temperature was 28°C. We went to the pool on Deck 8, but the water was too cold, so we went down to the one on Deck 7 which was the childrens pool. It was a bit warmer, so we spent around 40 mins doing our exercises before going back to the cabin for a shower and dressing for breakfast. We got to breakfast around 8.30am and joined a couple from Yorkshire and 2 ladies from West Australia. The ladies are also going to the UK and are joining a bus tour similar to ours. They weren’t sure whether it was the same one as we are going on or not.
After breakfast we wandered up to the Pursors’ Office to get some answers to questions we had. After that had a look in the shops on board. Not stuff we are interested in and also very expensive.
We returned to our cabin for a while to fill in time before going to a lecture in the Planatarium given by the senior designer of the Queen Mary 2 on “The Great Cunardars” which was about all the different ships in the Cunard Line – in some ways it was interesting but the speaker was boring and we both dozed off during the talk.
Afterwards we went up to the 12th Deck to have lunch at the Boardwalk Café and check out the upper deck where there are a couple of pools, and all the sporting areas.
It was quite hot and windy up there, and there were a number of people up there getting considerably sun and wind burnt. I took a couple of photos of the ship and surrounds, then we went back down to the cabin for an afternoon rest for Deb and an attempt to upload photos and my blog. NO LUCK again.
I am writing this with Word, and hope to be able to upload this next time I log on.
We had afternoon tea delivered to our cabin as we didn't feel like going out for it. It is nice to be able to pick up the telephone and request tea for two with scones - and have it delivered to your door.
Tonight it is Formal dining again, and we thought we would like to go to the show in the Theatre where there is a Classical Flautist playing various types of music. So we have booked a table in the Italian restaurant for 7.00pm and will go to the theatre after that. We don't plan on getting too dressed up, but we will have to wear something nice.