What to do with 9 days at sea?

Tweet

Transatlantic. 9 days at sea. Southampton to New York. We turned up to board the ship at 12:30. I had ordered a minibus to take us there as we had 12 suitcases plus carry-on bags including enough medicines to keep a hospital going for at least 2 weeks. After all we were going to be away for four months. We quickly locate our cabin & dumped our hand luggage locked away our money & valuables in the safe & headed off to the Golden Lion pub for a spot of lunch. It is our tradition that we always have fish & chips & a drink to wash it down. After we had finished we headed off to our muster station where our cabin card was scanned to say we had located the muster station so knew where we had to go if there were any emergencies at sea. We then headed to the Queens Ballroom where the British Royal Military band played music marching in formation. This lasted about 45minutes and it is part of the traditional sail away. We then headed back to the cabin to see all our cases had arrived so for an hour we unpacked our clothes & toiletries & put things away. Then we had to head up to the top deck to watch our send-off celebrated with a huge firework display celebrating the two ships going off on their respective world cruises. We were first to leave followed by Queen Anne who followed us down the English channel. The ships pilots were dropped off & we headed of in the direction for New York while Queen Anne continued South down through the Bay of Biscay. So what to do with 9 sea days? Each evening there is a programme left in your cabin for the following days activities from 7AM to well past midnight. There are art classes, Fencing lessons, dance classes, exercise classes at least three insight lectures by speakers in the morning & one or two in the afternoon. There are also port lectures. There are concerts, quizzes, cocktails, wine tastings, various meet & greets the list is endless. There are two theatre productions every evening & sometimes during the day time. Films are shown in one of the theatre venues & different bands or entertainment themes every evening in The Queens Ball room & finally a disco in the night club from 10:30 to 2AM. There is so much choice & sometimes things you might want to see clash with times & other things. In between all these activities there are meals to be taken. Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Dinner & for those die hard’s a late night buffet plus 24 hour room service. There are usually two formal nights per week. Great fun at first where men dress in dinner suits & ladies wear ball gowns or cocktail dresses. Every night from 6PM men are expected to wear a jacket although these days it is not as strictly enforced. There are bars & restaurants where you do not have to dress up if you don’t want to. There is usually the Captains Cocktail party on each sector in the ball room with canapes, ice sculptures & free flowing drinks. The day before we arrived in New York there was torrential rain all day. We left Southampton at a cold 8C but when we reached New York the temperature dipped to -6C. The rain froze on the decks overnight making the decks like an ice rink. The photo is of the firework display in Southampton. Not long after we were heading to New York!