Photos from Sea - Part 1

As promised, lots more photos from our crossing (in a two-part series).

Bridge alert! Crossing under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge which spans the entrance to New York Harbor. Although it doesn't look as dramatic in our photos, the clearance is alarmingly close, especially when moving at speed; the bridge on just clears the ship's funnel by 9-12ft. The ship also blows its horn as the funnel passes under, which must give the car drivers on the bridge quite a fright.

Underway in the open sea. We had very nice weather the first two days, with plenty of sunshine, unseasonably warm temperatures and a fairly calm sea.

One of the aft pool decks, though everyone had run off to change for dinner

The view looking forward from our stateroom balcony, which was fairly near the front of the ship.

And the view aft, looking down onto the boats suspended over the promenade deck.

From our balcony at night

Bridge Alert!

A view through the windows of the lower decks down in the hull.

Looks quite tame really. However, before we boarded her for the New York to Southampton crossing, the QM2 had made a quick run up to Quebec. On the way back down to New York, she had to go right through a tropical storm out at sea, including a Force 11 gale (that's right, all the way up to 11). The wave tops were taller than the windows at this level. Some of our passengers who experienced it said it was quite exhilarating, though several others were said to be looking a little green. 

We were also told that on that day, QM2 left at the same time as two cruise ships, both of which had to turn back because it was too rough for them to make the passage (relatively) comfortably. So if you're going to travel by sea during hurricane season, at least do it in an ocean liner. We managed to avoid them on our crossing though.

On to the entertainment:

We never ran out of things to do. Being at sea for a week, the nice people at Cunard kindly laid on a mass of shipboard entertainment for each day.

Bridge alert at 10:30am! We didn't actually play, so this was as close as we got to this bridge.

Sometimes however you just need to relax in one of the lounges and peruse the martini menu.

Note the Churchill variety of martini

Or if champagne is more your thing...

Dinner time! (No, the mini Mini didn't follow us everywhere)

Several evenings had a ball theme, such as the Ascot Ball in this case.

The ship's ballroom band played each night, giving us all a chance to practice our newly learned dancing routines.

The Ascot Ball featured a ladies hat parade. Unfortunately for Selina, we didn't know there was going to be an Ascot Ball, so she didn't have one of her fabulous hats with her!