Mar 23rd - Sea Day 2

We fell asleep before 11pm last night and Mark awoke up at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep - obviously too much sleep yesterday. After giving up, and missing the sunrise, he went and sat out on the balcony and read. There was a swell (apparently around 3metres) and although you could feel movement it was very minimal. A very stable ship - sorry, cruise liner. No sea life in sight though. Don’t blame them.

Not rough seas but alas, not serene

We are travelling the Indian Ocean now to Mauritius. That means we have now sailed all the oceans, of this wonderful planet, in our lifetime - most of them in this trip. Admittedly there are not many oceans but we have done them.

Pam awoke at 8:15am which is just as well as we had breakfast delivered at 8:30. Unlike Arcadia, it is a full menu and all room service meals are free. We overdid the order with cereal, scrambled eggs and bacon on toast plus more toast as we didn’t realize the eggs came on toast, plus melon and assorted cheeses. The poor waiter had to come into the stateroom twice as there was 2 trays of food. Did we feel guilty. A little but not much.

Do we now feel fit and alive, refreshed and full of energy? No. It’s going to be another day of dozing we think.

Mark did another, final, laundry wash - the machines seem smaller than Arcadia but there are more of them and there are 2 ironing boards so again much more civilised and less queuing.

Before we continue with our day let’s show you a map of the ship. It is a funny ship and people seem to love it or hate it - a marmite ship. It is hated we think because it has many nooks and crannies onboard plus corridors around things and in between floors plus the buffet not being up high but on the deck 7 promenade. We love it for this quirky layout and, of course, it’s style.

You might need to zoom in or go online see this better - sorry

After seeing this we should continue our ship tour. Yesterday, we did the deck 2 atrium and the corridor up to the stairway c lifts - we love the decor of the corridors here. Today we will do the casino which is just off the deck 2 atrium.

Taken in the morning when not in use

Again, not a large casino but has all the basic tables plus slots

Mark has a very soft spot for this casino. Not because he won money here but because it was here, on our first QM2 cruise from New York to Southampton, that he saw his first large pod of dolphins whilst at sea. He has now seen many dolphins at sea since but never so many together and you don’t forget your first. Pam missed those ones as well! We will also cover some more corridor art as we move from the deck 2 atrium to the stairway b lifts - this leads to the theatre.

These guys are familiar

And some of these will be soon we hope

The full view from the atrium

Back to what we were up to today. Not much on reflection. Mark went up to the pavilion pool where a golf chipping competition was held at 11am. It involved chipping 3 sticky plastic balls onto a mat to score points depending on where it landed. Think of Velcro darts onto a dartboard and you won’t be far off. Anyway, no more will be said of this which should tell you enough.

Meanwhile, Pam was on deck taking in the air, watching the waves and reading or fixing the bbc iPlayer app on the iPad. These apps don’t like you using them aboard even if you try and use something like Nord VPN. End of the technology and free advertisement!

Mark moved onto an insights lecture. There are 4 today but Mark did just the one -  Andrew Jarrett, tennis player, coach then Wimbledon referee for 15 years. Very interesting about behind the scenes as a Wimbledon referee especially during the 2 weeks of the tournament. He had a bee in his bonnet about Henman Hill not being called that (sorry mate you’ve lost that battle) and mentioned that every year, after the tournament, most of the staff are either off sick or completely fatigued due to the workload and stress of the tournament. Ha! Try rushing round Australia at breakneck speed for 4 weeks if you want to witness fatigue!

While Mark was trying to stay awake in the lecture, Pam was trying to stay awake while watching the movie Black Adam in our cabin on the tv while drinking a coffee and munching on the free biscuits we get. We both managed to stay awake…. for now.

So lunchtime in the deck 7 buffet. Mark went with venison mash, red cabbage and carrots with dessert of chocolate sponge with chocolate custard sauce and whippy ice cream (to help the rich chocolate taste be more palatable). Pam went with a Chicken stir fry with veg plus a treacle tart.

We went up to the kennels area. Queen Mary 2 is the only ship that we know of that has kennels for dogs (and they take cats, and maybe other animals, too). The kennels are empty on this voyage (maybe pet transit is not allowed between the countries we are dealing with on this route though it would have been interesting to see a Mauritius paperwork dog queue yesterday).  As the kennels were closed we were even allowed on the poop deck which is usually closed off except for dog owners to walk their dogs and pick up poop. Good view from there.

Maybe the dogs see this view and that makes them poo? All clean now

Next to the kennels is the boardwalk cafe. This is our 3rd time on QM2 and we have never seen this place open. It was now so we will give you a bonus ship section tour today as we may never see it open again.

Inside the little cafe room

On deck 7, part of the buffet does pizzas, pasta, hot dogs and burgers and of course there are a few ice cream machines down there too. Therefore, this is really only for convenience for the few people that come up here - maybe it is a kennel cafe?

Pam had an ice cream whilst here and up on deck as she missed one at lunch.

Outside there were many little tables with chairs like this one. No parasols though. They would probably blow into the sea.

And so the day caught up with us and we had an afternoon nap except our bodies said a nap was insufficient and we slept for hours again meaning another later dinner for us in the buffet.

We both couldn’t decide on whether to have the steak or the roast lamb for our main. However, Mark knew he was on holiday and had both and Pam had just the steak and rolled her eyes. We also had starters and dessert. Any weight lost during Australia will quickly be put on here I’m afraid especially as all we have done is eat, sleep, and move around very little - hey we are koalas!

We moved about 50m along the corridor into the Carinthia lounge to listen to two young lads from Southern Ireland / Eire / Ireland (delete for your preference). They played folk music with lots of banter (craic). We also phoned our girls as we felt we could now hold a conversation that was less gibberish which was not possible days ago,

We ended the night in the theatre. It was a show called Symphony which involved the 4 singers from the in-house (Royal Court) theatre company. Plus the Queen Mary Orchestra, plus the string trio that also perform around the ship and likewise the harpist that does the same. We are sure they stole others we didn’t remember plus they also added, onscreen, an 80 piece royal court orchestra recorded at the abbey road studios for some songs.

The show basically toured London venues showcasing the different music it offered. From the Royal Albert Hall to the O2 and Royal Opera House to Abbey Road plus many more. It was very well put together.