Live from the Queen Victoria world cruise (with a QM2 prelude)

Last year Scrapnana started a very successful live thread for the 2014 Queen Elizabeth world cruise with others picking up the ball after she disembarked in Fort Lauderdale. Like her, I will be disembarking in Ft Lauderdale but others on the roll call have indicated interest in a joint thread. I will give daily reports from my segment but hope my shipmates will chime in with their views as well. I cannot be everywhere on the ship or do everything so a mosaic of opinions will give a rich picture of the cruise.

I am boarding QM2 in Brooklyn and that roll call has been quiet so it will almost certainly be just my views on that segment. I have crossed on QM2 many times but this will be my first in mid-winter. This will be a compound trip as after disembarking QV I will fly to Buenos Aires (Nonstop from Florida rather than a connection from the frozen north) and will have 38 nights on the Crystal Symphony BA-Antarctica-Miami. If you bear with me I plan to start each of my posts with the location of my “other” 2 ships. Today, the Crystal Symphony is at sea from Fortaleza, Brazil to Recife, QV is at sea from Lisbon to Southampton, and QM2 is in Basseterre, St. Kitts.

There will be at least 2 blogs with pictures. Mine will be http://aroundamericabitbybit.wordpress.com, In my case this is part of a larger trip and string of trips which will completely circle North and South America. I’ll leave it to roscoe39 to introduce his blog.

My luggage is already in White Star Luggage’s facility in New York and I leave home New Years day and will start reporting then.

Roy

Last year Scrapnana started a very successful live thread for the 2014 Queen Elizabeth world cruise with others picking up the ball after she disembarked in Fort Lauderdale. Like her, I will be disembarking in Ft Lauderdale but others on the roll call have indicated interest in a joint thread. I will give daily reports from my segment but hope my shipmates will chime in with their views as well. I cannot be everywhere on the ship or do everything so a mosaic of opinions will give a rich picture of the cruise.

 

I am boarding QM2 in Brooklyn and that roll call has been quiet so it will almost certainly be just my views on that segment. I have crossed on QM2 many times but this will be my first in mid-winter. This will be a compound trip as after disembarking QV I will fly to Buenos Aires (Nonstop from Florida rather than a connection from the frozen north) and will have 38 nights on the Crystal Symphony BA-Antarctica-Miami. If you bear with me I plan to start each of my posts with the location of my “other” 2 ships. Today, the Crystal Symphony is at sea from Fortaleza, Brazil to Recife, QV is at sea from Lisbon to Southampton, and QM2 is in Basseterre, St. Kitts.

 

There will be at least 2 blogs with pictures. Mine will be http://aroundamericabitbybit.wordpress.com, In my case this is part of a larger trip and string of trips which will completely circle North and South America. I’ll leave it to roscoe39 to introduce his blog.

 

My luggage is already in White Star Luggage’s facility in New York and I leave home New Years day and will start reporting then.

 

Roy

Safe travels Roy! Look forward to your adventures.

Will this blog be for this entire trip or will you utilize your "traditional" one for the Crystal segment?

Roy,

Thanks for starting this message thread.

I'll be boarding the Queen Victoria in San Francisco on Feb. 7, 2016 and cruising to Southampton, disembarking on May 10, 2016.

I will try to add to this thread while onboard.

Glenn

Thanks for offering to take us along with you.

I look forward to reading all about your trips.

Safe travels Roy! Look forward to your adventures.

 

Will this blog be for this entire trip or will you utilize your "traditional" one for the Crystal segment?

This thread is designed to be just QM2 and the QV world cruise with the help of others. I have established my thread on the Crystal forum which will cover my entire journey.

Roy

Once again I am really looking forward to your blogs giving us an insight into your adventures.

What a lovely way to start the new year.

Happy New Year for 2016 & bon voyage for your first leg.

Susan

This thread is designed to be just QM2 and the QV world cruise with the help of others. I have established my thread on the Crystal forum which will cover my entire journey.

 

Roy

Go it, thanks sir. Excited to travel vicariously with you! Thanks for taking the time (and expense) to share your adventures.

We will be boarding the Queen Victoria in our home port of Honolulu, 4 days after she leaves San Francisco, and sailing all the way to Southampton. We'll be joining the others in adding to the thread.

<snip>

I am boarding QM2 in Brooklyn and that roll call has been quiet so it will almost certainly be just my views on that segment.<snip>

 

Roy

I booked these crossings 14 months ago and there was a QM2 roll call then. I thought I subscribed to it but there was no activity since last December. I just discovered a new, active roll call today, and hope some of my M602 shipmates will chime in on my QM2 crossing.

Roy

Last year Scrapnana started a very successful live thread for the 2014 Queen Elizabeth world cruise with others picking up the ball after she disembarked in Fort Lauderdale. I’ll leave it to roscoe39 to introduce his blog.

 

 

Roy

Thanks Roy for starting the thread, Look forward to meeting you on board,

my blog for anyone interested is

http://exitviathegiftshop.blogspot.co.nz/?view=magazine

with the more polished stories being put onto my regular blog,

http://roscoesseafever.blogspot.co.nz

I don't flatter myself to be able to keep up to Roys standards but I will give it a go and hopefully others will join in as well. After the initial flurry of WC blogs for Cunard in previous years there has been a dearth of blogs since and I know that I would follow any I could find with interest so I hope that Roy and I can help reverse the trend and repay some of the previous bloggers for their kindness in letting us share vicariously in their adventures...

Regards Roscoe

192 hours and counting.....

Roy,

I am glad that others are going to join in on the "live" thread. Especially with a world voyage, it is interesting to hear what different people are doing as there are so many choices every day.

Looking forward to reading about everyone's adventures! Thanks for letting us live vicariously.

Smooth sailing,

Kathi

Thanks Roy and roscoe. Looking forward to your blogs.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey, Bon Voyage ya' all! It will be interesting to read any comparisons between Cunard and Crystal. Interesting to us since we sailed both the Crystal Serenity and the QM2 in 2015. Have a terrific time!

Another follower here. Thanks and have a great trip.

Looking forward to "joining" you on your voyage.

Bon Voyage! Look forward to reading about your QM trip, and then being on board QV with you.

Thank Roy! I will look forward to reading about the adventure!

Thank you all. It''s a lull in the Holiday weekend and travel is starting off pretty easy. An hour before my appointment the Airport Shuttle called and said they were running ahead of schedule and would be there for me 15 minutes early. I was just seated on board at the newly appointed time and was about an hour early at the BWI Amtrak station. My train showed up precisely on time and I am now between Baltimore and Wilmington. Business Class is not crowded and the only hitch so far is that the Coffee Counter at the BWI station was closed. I got my coffee as we approached Baltimore. I should be in New York about 7 and at my hotel by 8,

Roy

Thank you all. It''s a lull in the Holiday weekend and travel is starting off pretty easy. An hour before my appointment the Airport Shuttle called and said they were running ahead of schedule and would be there for me 15 minutes early. I was just seated on board at the newly appointed time and was about an hour early at the BWI Amtrak station. My train showed up precisely on time and I am now between Baltimore and Wilmington. Business Class is not crowded and the only hitch so far is that the Coffee Counter at the BWI station was closed. I got my coffee as we approached Baltimore. I should be in New York about 7 and at my hotel by 8,

 

Roy

Safe Travels Roy., Hope the city that never sleeps lets you rest before your big adventure...

regards Roscoe

Thank you Roscoe, enjoy your remaining hours and have at least a bearable flight.

The Crystal Symphony is in Rio. QV is in Brussels. QM2 is at sea from Tortola, BVI to Brooklyn(where I will board Sunday).

It was a busy New Year’s Day. After retiring right after the ball drop I was up at 5 and spent about 3 morning hours at my fire house. When planning this trip I had failed to consider that my responsibilities as Fire Department Treasurer involved a number of year end reports, especially tax reporting. Some could be done a little ahead of time but a few really had to happen at the first of the year. I had hoped to palm some of it off on our administrator but she has been ill the past week. All is done except for one report that either she can do or I can complete when QV gets to Florida.

The rest of my home time included a short walk at my local mall and final packing. Most was already done but the computer stuff and meds have to wait until the last minute.

I had booked a late afternoon train and a transfer on our Airport Shuttle. It was scheduled for 2:30 but they called at 1:30 and moved the time up to 2:15. At 2:15 I was on board and ready to leave. arriving at Amtrak’s BWI station a half hour later. I think both Thursday and Sunday are very heavy travel days but not so much New Year’s day. I had about an hour in the lightly used station before my train arrived precisely on time.

The train was fairly full in coach but very lightly so in business class. We stayed close to the schedule, waiting for the designated departure times at most stations. The Northeast Corridor is not very scenic but we did get a few views of the Delaware River before darkness settled in. We pulled into Penn Station at 6:45. about 3 minutes ahead of schedule. While I had encountered few crowds during the day, Penn Station was extremely busy.

My first train ride was very relaxing but the second (the subway) was not. It was quite packed and we traveled about 2 stops before a seat opened up. Thanks to White Star Luggage I was not heavily burdened, but with 30 pounds in the main backpack and 10 in the little one I did seek out the station elevator. It was about a 2-block walk to the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge and I was checked in a little before 8. The room is quite pleasant.

Central Brooklyn is quite vibrant and I’ll have a pretty busy day Saturday. I called it a day after the 11PM news.

Today’s parting shot is obvious. Best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year.

Roy

Roy

Have a great trip on the QM2, and will see you on the QV 11th January.

I will be happy to put a few posts on this thread before we leave ship in California.

Thank you LadyL1. The more depth we have in this thread the better.

The Crystal Symphony is in Rio. QV is at sea from Brussels to Southampton. QM2 is at sea from Tortola, BVI to Brooklyn, one sleep until I board..

Up at 5, I left the hotel just before 7 to get away from Brooklyn’s skyline. Fort Green park is about a half mile east of the hotel. The park slopes up to the east with some tall apartment buildings further east and I first saw the sun about 25 minutes past the official sunrise. There was not really much of a sunrise but behind me the Freedom tower in lower Manhattan was shimmering quite nicely in the early morning light. The main feature of the park is a tall column erected as a monument to 11,500 martyrs, Revolutionary War Soldiers who died on British prison ships anchored in the harbor.

https://aroundamericabitbybit.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/dawn0102.jpg

https://aroundamericabitbybit.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/freedom.jpg

https://aroundamericabitbybit.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/martyrmonument.jpg

Later in the morning I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan and down to the South Seaport, pretty much under reconstruction. It was quite an invigorating walk as the temperature had turned quite crisp, just a little above freezing. It was a short ride back to the hotel from the Fulton Street Subway station. There was a very nice tree just outside the seaport.

https://aroundamericabitbybit.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/seaporttree.jpg

I returned to the hotel for lunch. The New York Transit Museum is a no longer used subway station about 4 blocks south of the hotel. Am exhibit placed in the station for the 1976 bicentennial proved very popular and became permanent. Tracks 2 levels below the street are now packed with a century’s worth of retired subway equipment including a pump car used to remove water from tunnels after flooding (the unit’s 2000gpm pump is now replaced with a new 5000gpm pump car), and a car from the early days with wooden sides. It was soon deemed unsafe for the tunnels but continued in service for many years on elevated lines.

https://aroundamericabitbybit.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/woodie1.jpg

The upper level (one floor below the street) had displays related to bus and trolley service and fare collection equipment and turnstiles. Finally there was an exhibit on New York Transit’s response to emergencies. While the most serious emergency faced by the system in many years was 9-11, I was most struck by Superstorm Sandy as I was in New York at the time preparing to board the Crystal Symphony. One of the big takeaways was that they learned from experience the importance of advance preparation, including orderly shutdowns I was extremely surprised by the popularity of the museum. There was quite a line as I arrived a little after 2 and when I left about 3:30 (90 minutes before closing) the line was so long that security held it up on the street to keep the line from spilling out onto the stairs.

Today’s parting shot is inspired by the Transit Museum which was a strong reminder of the consequences of disasters. May the flooding in the Mississippi basin soon start to recede.

Roy

Last year Scrapnana started a very successful live thread for the 2014 Queen Elizabeth world cruise with others picking up the ball after she disembarked in Fort Lauderdale. Like her, I will be disembarking in Ft Lauderdale but others on the roll call have indicated interest in a joint thread. I will give daily reports from my segment but hope my shipmates will chime in with their views as well. I cannot be everywhere on the ship or do everything so a mosaic of opinions will give a rich picture of the cruise.

 

I am boarding QM2 in Brooklyn and that roll call has been quiet so it will almost certainly be just my views on that segment. I have crossed on QM2 many times but this will be my first in mid-winter. This will be a compound trip as after disembarking QV I will fly to Buenos Aires (Nonstop from Florida rather than a connection from the frozen north) and will have 38 nights on the Crystal Symphony BA-Antarctica-Miami. If you bear with me I plan to start each of my posts with the location of my “other” 2 ships. Today, the Crystal Symphony is at sea from Fortaleza, Brazil to Recife, QV is at sea from Lisbon to Southampton, and QM2 is in Basseterre, St. Kitts.

 

There will be at least 2 blogs with pictures. Mine will be http://aroundamericabitbybit.wordpress.com, In my case this is part of a larger trip and string of trips which will completely circle North and South America. I’ll leave it to roscoe39 to introduce his blog.

 

My luggage is already in White Star Luggage’s facility in New York and I leave home New Years day and will start reporting then.

 

Roy

I, too, will look forward to your "live from" posts as you sail. Having sailed our first world cruise on the QE last winter, it will be fun to imagine all of you as you go. Bon voyage !!

Can't wait to read everyone's comments!! Safe travels all! Saving hard to do this myself!!

looking forward to your updates. This time next week we should be onboard QV. Hope the weather is better than here in Blackpool today - horrid.