Splendours of Autumm on the Queen Mary 2

Queen Mary Cruise Day 1
We departed Tampa on Delta airlines at 7:30 AM Thursday, October 29th. Our luggage also accompanied us on our flight having to pay $15 each for the first two bags plus $25 for the third bag. We don’t think that they received the service that they paid for in the cargo hold of the aircraft.

We arrived in New York about 10:15 AM, as we exited the aircraft we were met with a blast of cold air. The temperature in New York was about 55, which is cold for us coming from the high 80’s in Florida. We rescued our expensive traveling companions from the baggage area and started looking for transportation to the pier. One vender wanted $85 to take the two of us to the pier. We had researched the price of transportation and knew we could get it for half the price so we continued on and another gentleman told us $55, we countered with $45 and he said no. We got in line for yellow cab and the last gentleman came and told us $40 if we wanted to share with one other person. Of course we said yes and off we went to a Lincoln Navigator, which held 3 passengers in comfort. Our traveling companion was from Britain but lives in Kansas and was on his way to pick his mother up at the pier. She had sailed from South Hampton England and would be spending the holidays with her son and his family in Kansas and then returning to England on the Queen Mary 2 in January. He informed us on the way to the pier that coming over from Southhampton was a really rough trip with sea swells up to 40 feet high. Our check in for boarding of the QM2 went very smooth. Tim is a Platinum member of Cunard Cruise Lines and we had VIP check in and priority boarding. We were able to be on board at about noon and dropped our carry baggage in our cabin and took a couple of pictures of us in the cabin. It was lunchtime so we proceeded to deck 7 where the food was in abundance; Tim had Chinese food for and Diane had American.

After lunch we returned to our cabin and unpacked our luggage. Both of us were very tired at this point as Tim had worked the previous night on his regular job and Diane had gotten up at 2 AM to get ready for the trip. We attempted to take a nap but were still keyed up from being on a new adventure.

We had the mandatory safety drill and after we grabbed our cameras and headed up to the top deck so we could watch as we left New York. As we pushed off the pier the ships horns were blown. We were only about 50 feet away and Tim was so scared he's still cleaning his pants. We sailed by the Statue of Liberty and headed out into the Atlantic Ocean. On this cruise we have early dining so we had to leave the top deck before entering the Atlantic and prepare for dinner. On this cruise a coat is required by gentleman and slacks or a dress the ladies for all dinners. Dinner was very good with prompt service and Tim had to make a pig of himself by having more than one serving of dessert as usual.

We decided to walked dinner off by checking out the on board shops but didn't find anything that we could not live without in the shops. About 9 PM we said let's call this a day and we retired to our cabin and were in bed by 9:30.

Tomorrow we will be in Newport, Rhode Island.