Day 70 August 2 Thursday

Day 70 August 2, 2012 Thursday

Today is our last full day on board, which means a little more work and a little less relaxation. For breakfast we sat with an Irishman, a Canadian, and 3 Germans. It was quite pleasant. We talked about trains: Canadian, German, Irish, and Amtrak. We talked about traffic and Niagara Falls. After breakfast we checked in at the cabin to begin the process of packing our clothes and sorting things out for the rest of the trip.
We saw dolphins jumping fairly near the ship. It is amazing how small they look out in the ocean.

We took a break to see the final lecture about Broadway musicals. He talked about Cabaret, Chicago, and lesser hits and flops. Once again he was very interesting. We then returned to deck seven to work on the blog and watch the rain. The rain went from light to absolutely pouring. Then we had fog, and then it cleared.

After lunch we went to the RADA performance of Richard the Third. This was a very abbreviated version of the play. Once Neil woke up enough to follow the Shakespeare play, it was quite enjoyable. Nancy stayed awake and enjoyed the whole thing. The development of the evil and nasty Richard was very good...what a great villain.

After our dose of culture, we went back to the cabin to sort through all of the things we had purchased and filled out the custom's form. We figured out that we may have a problem.....a bottle of sand from Omaha Beach. We will declare it and see if we get to keep it. We completed our evaluation of the voyage and got the notes and gratuity for the restaurant staff and our wonderful room stewardess, Anastaysia ready. All this done, we sat on the bed and watched a show about the Queen's yacht.....very interesting.

We put the luggage out in the hall to be taken to the storeroom tonight so that it can be off-loaded when we land.

Dinner time....Today is Sue's birthday....this evening we will share a bottle of champagne that her daughter gave her to share with her dinner companions. It was very good champagne. We had extra cake and ice cream again. This always means double desserts. It was a wonderful meal as usual. The evening was elegant casual, so everyone was a bit more relaxed.

We headed to the theatre for the farewell variety show---the pianist who did a great Scott Joplin number.....Maple Leaf Rag. We had the Sinatra tribute singer. Neil just doesn't care for him. I do have to agree that he is just a bit smooth. The Cunard singers and dancers did a tribute to Neil Diamond which was awesome. This was a great conclusion to a week of good entertainment.

Back to the cabin. By the way, by the time the play is over it is usually after ten. It was a short play tonight so we watched Rachel Maddow before we turned out the lights. We set our clocks back for the final hour to match New York time. We turned in early because our plan was to get up at 4:15 so that we could watch the ship go under the Verrazano Bridge at 4:45 AM

Steps: 4200

Wednesday's weather

The scenic elevator

Thursday's weather

Thursday's weather

Deck 10 observation deck ....right under the bridge

Illumination's

Illuminations

from deck 10 bow observation deck

Thursday's weather

Deck 10 observation

Thursday's weather

There is whale out there somewhere

Deck 12 This is where the kennel is located.

Day 69 August 1 wednesday's

Day 69 August 1, 2012 Wednesday

We got up and beat room service by 10 minutes before they delivered the coffee. We got cleaned up and went down to Britannia restaurant for breakfast. We ate with an American couple moving from Belgium to Florida and a couple from Bath, UK. We had eaten breakfast with both of these couples earlier in the week. It was a pleasant meal and at the end the couple from Belgium talked about Iowa. He had hitchhiked through Iowa as a student and had friends who had done Ragbri. It was fun to talk with someone whose knowledge of US geography extended beyond New York and New Jersey.

After breakfast we had tea, worked on the blog and then Nancy went to Illuminations for a cooking demonstration. The cooking demonstration really ended up being a cook off. The head chef for the Cunard line demonstrated the cooking of a tenderloin and mushroom sauce. He really liked three ingredients a great deal....cream, butter, and Tequila. Then the chef who was second in command created a strawberries jubilee, lots of flambé.....a nice high flame. They took two couples from the audience who volunteered to come on stage. One person from each couple was designated the junior chef and the other was the taster. Each junior chef then prepared the tenderloin and then they were taste tested by the other persons who had been blindfolded. Then they switched roles for the cooking of the strawberries.

After the demonstration, Nancy went to the Chart Room to meet Neil who was going to save seats to learn about Pearls. Neil was supposed to go down early and save seats. We didn't connect so Neil watched from the front row and Nancy from the back. Afterwards we went up to deck seven for a walk in the beautiful blue skies, warm sun, and calm seas. Then we went back inside for lunch. Today was dessert day---beautiful chocolate and sugar sculptures on long tables laid out with beautiful desserts. There was a 5 layer chocolate walnut cake and a sticky toffee pudding that we sampled.....WOW!

Neil finished his book. We went down to the Royal Court Theater to see the entertainment staff's radio play. It was great fun with lots of laughs. Parts of the play were replaced with piano songs which the audience had to guess the titles of. We even scored more point on the quiz than we had the last time we did this. We got 150 points out of 300. This is, of course, way short of the fellow who scored a perfect three hundred to claim the bottle of champagne prize.

We went from deck 7 up to deck 10 where we explored the forward lookout for the first time as it had been closed due to wind on the eastward voyage. The view was awesome on this bright clear day. We were lucky enough to see a whale on the surface for a long moment. This sighting can be added to the dolphins jumping out the water and many short fin sightings over previous days.

We went down to the photo gallery to buy some picture of the ship which we did. Then we went back to the cabin to cool off and get ready for our last formal night. We shared our room's bottle of champagne with our table mates. Christine, a woman from South Hampton, New York, was going to eat with the captain later, so she did not eat. Sue had also been invited, but she chose to eat with us and go dancing instead. She said that she had had enough of people bragging about how often they had been on this ship and others and how much money they have. Dinner was wonderful....the top choices were chateaubriand or lobster. Nancy took the chateaubriand and Neil the lobster. Willy, our waiter, brought extra lobster tails for Neil and Geoff. There was baked Alaska or chocolate truffle cake for dessert. These ware what we chose.....there are actually 6 choices. Tonight was the parade of chefs. It is a rather amazing parade as they march through the dining room. There are 164 chefs, 86 assistants, more cleaning crew, 70 main waiters and their junior waiters, wine stewards, and so. These people produce 15,000 meals a day. These do not count the meals prepared for the 1500 employees.

After dinner we went to see Apassionata, a musical/dance extravaganza which was great fun to watch. It was a great show with very talented dancers and singers.

We then went up to our cabin and to bed.

Steps: 7545

Most of the pictures, unless noted otherwise, are the chocolate, sugar and vegetable / fruit sculptures created by the chef's aboard the ship

nice weather

a wonderful day at sea

Cunard dancers

Cunard dancers

Day 68 July 31 Tuesday

Day 68 July 31 Tuesday

This morning we were awake when the coffee was delivered. We did not regain an hour last night. We gained one on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monday and Tuesday time stayed the same. The sea seems smooth, but it is gray and hazy outside.

At breakfast we had a couple from Maryland and a couple from New Jersey with whom we had had breakfast before and a mother and a daughter from Hamburg, Germany. Maryland and New Jersey once again dominated the table talk with talking / bragging about their beautiful homes and how governmental regulations prevented them from destroying / improving the wetland area on their property---2 acres on Maryland's eastern shore. The ladies from Germany were delightful. We talked about the Miniature Wonderland that Gavin likes to watch on the Internet. They thought I should bring the boys. Our conversation certainly did not interfere with the I have more than you do conversation of New Jersey and Maryland. There is a lot of I have more than you do and I have been on more voyages than anyone else this time....more so than ever before.

After breakfast we decided it was time to tackle the laundry. We had two loads which we wished / needed to do. It was wash clothes here where it is free or find a laundry in New York where we would have to pay. Since Nancy is always ready for a good laugh, we headed to the laundry. The laundry was crowded, but in ten minutes or so we had a washer and soon after a second one. Dryers seemed to be at a premium. We emptied two dryers of clothes that had finished and no one was around to claim. We had done the same with wet clothes in washers. Nancy proceeded to fold the dry clothes so they took less room for which she was thanked profusely by one young man, a member of the Juiard School Musicians. One lady came in to take her 6 items out of her washer that had finished washing. She replaced those with a bra, a pair of underpants, and a shirt which she washed on large load. I changed it to small. She really needed to reconsider coming to the laundry in her bathrobe and no make-up.....especially the make up. She obviously did not normally do laundry. Another lady attempted to iron a dress without turning on the iron. We helped her. Nancy explained to several people how to operate the washers and dryers. A lady came in who told Nancy that she had been yelled at by another woman because she had moved her washed clothes out of the washer. Apparently they had been there for over an hour. Some people have not figured out the communal nature of the laundry and need help understanding it. Eventually we were able to move our clothes from the washer to the dryers and then to folding. After two hours, we were done. We did, however, unfortunately missed the talk by the astronomer about objects colliding with the Earth.

We stowed our clean clothes and went up to deck 7 for some work on the blog and a turn around the deck. Eventually we shared a lunch.

After lunch we worked on the blog, read our books until it was time to head for illuminations to listen to a talk about how to move a musical from an idea to a stage performance. One interesting idea was that when casting some performers earned the designation OMDB which means the producer or director or choreographer will work with that person again only "Over my dead body." In the question and answer portion, Woolford explained the primary cause for this designation was "tardiness." For students this is also a major contribution to failing. After the lecture we toured the sale tables on deck 3. Nancy found a very nice chain necklace and earrings for ten dollars
which she wore to the dinner. This was a sale for those of us who cannot afford to buy jewelry from HStern or the other shop where pieces start at $799.00 We then made our way to the cabin for some cool relaxation and a nap before dinner.

Dinner was remarkable. It was semi-formal. We had no champagne, and for the first time the entree, Vermont Turkey, was a large amount of food. Nancy and I both felt stuffed.....just like the turkey.

After dinner we made our way to the Captain's Cocktail Party...by invitation only. We saw the officers, but we were not greeted by them. I think those greetings were for the diamond and platinum members of the World Club. We are only gold members, but we got free champagne and wine just like everyone else. We watched the networking. There were actually 700 people out of 2,800 on board who are gold, diamond or platinum members. We even got a shrimp appetizer.

The show tonight was Maria King, a pianist, from England. She was very good. Her banter with the crowd revolved around her humble circumstances compared with the ship and many people on board. Her designer dress was made by her mum from cloth found in a bucket bin. Her work, of course, was up to the usual Cunard standards.

After the concert we headed for the cool air of the stateroom. We had a diet Coke which we purchased for our room. We watched American TV and went to bed.

Steps: 5296

A painting in Staircase C

The Queens Ballroom and the Captain's Cocktail Party

Queen's Ballroom

Day 67 July 30 Monday

Day 67 July 30 Monday

We were awakened as usual by the knock of room service. Who is going to do this once we are home? We had our coffee and small Danish. We then got cleaned up for breakfast. We talked about a time to do laundry but decided today was not to be laundry day.

At breakfast we met a lovely English couple from Bath--he had interesting observations about Scots, genetics, and many other things. The other couple were a couple of retired educators from Pekin, Illinois. There was a lady traveling alone from New Jersey. Her husband had flown home from England. She was quite impressed with the fact that she had gone to Europe on one of the late June voyages and how long she had been in Europe. She was also quite taken with the fact that she got a lot of perks because she had 9 round trips on the Queen Mary. I guess real estate development pays better than teaching. There was a gentleman from Denmark as well. It was great fun talking to the people from the midwest, although we never admitted that we were teachers as well. We just let him pontificate on education while we threw in a few pointed comments. The couple from Bath was quite interested in the differences between England and USA. The fellow from Denmark thought there were no old cars in America.

After the most enjoyable combination of people we have had so far at breakfast, we moved upstairs to work on the blog.

At 10:45 we went down to Illuminations where we caught the last bit of the lecture on how the sun affects the Earth. His most telling point was that the Earth is not fragile. It has endured many catastrophes--but that people are very fragile and may not survive the next dislocation. Half an hour later the talk on the Golden Age of Broadway was defined by Oklahoma in 1943 and ended with Hair in 1968. He talked about the various shows, their differences and the evolution of any changes and similarities. It was a very interesting hour.

For lunch we had hamburgers. After lunch we went to the picture gallery to check out the formal pictures we had posed for the night before. These reflected a more highly skilled photographer, and we bought two very good portraits. We dropped the pictures off at the cabin and proceeded to the bookstore / library where we bought a calendar (for the pictures) and a small poster. There were many choices from very expensive prints costing hundreds of dollars to the small reproduction poster for much less. We finished our purchases and had a cup of tea and a scone on deck seven.

We attended the presentation of The Canterbury Tales, excerpts from, by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. They did the nun's tale the knight's tale and the wife of Bath's tale. The acting and staging were great, and this production was better than the group we saw on the May/June voyage. After the performance we worked on the blog, relaxed in our room and prepared for a semi formal evening.

We had a very pleasant dinner with the Cambridge couple, Pat and Geoff, Sue and Christine, the widows. We discovered that Sue had been a world class figure skater years ago, and she had toured for three years with Holiday on Ice.

After dinner we made our way to the theater and sat down early and began playing "Flow," a game on the iPad. Pat and Geoff from dinner came in and sat down next to us. They were interested in the ipad , so Nancy showed them the basics. Our entertainer for the evening was a young man from Poland, who played a vibraphone and two other instruments that were more or less well-known. One was an electromagnetic device which produced eerie noises that have been used in movies and by some bands. One hand in the field produced changes in pitch, and the other hand controlled volume. If the volume hand moved toward the antennae, there was silence. He could produce different sounds with different volume levels without touching the instrument. It was very different.

After the performance we became homebodies. We went to the chartroom bar and bought two cans of diet Coke and with some ice from deck 7 we retired. We had intended to relax, watch some TV and read. Instead we were so tired, we drank the Cokes and turned off the lights almost immediately.

Steps: 5484

Not all the days were sunny

a napkin folding by one of the waiters.....he was entertaining a couple of young people and a lot of older people

Pat and Geoff

RADA PLAYERS

THE CANTERBURY Tales

The Canterbury Tales