I was on Queen Elizabeth 2 sailing from Southampton, UK to New York when 9/11 happened. On the afternoon of the second day out, I returned to my stateroom and turned on the TV to watch some news. What I saw was image of the Twin Towers burning so I assumed that was a movie and change the channel. Obviously, it wasn’t. All channels were showing the same images. Shortly there after, the captain came on the loudspeaker and said, “I’m sure you all have heard about the tragedies that have befallen, New York and Washington today. As a mark of respect, dancing will be canceled this evening.“ It sounded like a silly announcement, but, really, what else could we do? 2001 was before widespread Internet on ships and the QE2 had one computer room with about 20 computers that would connect to the Internet. Pretty much the entire ship’s passenger complement waited on line to send messages to loved ones. Time at the computer was rationed to about 10 minutes per person so that everyone would be able to get a chance to use it. Life went on aboard the ship with many folks gathering in the Golden Lion Pub to watch news. We were due to dock in New York on September 16th, but, of course, New York Harbor was closed. We were diverted to Boston’s Black Falcon ship terminal. However, as we approached the port, we were stopped … there had been a bomb threat made against the cruise terminal, and we were made to wait until they sorted that out. Once we finally arrived in Boston, Cunard Line was spectacular. They had buses waiting take take everyone down to New York, and they had bused up stevedores from New York harbor to handle the ships luggage, etc. There were many passengers on board who were sailing to the USA to tour, but once September 11 happened many of them went to the cruise consultant‘s office to see if they could book passage on the return trip. Some were lucky, but an announcement was made shortly thereafter that saying the return cruise had been fully booked.