And so we have come to our last day of the cruise and the last blog. We will include the small part of our journey home at the end of today’s entry.
We believe we have one last ship area tour to give you - the Commodore Club on deck 9 forward. This room also includes one of the two scenic lifts onboard. They travel between 4 decks on the outside(ish) of the ship. As we previously mentioned, we usually love this space on other ships but not on this one as it always seems quiet - probably because everyone is in the Carinthia lounge. Anyway, here are some pics.
We set our alarms this morning for 8.45am. Mark grabbed a couple of bacon rolls from the buffet and went upstairs to try and win the shuffleboard competition. He was knocked out straight away which was no bad thing as it was blooming freezing - you can tell we are near England. Where is spring? Pam, meanwhile, was feeling delicate and so had no breakfast other than a cappuccino. We met up in illuminations for a talk about St George (23rd April is his day). It was by Dave Wright and we learnt that George was not even English. He was a Greek from 300 AD - a long time before the crusades. He was a devout Christian who was beheaded for his religious belief - this being contradictory to that of the elected Roman emperor who was still worshipping the old Roman gods. He was tortured before being beheaded but his bravery throughout made him a hero and brought about the demise of the emperor anyway. He did not kill a dragon though - that was a myth and some say the dragon was the emperor so the story is probably an allegory. Richard the Lionheart used him as inspiration which is probably where the crusade bit came from. Also, the Genoa flag is the cross of St George and Richard the Lionheart used that on his sailing ships as protection (he paid the Genoese money for this protection) and this is the start of it becoming our flag. Many other countries (such as Greece, Georgia, Russia etc…) also have St George as their patron saint. His body is entombed in Israel but his head is in Rome. Here endeth the lesson and all we remembered but it was a fascinating talk.
Then it was back to the room for more packing before we met up with Andrew and Diane for one last Ticket to Ride game - we have got our friends hooked on this. Mark won which is only fair as it is our game.
We had our final lunch onboard in the Golden Lion fish pub. We had fish and and chips of course. Pam followed it up with fruit crumble.
We went back up to the Carinthia lounge and did the Wipeout trivia quiz on our own. We scored 4 out of 12 and then doubled our points to 8 but this was nowhere near enough. We did see Janet and Ann though - we didn’t say goodbye but that was the last we saw of them both for the day.
Pam went back to the room for a bit more packing and an afternoon nap whilst Mark watched Liverpool struggle to beat Nottingham Forest on the cabin TV.
At 5pm we went and claimed our prizes for our 14 stamps - we got two of these Cunard glasses.
We put out most of our packed cases (we have 4 and a holdall being taken off for us) and then went for our final meal in the Britannia restaurant. We both had mushroom soup and then Pam had breaded chicken filled with cheese and whilst Mark had Pork Wellington. We also had dessert.
As it was the final meal for most, there was a chef’s parade where many galley staff paraded the dining room and we got a chance to cheer and clap them. We also applauded all the wait staff and all staff involved in delivering the food and drink all over the ship.
At 9pm we met Andrew and Diane one last time, in the Golden Lion pub, for the Farewell quiz. This was hosted by the 5 entertainment hosts (Nathan, Charlie, Sam, Libby and Hannah). There were 50 questions and we scored 38 coming 2nd by 1 point. We said our goodbyes and went back upstairs to finish packing and put our final cases out. The ship docked during the quiz but no-one can get off early as there is no-one to process us in the terminal. That doesn’t bother us. It is just nice to be home and it allows the ships crew more maintenance time as there seems to be some work that needs doing.
We had one last event. The Bluejays were playing in the Queens room at 9pm and 11:15pm. We caught their last show before heading off to bed. We were glad we did as it gave us a chance to say a proper goodbye to DJ Lily who we have bonded with over silent disco and music quizzes.
It’s April 23rd (St George’s Day), and we have a 9:50 disembarkation time. Mark awoke at 7am due the noise of fellow passengers leaving. Pam slept on until 8am when the Captain made his end of cruise announcement. He thanked everyone and mentioned that he had received a number of letters about the great service of various crew members - we have hardly heard any grumbles from passengers about this cruise other than a couple of issues with certain shore excursions and apparently some bad world cruise dinner in Singapore. Again, a major contrast to our outbound journey.
We got dressed and had a final breakfast in the kings court buffet - where we also saw Andrew and Diane one last time. Then we collected our hand luggage and was off the ship with no queues. Finding our luggage was not so easy as there were hundreds of cases and well over a hundred for our particular area. Once done, we wheeled our 2 trolleys outside and came across both Janet & Ann then Raju & Nina - so more goodbyes were had. Finally we reached Mark's sister Clare and her Husband Martin who were kindly picking us up. It was so great to see them after almost 4 months.
So goodbye QM2 and our cabin steward Ray and our Carinthia waiters Violeta, Giovanni and Guilson - we will have to go back to normal life again and fend for ourselves. It has been a great cruise back and almost everything was superior to our cruise out but there again it did cost more. The guest entertainment was fantastic and the quality and selection of food (except the midnight buffet) was brilliant. The free, 24hr room service was good too. We loved having all the old cruise extras back like the turn down service and chocolates plus parties and the treats like the Easter chocolates. They are not essential but make you feel valued as customers. We didn’t feel valued on Arcadia but but we do feel that their pool areas were better and their theatre group were also better. We will definitely be back on Cunard again, and QM2, but we do accept that the brand is not as friendly as P&O - we put that down to the 2tier passenger system (Grills and non-grills) plus the multi-national guests on board (Brits just tend to zoom in and gel better with fellow Brits / native English speakers plus Cunard operates with small tables everywhere and you need to drag them together for anything more than 4).
An easy Sunday morning drive back to our Surrey home where our daughter was waiting. Thank god for technology and being able to see family around the world as we would not have coped. It will be good, but strange, sleeping in our own bed again.
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