SO'TON-Queen Mary 2
Keep Calm, Cause Ship Happens
I always get an amazing feeling when I walk past a ship I have lived and worked on. The Queen Mary 2 is no miraculous exception.
This Was a Voyage, Not a Cruise
“After six sea days, we took a voyage—not a cruise—aboard the Queen Mary 2. This is the shortest bridge between New York and Europe.”
Airplanes, after all, are like diets. I do not like being on them.
The Last Great Ocean Liner
The Queen Mary 2 was designed for year-round Atlantic crossings between New York and Southampton. This is not a typical cruise ship. She was built for passage, weather, distance, and the North Atlantic.
QM2 at Sea · July 2014
Dogs Onboard
The QM2 even allows dogs onboard. Cute, and entirely appropriate for a ship built to carry lives rather than merely entertain passengers.
Hamburg Sends Her Back to Sea
The Queen Mary 2 comes to Hamburg every year. For her tenth jubilee, the city gave her a special celebration. The crowds lined the Elbe as the flagship sailed toward open water and the North Atlantic.
Sailing Away Down the Elbe
The crowd understood what the ship represented: not a hotel leaving port, but a great machine returning to her element.
Ships I Lived and Worked On
The Queen Mary 2 belongs to a much larger archive: ships, crossings, contracts, ports, mistakes, adventures, and the first rust bucket that made every later voyage possible.
Someday Is the Busiest Day of the Week
My first extended stay in paradise began with the first shipboard job I could get: deckhand. The ship was old, the work was real, and every day brought another port. The definition of ecstasy is that you are not doing your ordinary, everyday, ho-hum existence.
Shoveling sunshine in Hawaii beats a day at the office.