So Many Firsts
To start off, this is the FIRST posting to the FIRST blog we have ever written. During our 2017 sail in France and Spain we created and e-mailed periodic updates to friends and family. E-mail came along with considerable limitations (data-wise and otherwise). Our daughter, Allison, gave us a Christmas present of taking the FIRST steps of transitioning our means of communication to a BLOG. George is an early adopter and took it from there – And here we are – BLOGGERS. We hope to add, at some later time, summaries of our 2017 and 2015/16 trips.
George and I began our 2018 sailing adventure with a trans-Atlantic cruise aboard the Queen Mary 2. We had never taken a cruise before and we came by this FIRST experience for reasons having nothing to do with an interest in checking this off.
We began to research passage on the Queen Mary as a means to bring our beloved dog, Chaze, with us. As it turned out, Chaze was nearly twice as long as the maximum size dog allowed and we had to abandon the dream of bringing him to France aboard the Queen Mary. How he would have loved being able to accompany us to restaurants and stores and beaches. He would relish the great deal of attention and admiration he would undoubtedly receive. As my brother Michael summed up, Chaze ranked up there with a short list of the most special dogs that have ever lived – along with Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, and two of his own beloved dogs – Kip and Diesel. Sadly, Chaze passed away in February, just shy of his 14th birthday, and will never get to visit France. We miss him.As we were looking into the Queen Mary passage, we came upon a mention that there were no limitations concerning the amount of luggage you could bring on board (other than that it must fit in one’s stateroom). We had sailed ICE FLOE deux in 2017 through France’s rivers and canals from Cherbourg to the Mediterranean and along the French Riviera to Spain’s Balearic Islands without some much-needed, voluminous, and heavy sailing paraphernalia. We had stumbled upon the most economical means of getting both ourselves and this equipment to our boat.
Our boat-related luggage included eight large duffle bags, a small chest freezer, and a bag of long poles (fishing net, boat hook, et al) totaling ~ 500lbs. Our personal items were packed into two small duffle bags, three shoulder bags, and one garment bag. We arrived at the terminal and loaded our luggage onto a large cart while we were waiting in a long line of cars that were either dropping off passengers for the cruise or picking up passengers from a previous trip. A steward met
me with the cart and promptly took the luggage off our hands. The next time we saw it was when we arrived at our stateroom. There was a remarkable amount of storage space in the cabin and it was very easy to stow our baggage and restore order to the cabin. We could have brought twice as much!!
me with the cart and promptly took the luggage off our hands. The next time we saw it was when we arrived at our stateroom. There was a remarkable amount of storage space in the cabin and it was very easy to stow our baggage and restore order to the cabin. We could have brought twice as much!!
We boarded the Queen Mary on May 17th for a seven day passage from Brooklyn, NY to South Hampton England.
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| Enjoying a complimentary bottle of champaign in our stateroom on the day of our arrival |
Our state room after “stowing” our stuff
The video that was posted in our original post on Blogger was not supported by WordPress so alas, we have no photos to share with you at this time of our lovely stateroom (that accommodated everything we brought in its ample closets, save the freezer and grill that we kept on the balcony.
Go With The Floe 
First blog post with a video and everything!! Very impressive!
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Nice blog – looks professional, and it's much nicer than the emails! Looks like you're having fun – we're jealous!! Love Marilla, Manzi, and Mitch
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