Cruisin' the Queen Elizabeth 2 September 2000

Despite what you'll read at the bottom of this page, I did enjoy cruising on the QE2 very much during the third week of September. My mother and I boarded in New York and cruised to Halifax and back.

Kay Hasseltine and Kay Kay Smith from Batesville went aboard with us in New York and had a drink before we sailed.  (The ship in the background is the Pacific Princess, the original Love Boat.

So I'm not the first guy who ever tried to capture the essence of the Statue of Liberty with a drugstore camera while sailing past at knots.  It's still pretty darned spectacular.

The highlight of every day on the ship was having dinner with our new best friends, pictured here.  On the left are Ed and Honba Kroke.  Ed is a marketing consultant for the New York Giants, and Honka is originally for Holland, adorable and--as Mom says, has enough personality for four people.  On the right are Linda Dencher and her son, Scott.  Linda was celebrating her retirement as the city manager of Vineland, New Jersey.  (She says that Vineland is, geographically, the largest city in the state.)  Scott is a parole adjudicator in Manahawkin, New Jersey.  We really enjoyed getting to know all of them They all want to come to Batesville for Christmas.

The Cunard Line called this the New England fall foliage tour.  As you can see from this photo I took at Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, Maine,  there certainly was lots of foliage--but it was all green.

When we got to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mom and I had planned to  go into town and poke around.  However, her heel was a little gimpy, so instead, we took a tourbus around town and out to a seacoast village called Peggy's Cove.  It's somewhat famous artists colony and even more famous as a tourist attraction.  Here's a rare photo of the lighthouse WITHOUT a bunch of other tourists standing around it. By the way, this lighthouse is also the smallest post office in Canada.

When we got to Halifax, a lot of passengers looked out their windows and thought we'd tied up next to a condominium.  Actually, it was the new Celebration Victory. It's enormous.  We asked the first mate of the QE2 if these giant new ships ever did the transatlantic run.  He said they made the run once to say they'd done it, but they never did it twice.

FAQ So was it fun? Absolutely. Would you do it again? Absolutely. Would you recommend that I go?  Not necessarily.  And here's why.  Presumbably one makes a cruise decision based on activities, entertainment, one's room and food. Regarding activities and enterainment, the target audience for the QE2 is British, over 60, and preferably married (or at least not single).  In other words, QE2 herself defines the target market for the ship that bears her name.  To illustrate this point, of the six nights I was on the ship, I was in the casino when it closed.  Two possible explanations for this are: 1) I am a compulsive gambler; and 2) it didn't take much stamina to appear to be one on the ship.  Sadly, the second is true.  On two of the three nights I was there when it closed, I was in bed by 1:30. On the other night, my mother and I were run out about 2:30.  Needless to say that the karioke in the bar had concluded much earlier.

Want to know more about  Queen Elizabeth 2 or the Cunard Line? Click here.

Regarding the cabins and the food, I think it's fair to say that the QE2 has the widest range of accomodation of any cruise ship afloat.  When you select your cabin, you're selecting not only the quality of your room, you're selecting the level of service you will receive and even which dining room you'll take your meals.  I don't know this for certain, but I'm told that the QE2 is the last cruise ship around that assigns guests to dining rooms which have different levels of service. I had wonderful meals with wonderful people in the dining room I selected (the Mauretania), but even though we were all having a fine time, we knew that people who had paid more were upstairs in the Caronia Restaurant with more menu selections and better service.  The British clientele seemed to have no problem with this, but all of the Americans commented on it.

Are you ready to go back to Titanic? Me, neither, but we did see the cemetery in Halifax were 200 Titanic victims are buried.