“It was a dark and stormy night …” Well, it WAS dark when we sailed late on a winter’s afternoon, and as for a storm, a light snow was indeed falling, but when I told some people I’d met on board that I needed an opening line for this piece about our sailing under those conditions, that is what they suggested. So there you have it. But it was much more pleasant than that opening implies!

Genesis   We’ll get into the actual sailing shortly, but the background of how two different elements came together to form this trip should be explained at the start.

QUEEN VICTORIA The first element was that I’d wanted for some time to sail on Cunard’s new Queen Victoria, whose maiden voyage had been on 11 December 2007. The QE2 was retired last November to life as some sort of a hotel in Dubai, the Caronia had long left Cunard service, leaving the QM2 as the only other Cunard ship in service. (It should be noted that under construction is the new Queen Elizabeth, named after the current queen, and that Cunard seems to be in a rut about finding fresh, new names for ships nowadays.)

I didn’t want to fly off somewhere to connect with the Queen Victoria, and when in 2007 I noticed that it would be connecting New York and Los Angeles as part of its World Cruise in January 2008, I booked that same segment for January 2009. This way I could sample the QV right from home, and then come back to New York from LA, making it a 17-night winter trip. (HA! Things never stay that simple in my planning.) For those who wonder if advance planning is necessary, let me point out this. In the category of cabin I wanted, C1, which consisted of just two cabins that faced FORWARD in the direction the ship was going in, when I booked, one cabin was already taken, so I got the only one left of the type I wanted.

POLYNESIAN TRIANGLE A few years ago, when I had some down time with my laptop in the shop, I got some Frommer and Michelin guidebooks (Michelin for Thailand, and since they cover very little else of Asia, Frommer for the rest) and reviewed the South Pacific, New Zealand, Australia, and Southeast Asia, just to have some ideas of what I could be interested in, and what not. But all of that seemed too much to crowd into one trip, which I considered a potential Australia trip as the core of it all. So I let it all sit on the back burner.

Then I began thinking. If I’d be in LA on this trip, I could simplify the future by going to the Pacific islands I was interested in from there. Once I got started, it made sense to add on New Zealand, all of which will be clarified. And that is how the QV trip blended in as a lead-in to Polynesia.

There is one more irony here. Once I get off the QV in LA it will slowly make its way to Honolulu, Samoa, Tonga, and Auckland (NZ), and then beyond. As it works out, I myself will be going to Samoa and New Zealand, but well before the ship gets there. I don’t want any more time on the ship than what I’ve booked, nor the additional expense. I like the way I’ve set it up.

Queen Victoria (Atlantic)   It was at first unimportant to me that this trip is a segment of the QV’s World Cruise, but then it did become a factor in the people I met and the travel experience they had, so I’m glad of it now. The entire World Cruise takes about fifteen weeks each year, more or less, or about 3.5 months. Although I believe in never saying never, as things stand now, I have no interest in it. I must say that the Caronia trip around South America in early 2004 did last seven weeks, about half the time of the World Cruise, and those seven weeks did fly by, still for now I’d rather break travel down into smaller bits according to my own plans.

The first World Cruise segment was from Southampton to New York, so I joined in the second segment, as did so many, from New York to Los Angeles. (Those that joined in Fort Lauderdale were just joining the second segment as well.) This sailing is my 45th voyage, as I count voyages (and never separate segments of voyages) from as little as one overnight at sea to the Caronia’s seven weeks. After New York and Fort Lauderdale we stop in Willemstad, Curaçao (where I’ve been), cross the Panama Canal (which I did on the Caronia), stop in Guatemala (the only entirely new country for me on this voyage), stop in two new places for me in Mexico, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, and then Los Angeles.

I am pleased the way it works out that I am using the QV to reach the Pacific in order to lead in to the trip to Polynesia. I am also gratified that it gives me a feeling about traditional sea routes. Picture again the pre-canal days when ships sailed from, say, New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco (the then metropolis in California, and also near the gold fields), and then how that trip was shortened via the Panama Canal. What had been a trip of some 14,000 mi / 22,500 km around the Horn was reduced to about 6,000 mi / 9,500 km through the canal, which is roughly 43% of the distance. What I’m doing now imitates the latter trip, and if I visualize the Caronia trip around Cape Horn added to this one, I can have an idea of how it felt, and how much time it took, to travel that earlier route.

NEW YORK DEPARTURE We sailed from New York on 10 January, a Saturday. I had just been FedExed my documents that Monday, and on reviewing the ticket, I was startled to notice that the QV would leave from the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, and not from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal as I had expected, since most Cunard ships do that now. I had thought at the time that I was foolish for making a mistake, but the next night someone from Cunard phoned to verify that I knew about this change, so I started to laugh, since I now knew it wasn’t just a mistake I had made. I asked her if she was phoning everyone, and she said she was about halfway down the list. I still am not sure why the change was made, but at least I knew it wasn’t some oversight of mine.

Although I had arrived twice at Brooklyn, I was wondering how it would be sailing from there, but now that was moot. Saturday I took a taxi upriver to the New York Cruise Terminal on 55th Street, and there waited the Victoria. Although check-in for me was scheduled at 2 PM, I knew that my Diamond Level of the Cunard World Club membership allowed me priority check-in at noon, which gave me plenty of time to settle in to my cabin and tour the ship before sailing at 5 PM (actually, 5:30 as it turned out).

I had decided against a cabin with a balcony this time. I’ve done that many times on the QM2, and rarely use the balcony, maybe for two minutes before bed to get a breath of fresh air, maybe for two minutes in the morning to see what the day is like. (I even had had a terrace on my cabin on the Pride of America in Hawai‘i, one that faced backward off the stern of the ship, and even that I rarely used.) The next category down from a balcony cabin is an “oceanview cabin”, which means you have a large picture window but no balcony, and I chose something very specific that I wanted, which was the top range of that category, C1, which only had two cabins, because these two faced FORWARD, which was something I was eager to try. It turned out to work quite well, both when leaving New York and when entering or leaving other harbors, and for watching the sea in between. The spacious, long cabin was linear behind the picture window (bed, then couch and desk area, then closets and bath), with a mid-cabin entryway. Access to the deck in front of my window, this deck running from one side of the ship to the other, is limited to crossing the Canal. At that time, I found that my window, and the one to the other C1 cabin, had one-way glass for privacy.

The QV, with carries under 2000 passengers (see below), is smaller by several hundred than the QM2. The QM2 remains as the queen of the Queens, but I very much like the coziness and user-friendly layout of the QV. It has 12 decks. The Grand Lobby is on decks 1-2-3 in the center, and fortunately, is not TOO grand. It’s laid out very pleasantly in a circular pattern with the internet center, library, purser’s desk, and other locations of interest coming off the center on various levels. A cantilevered white staircase connects the levels. My Diamond status still gets me eight free hours at the internet center, but I can’t use my own laptop for the free package, only the center’s computers.

The Queens Room down a bit on deck 2 exemplifies the charming décor of the ship. It’s two-level, and all in muted shades of beige, with more yellow here, some gold there, a red-brown carpet below. It’s not Victorian, but perhaps in some way sort of neo-Victorian, and very satisfying to the eye. The cabins are also in beiges and red.

The Royal Court Theatre is on all three decks in the front of the ship. It is almost a neo-rococo, with rounded boxes around the sides. From deck three you enter the balcony and boxes, from deck 2 you enter the rear 2/3 of the orchestra section, and deck 1 very cleverly has corridors along the sides of the theater to bring you immediately up to the front 1/3 area of the orchestra. The areas do connect, but only if you go way to one side around a fence, so communication between the two areas is infrequent. Over time I’ve noticed that most people come in from deck 2 to the back area, and the front area is sparsely occupied. I understand it gives performers with lights in their eyes (see John Martin below, who told me this) the feeling that the house is far from full.

The Britannia Restaurant is aft on 2-3. Although they are not doing hosted tables, at least this year, I was assigned a well-located center table for eight, and didn’t need to make any changes. Many tables, including mine, are ovoid in shape, so you have the feeling of a round table, yet essentially you have four facing four along its length. The harpist, pianist, or string quartet, which appear at different places on the ship at different times, are situated right near my table in the Britannia.

Although there are many staterooms on deck 1, most staterooms fill decks 4-8, and I’m on 6. Deck 9 aft has the Lido Restaurant. It is not as good as the four sections of what comprises a Lido restaurant on the QM2, but instead offers rather average cafeteria food. Its advantage over the QM2 is that it never closes, so the timing of breakfast backs up to lunch. The top decks have the pools and a Winter Garden. Later in the trip, in warm, but not hot or humid weather, the two center quarters of the rounded Winter Garden glass roof slide back over the two outer quarters to leave the center half of the room open to the sky. I enjoy going to the Commodore Club way forward on deck 10 to meet people to talk.

Getting around is a snap. There are three sets of elevators and stairs, A, B, C, and they’re easy to find. It is very hard to get lost. I cannot say that about the labyrinth of the QM2, where, even after six trips, I still sometimes find myself walking in the wrong direction. The QM2 is also flashier in its color scheme. The QM2 is a true double-hulled ocean liner, with four pods to propel itself and to turn around with on a dime, while the QV is a cheaper, single-hulled cruise ship with two pods. You feel motion on the QV, and rarely so on the QM2. The QM2 is the flagship of Cunard, and rightly so, and I like it a lot. The QV though is cozier and more intimate, with a better, more muted, décor.

So, back to the “dark and stormy night” (don’t believe it). During the afternoon, a light snow started to fall in New York, not leaving too much residue anywhere, but I’d never seen snow on the decks of a ship before. It was also rather foggy, and from the ship in its dock, you could hardly see the buildings across 12th Avenue. Sailing time was delayed slightly from 5 PM to 5:30. Whenever I’ve sailed in the summer, you had a beautiful daylight view of the departure, but in January, it was already dark when we pulled out and got moving down the Hudson. I had gotten together with two people I had just met last summer on the QM2, so we were in the Commodore Club as we sailed, but really couldn’t see much, even when I pointed out my apartment at Battery Park.

[Just five days later, on 15 January, that US Airways plane went down in the middle of the Hudson with no fatalities. While we had sailed on the 10th at about 5:30, the plane went down at 3:30, so it was still daylight. This actually means that it happened a mere four days and 22 hours afterward. We heard about the incident on the ship, but not with precise location details, which I found out the next day online. One source said it was at about 48th Street, another at 39th Street, and someone also pointed out both are correct, since the plane was floating downstream in the Hudson. The point I want to make here is that when the QV sailed, we backed out of the pier at 55th Street, which means that once we turned and sailed south, within moments of our leaving we passed over the area where five days later the plane would have landed. I also heard that the plane ended up being towed to lower Manhattan, which means the view out of my window at Battery Park would have been spectacular. I’m used to seeing ships sail by on the river—but downed planes?]

After going back to my room, from my front-facing cabin, I watched the necklace of lights on the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge approach as we sailed under it.

Ships years ago had a strict and obvious class system. It started out in the early 20C as First Class, Cabin Class, and steerage. The latter cost $10 a person to cross the Atlantic, and was the most profitable for the shipping companies, since it only cost $3 to transport someone in steerage. In the 1920’s when immigration was restricted, the companies were about to lose lots of money, so they then reconfigured the steerage dormitories (some for men, others for women and children) as regular, but simple, cabins, this being the birth of Tourist Class along with First and Cabin. I went Tourist Class in 1957 on my first Transatlantic crossing on the original Queen Elizabeth, and I think I remember bunk beds, and the then typical (four Tourist Class) bath and toilet down the hall. This three-way division lasted for quite some time, with different parts of the ship restricted to different classes, which meant not only a duplication of restaurants, but also of lounges, pools, and other areas.

That is now different on most ships, to my knowledge, with one class of service. But Cunard ships have a further twist as to class. They seem to be classless on the surface, but the more luxurious accommodations are differentiated from the others based on the designation of the dining facility. Those in the most luxurious accommodations on every Cunard ship dine in either the Queens Grill or Princess Grill (already a split between the Grills passengers), and everyone else dines in the Britannia Restaurant. So the subtle difference is that your cabin used to determine your status, and therefore your restaurant. Now your restaurant is the official determiner of your status without any direct reference to quality of cabins, and so it remains unspoken, yet known to all, that Grill passengers have much more posh cabins.

My personal breakdown is this, and this is the way I see it, not any official classification. I will disregard the difference between the two Grills, since it is apparently subtle. I will say that Cunard ships have two (hidden) classes: First Class and Super Class. Super Class passengers (again, just my personal description), are referred to as Grills passengers. In fairness, all the other accommodations—the majority—really must be considered First Class and nothing less, but those passengers are referred to more complexly as “people who dine in the Britannia Restaurant”. On an everyday basis, rather than using my Super Class / First Class designation, people just refer to Grills passengers—and then everyone else. But in a harking back to the old days, there is the odd lounge or other area that is restricted to Grills passengers only—Please!

I have now learned that those people who take the World Cruise are very clubby about it. If you think that doing it once is a big deal, you have to talk to those who do it regularly. There are people at my table doing it for the sixth time or more; someone mentioned a person doing their tenth. I’m sure there are those with even more experience.

I think that when it comes to travel, I can be considered a reasonably large fish in the pond, but in situations like the current one, there are a lot of large fish around, given that a number of people I talk to are doing the entire World Cruise, and frequently have done it many times, and also given that many more people I speak to are current or former Grills passengers. A good number are both World Cruise and Grills. Let me say that I hold my own very well in conversations and am no rookie, either when discussing life experiences or most particularly travel experiences. But do remember what I said about High-Stakes Travel Poker (2006/15), in which well-traveled people compare experiences. I perceive myself in this present pond as having strong competition, and that’s what makes the juices flow. There is always room for growth.

FORT LAUDERDALE We obviously are not moving too fast—and will not do so later on, either--since it took two full days at sea just to reach South Florida, which I’m sure we could have done in half that. I was also amused when the announcement came that it was hoped that those disembarking in Port Everglades enjoyed their Transatlantic crossing. Do you read anything in that? If not, reconsider the Jones Act (2008/23). No one that got on in New York could legally have been sold a ticket to get off in Florida, so everyone getting off in Florida had to have been on since Southampton.

I had no reason to get off here, and stayed on the ship. I was last here with Beverly in January 2004 when we sailed on the Caronia around South America, and then seven weeks later when we returned.

We had heard that the QM2 would be in port when we arrived, and sure enough, she was docked very close on the other side of our pier. I also heard that quite a number of QV passengers had transferred to the QM2 here. The Noordam was docked behind us, and I could see at least three other ships nearby, and maybe more. We had a very pleasant sailaway in the late afternoon, in comfortable weather.

Since I’m discussing both ships again, let me bring this point up. It’s sort of a question like whether a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it actually makes a noise or not.

I have a map of the 2010 QV World Cruise, which doesn’t vary much from this year’s. After San Francisco (instead of LA) it will cross the Pacific, to New Zealand and Australia, then visit ports in East and South Asia, go through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean and back to Southampton. This is a genuine World Cruise.

But the QM2 is too big to fit through the Panama Canal. After Southampton and NY, it will go down to Rio, then over to Cape Town, and then Australia, East and South Asia, and so on back to Southampton. Although it sails the extreme western Pacific from Australia to Japan, it really doesn’t do much else in the Pacific. So, is a circular trip that doesn’t cross the Pacific (to say nothing of the International Date Line) really a World Cruise? You can argue that it’s certainly a nice long voyage, taking the same time and some similar routes as a World Cruise, but wouldn’t you expect to circle the earth?

The Captain is presently Paul Wright, who I’ve sailed with several times, and at whose Captain’s Table I once sat on the QM2. The Entertainment Director up until Fort Lauderdale, at which time she went on holiday, was Amanda Reid, whom I’ve known for years, and the Tour Director was again Richard Parker, who helped Beverly and me get around while on the Caronia.

I was surprised when the comedian announced for just one night between Fort Lauderdale and Curaçao was John Martin, about whose humor I’ve written (2004/7). I met him twice on ships, the first time on the Caronia, and was impressed about his very serious knowledge of General George Custer, one of his passions. I sent him a note, and he sought me out and we had a nice chat. His other passion is the war history of Prague, about which he’s now written a book. I find it particularly interesting to explore these passions people have other than what they’re known for professionally.

I was also very happy to see that Bill Miller is lecturing on ships again this voyage. I first met him on the Deutschland in 2000, when he was so good that his English lectures attracted a considerable audience among the German travelers. I’ve also been with him on other trips, including that time when both he and I were at the Captain’s Table mentioned above. He’s referred to as a Maritime Historian, and is an international authority on the great ocean liners of the past and present, giving several illustrated lectures on this trip. He also is the principal lecturer on ocean liners at South Street Seaport. His first here onboard was a summary of all the great companies and liners of the Golden Age of ship travel up until the early sixties, then the decline, and then the revival. He now says that more passengers travel on ships right now than ever did during the Golden Age, which is so very impressive, given the dark years after the QE2 was built and considered a folly during the intensifying air age.

Of his many stories, he told about the French Line and its Normandie, a magnificent ship that was stranded in New York during the war. While its fittings were being removed right at the dock, a fire broke out and the ship was gutted. Then all the water pumped into her caused her to turn over on her side, so that she ended up being cut up for scrap metal.

All this was history that I already knew. But what Bill’s knowledge made so special on this trip was his announcement that the very pier where the Normandie burned and turned over in New York was the very same one we had just sailed from—even the same side of the pier.

One other tidbit from Bill that I enjoyed was this. The café restaurant on Cunard ships is always called the Lido restaurant. It’s always on an upper deck, and its main, inside area is usually connected to an outside area for further dining, and swimming. The Lido is the beach of Venice, but I never knew the connection. Well it seems that when the Italian Line had built its great ships in the Thirties, Mussolini insisted that they not only have an outside pool and dining area, but that around the pool, actual sand from the Lido beach be spread out. Although there’s no sand today, these places are still named after the Lido near Venice.

In another lecture, Bill discussed the many British-based passenger shipping lines that went around the world. I was amazed at the extent of the network, and at all the pictures he had of ships, exterior and interior, of smaller cruise lines. One big line was the P & O, which still exists. Bill explained how P & O regularly sent three ships to Australia, one west via the Panama Canal, one east via the Suez Canal, and one south via Cape Town. It’s all gone now. Privately I made sure I was correct that all major Pacific islands were connected by spider webs of routes seemingly going everywhere, and he agreed. This point will be significant in discussing Samoa shortly.

Bill gave a number of interesting lectures, as did someone with connections to Warner Brothers Studios, who’s given a series of lectures on that history in both Hollywood and London. A third speaker has discussed people in the music world, such as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, with sing-alongs of just a few lines of music from a selection of songs. Having these three speakers means spending many interesting hours late mornings in the Royal Court Theatre, either one, two, or three a day.

Another “old face” is Jacqui Hodgson, the Hotel Manager, who got on in Fort Lauderdale, who had asked me to dance on the Caronia in early 2004 going around South America. As I’ve explained in describing that trip, since Beverly and I had always danced, we didn’t stop once she was in a wheelchair. I would seat her in a chair on the edge of the dance floor, and when a slow dance would start, I’d stand her up and we’d slow-dance in place. We did it because we liked to dance, not because it caused waves of admiring glances from others. In any case, one evening, the ship’s officers were introduced from the dance floor, and then they were asked to each find a dancing partner from among the passengers. Jacqui Hodgson headed straight for me, and as we danced, she told me she had been wanting to dance with me because of the way I had been dancing so frequently with Beverly. Anyway, here on the QV I went up to her after dinner one evening, she seemed to have an idea she knew me but wasn’t sure, then when I explained our dance on the Caronia she remembered everything, most particularly Beverly’s enjoyment of events, even though by that time she wasn’t speaking any more. I told Jacqui that that had been in January 2004, and by October Beverly was gone. It was gratifying to see that those memories on the Caronia still remain in other people’s minds as well.