Mike Jutan's World: Queen Mary 2: New York City to Halifax

NYC/Queen Mary 2/Oxford/Paris 2015 Travel Highlight Blog
Queen Mary 2: New York City to Halifax
July 14-15, 2015

And off we went! We left NYC and headed to the Brooklyn Ferry Terminal to board the Queen Mary 2 -- the first cruise any of the Jutans had ever been on, and quite a fancy affair! The Queen Mary 2 is part of the Cunard Line, a series of elegant cruise lines run from Southhampton, England. As per Wikipedia: "Queen Mary 2 was intended for routine crossings of the Atlantic Ocean, and was therefore designed differently from many other passenger ships." Cunard's vibe as compared to other cruises is formal evenings, British tea every day, ballroom dancing, and so on. As you may suspect, the clientele edges towards the older side :) You might think that a bit odd, but this added so much charm and it was SUPER AWESOME. Tea and Scones EVERY DAY?!? YEP. Now we're talkin'.

The big event of course on the boat would be my sister's wedding ceremony -- it would be after the first stop in Halifax. So, first, some initial impressions and images from our first couple of nights on the boat: leaving New York harbour and en-route to Halifax.

We arrived to our cabin to find some champagne (fanced!!!) and got settled and wandered the decks looking out at the harbour. The CRAZIEST THING about a cruise like this is THERE IS 24-HOUR FREE ROOM SERVICE INCLUDED. Yes that was insane. We went absolutely nuts. To start, we ordered 2 caesar salads and, obv, I had to try the cheesecake.

So yeah, that was freakin' insane that the room service is just always available. This turned out to be a verrrrryy widely used button on our telephone. Haha.

Soon they honked the horns and told us it was time for the boat to leave the dock. Folks went on the top of the boat to watch it leave the harbour, and enjoy the view.

We then sat down in the main dining room for our first formal dinner. It was like a classy restaurant where you've already paid for dinner, and you can order multiple entrees, if you like! We ate dinner all-together all of the evenings, and after the first dinner we all went up to the top deck again to see the boat passing under the bridge -- this is a very tight fit but it always makes it under!

Dinner with the Statue of Liberty in the background!

Enjoying the company and the nightlife views of New York City!

Watching as we go right underneath the bridge!

Very close!

We're clear!

Mom and Dad enjoying

Michal and Me looking very classy

Fancy Norm and Glenn

Dad being very "Larry David"

We explored the ship, and Mom & Dad took a moment to have an adorable dance moment in the ballroom :) Michal and I later wandered by the on-ship "club", which was expectedly empty!

The crazy thing about a cruise is, there is ALWAYS free food somewhere. Such as, late at night in this spot called King's Court, we scored some tea and random snacks.

Let's eat something again!

The next day we wandered the ship, explored further, had afternoon tea, tried out some Bingo (yes!!) and had another nice sitdown dinner all together. After dinner, we all sat down to give gifts and for my Mom to present some special stuff like a scrapbook she'd put together.