Saturday, March 29, 2025

9:34 pm EDT

My first glimpse of QM2 today was at exactly 1:00 pm from the highway while we were in the Uber. How I adore her.

Boarding in Brooklyn was easy. Our driver was directed to a place to park and our bags were moved quickly onto a cart. Inside the terminal the line moved fast, too. We didn’t keep track but estimated it at 20 minutes.

To future passengers from the U.S.—be prepared to show your emailed electronic travel authorization (ETA) approval. I had saved them to my favorites so that was, again, fast.

We entered the ship on Deck 3, stopped by our cabin on Deck 8 to drop off our carry-ons and pick up our key cards, and were sitting at a table in Kings Court by 2:00. We were served from behind the counter. This is typical for the first couple of days, and even more so now as the cruise before ours (14-night Caribbean) had a relatively large number of Norovirus cases.

After lunch we took a walk on the outdoor promenade, Deck 7. Great views of lower Manhattan. I also noticed, for the first time, the initials LRP—my initials—painted on the outer walls. (They actually stand for Life Raft Port and have corresponding station numbers. Yes, there’s also Life Raft Starboard.)

Dinner was wonderful. We had early seating in the magnificent Britannia Restaurant. My selections tonight:

• Roasted carrot and ginger with pistachio and crumbled feta
• Oxtail consommé with herb dumplings
• Salt-roasted. duck breast with leg pastille, Lyonnaise potatoes, kohlrabi and pearl onion bordelaise, and parsnip purée.

So good. Portion size was very reasonably modest and I was still too full to order dessert. Neil (my husband) had had slow-roasted pork belly and Marty (our adult son) had the always available roasted chicken. They both devoured it all and had ice cream for dessert.

After dinner we walked to the lower decks to look at the many plaques that lined the walls. A great find was one presented to QM2 by RMS Queen Mary “upon the occasion of her 200th crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean.” While there’s no date on it, that crossing took place in 2022.

I’m so glad to be back onboard. It’s as if we never left!