North Atlantic to New York City
3 May 2026
The captain says it’s iceberg season so we’ll be heading on a route farther south than the ship usually takes to get to New York. I just read an interesting analysis of the Titanic disaster.
When the iceberg was spotted around 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, the Titanic lookout rang the bell, shouted “Iceberg, right ahead!”, and the bridge immediately ordered a sharp turn to port (left), trying to avoid the ice. This caused the ship to scrape the ice along the starboard side of the ship.
This catastrophic scrape opened holes in five ship compartments over a length of almost 100 yards/meters. The Titanic was designed to float with the first four flooded compartments.
Had the ship not turned, a frontal collision would have concentrated energy in the most robust part of the ship, allowing the structure to absorb the impact like a modern car “crumple zone”. Three compartments would have flooded, and tens, perhaps a hundred of staff who lived in the ship’s bow, would have been lost, but the rest of the ship could have withstood long enough to allow a more orderly evacuation and perhaps the arrival of rescue.
I haven’t reported lately on Chairman Mao, the room steward down the hall who looks just like the Chinese dictator. He’s still here, still ignoring me, as I ignore him when we pass in the hall. When he DOES speak, he says good morning, no matter what time of day.
Also, about “Natasha,” the pushy waitress who sounds like a Russian, though she’s Romanian. She disappeared weeks ago from the Carinthia Lounge, where she always made me get Romanian wine rather than the Lebanese wine I wanted. She reappeared for a while, waiting tables in the buffet, then disappeared from there. I figured they had her washing dishes somewhere.
Linda asked a waiter in Carinthia Lounge where she went. I commended to the waiter, “She’s pushy.” The waiter rolled his eyes and said, “She’s more than pushy! Nobody likes her. She’s been transferred to the Golden Lion Pub.” But today she was back in Carinthia, unchanged, and I’m currently sipping the Romanian wine she insists I drink!
4 May 2026
You may be curious what QM2 will be doing after we leave the ship Friday. They generally spend spring/summer/fall going back and forth from Southampton to New York, but they take occasional side trips.
After we leave in NYC, QM2 sails back to Southampton that same afternoon, then makes 4 stops in Norway on a Norwegian Fjords cruise. Then they spend the rest of May going back and forth between Southampton and NYC. That’s what ocean liners are built for, north Atlantic crossings, day after day, year after year, built to take the stress and the occasional storm. No predictions about icebergs, though.
June 5 they head from Southampton to Bruges, Belgium, then make stops in Le Havre and Cherbourg, France. Then back to the Southampton-NYC rotation. Those lucky people visiting Belgium and France will enjoy some wonderful meals on the shore excursions. The two best meals I’ve ever had were both in Belgium!
The Queen Mary 2 is scheduled for 40 days in dry dock, all of April and 9 days in early May of next year, for a major refurbishment. This refit is expected to update public spaces and amenities for the 2027-2028 season, where she will debut new itineraries, including calls at new destinations.
The last major refit was in 2016. They haven’t yet announced what they will change this time. In 2016, they put in all new carpeting, cut the size of the casino in half, to add more cabins, and they completely gutted and rebuilt the buffet for a more modern look and flow. They also gave a major redo to all the more expensive cabins and suites. I wouldn’t know about those! Never stayed in one
Here’s another meal from the main dining room…
5 May 2026
Only a brief report to say that I’ve corrupted David, who had never entered a casino before. Today I introduced him to a slot machine, the one-armed bandit! He bravely risked $10. He’s a big spender. Luckily, the machine had both one arm and a button to spin. He wanted to pull the arm like he’d seen in the movies. He had about 30 minutes of fun until he hit a big winner and immediately cashed out and took his winnings. He got his $10 back, plus $24 winnings!
And I’m still playing on the original $30 I put in the machine 3 months ago. I now stand at about $47. I’m convinced that they have the machines set to keep you playing, never losing much or winning much, so you’ll keep buying drinks at the casino bar. That’s where they make their money! Now, on to dinner!
Ship’s Carpeting Video
8 May 2026
So that’s a wrap. We’ve docked in New York City, with the Statue of Liberty just off in the distance, admiring the impressive beauty of Queen Mary 2. I must say that, after the cruise terminals we saw worldwide, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is small and cheap-looking. That’s fine with me! Some of those terminals we walked through were as tiring as walking through a large airport!
All that’s left to complete our circumnavigation of Planet Earth is to find JFK Airport, fly to Little Rock, set our watches back for the final time, then drive home to Pocahontas and remember how to get into our houses. No more exotic experiences, for now. I won’t write more about the trip unless something worth telling arises on this long final day of the trip.
Over three+ months, circling the whole globe, and we never saw any weather stronger than a brief, gentle rain. Never saw a wave that came as high as Deck 1. QM2 is designed to brush off waves as high as Deck 7, and I’m sure higher ones wouldn’t be much problem.
Linda and I are in agreement that we liked the ship’s “atmosphere” more when it was mostly British people aboard. It all changed in Southampton, when the Brits mostly left and the ship filled up with Americans. Nothing against our countrymen, but the Brits are just more quiet, less pushy (except in the launderette), more classy and polite. I’ve heard it before, and it’s true: it’s easy to spot Americans abroad because they’re the ones who can be heard all over a restaurant. People from the rest of the world keep their voices down in public places.
As we traveled, I posted each daily narrative and photos to a Facebook group I created. I’m so happy that over 30 people stuck with the whole, lengthy report on what we saw and did. I hope some of you will consider doing the same someday, or at least part of it, if you can. Short of a trip to the moon, it’s hard to beat.
In circling the whole planet, we stopped in 28 different locations. We saw the whole spectrum from very rich to very poor places, from lush to arid, all of them nicely populated, with good food and friendly people everywhere we went. I’m content that I was able to cut my own hair, well enough, for three months, avoiding the $70 haircut cost on the ship!
Perhaps we became jaded by seeing so much, because our most memorable experience and our favorite place both appeared in the first couple of weeks of the voyage, with the best experience being the amazing Waymo self-driving cars in San Francisco and the favorite place being the natural beauty of the island of Mo’orea, off Tahiti in French Polynesia.
If you’re following the casino story, I went by yesterday, determined to lose the remains of the $30 I put in the machine over 3 months ago. After 45 minutes of ups and downs, I finally managed to lose the last quarter (it was a 25-cent machine) and walked away thoroughly satisfied that I had my money’s worth of fun!
I’ll miss pretty much everything about the 90+ days aboard Queen Mary 2, especially the people: getting to overhear, every day, the British and Australian accents, and their opinions, plus hearing a few French and Germans, and the ship staff of people from all over the world. And I’ll miss seeing all the Asians aboard the whole time, eating with sticks!