Mark awoke around 6:30 again - this is the cause of the afternoon naps - Pam awoke after eight. As is his ritual, Mark read and wrote on the balcony as the world sailed by.
Then it was off for a buffet breakfast. At 10am the ship kind of closed down for an hour whilst the crew did emergency exercise training. We wandered the ship a bit and then found comfy chairs in the library with nice views.
We will do the library as a ship tour location later as we have learned our lesson from the last blog and will try not to jump around all over the ship and confuse you. As we are talking ship tours we will continue from yesterday where we covered the theatre. We are now going to cover the area behind here, on deck 2, which has everything and nothing. Confused, we will try to explain.
To the side of the theatre you have corriders either side with these tables.
Pamela loves these tables for the games and of course the jigsaws.
These lead you to the exit of a venue called illuminations (an onboard planetarium) and the computer room and Connexxion’s (which we have seen used as a concierge point for non English speaking guests but not sure what it is really for).
There is also a self service drinks area back here and lots of other walkways and rooms in which classes such as Bridge and language lessons are held.
If you want to hide then this is the place to do it. On a couple of cruise ships (Queen Elizabeth and Arcadia) there have been scavenger hunt quizzes based on pictures of “where can you find this item?” We would hate to attempt this on QM2 as It would probably take a whole world cruise to find what you are looking for. The above was a small selection of the little warren back here.
Back to our day. We did our first proper quiz of the cruise. 20 general knowledge questions in the Carinthia lounge and after getting the first 9 correct we were cocky - Cunard quizzes are easier than P&O ones and maybe we will be the ones that other people hate. It went downhill quickly and we ended with 14 so we skittled away to the promenade deck and the steamer chairs again.
Pam decided to do afternoon tea whilst Mark would go elsewhere so Mark temporarily left Pam to go to the buffet to grab some sushi and a drink for a light lunch. Mission completed he tried to return to Pam on the steamer chairs - with his drink and small plate of food - only to find he had come out the buffet on the wrong side of the ship and walked more or less a whole promenade lap looking for Pam - basically looking like a waiter!
Mark went off to see Andrew Jarrett (of tennis fame) again. This time the lecture talk was on the hardship of the professional tennis player. Not that hard if you are the very top players in the world but outside these small numbers then it almost impossible to make a decent living - even if you are doing what you love - and the sacrifices are huge due to the constant training and travelling.
We met up again at 2pm for the wipeout quiz where you get asked 12 general knowledge questions worth 100 points each and then a final 13th question where you must risk at least 100 points but can double whatever you risk. We scored 600 points but lost them all (wiped out) by being 1 year out on the question “in which year was Queen’s The Show Must Go On released”?
We split again with Pam off to afternoon tea in the queen’s room, which was a pretty quiet and lonely affair on your own. The place was not that full at all and they don’t sit people together - if you want to chat then you have to talk to people at nearby tables but then you can look like the nutter on the bus with this approach. Also, there are a lot of passengers onboard whose English is basic and they really don’t want to get engaged in conversations with people they don’t know if they can avoid it. The plus side of afternoon tea is the musical accompaniment. Unfortunately there was no harpist but the pianist Blake Smith Daniels played gently and beautifully in the background.
Meanwhile, for the first time in 3 attempts (on different QM2 cruises) Mark manage to go to the planetarium show and not full asleep - that is why Pam didn’t want to go. There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the start as most hadn’t booked tickets at the pursers desk - because you are not told to do this and apparently you can do it online but of course that doesn’t work. However, once this was overcome, and everyone was in, we all relaxed in the recliner chairs and watched the show above us. The announcer said if you found it disorienting, at any time, just relax and close your eyes for a while. Fools, that is how you nod off!
It is very late afternoon now and Mark has entered the shuffleboard competition. Of course, the rules and the floor scoring layout are different to how it is played on Arcadia but nonetheless this seasoned played got himself to the final only to lose and not get any winners prize stamps.
He did knock out the favourites though which was very pleasing.
We got ready for dinner and had pre-dinner drinks in the Carinthia lounge with the duo Ocean Drive who we had enjoyed previously. However, they were joined by young pianist Blake (we think he was finished for the day and was bored as his friends were working) and they basically jammed hits together in a way they had never done before. It was a fantastic set where they took requests and basically ran way over time as they were enjoying themselves so much and could see we were all enjoying it too.
Then off to dinner in the Brittania restaurant. It was 8pm now and we were sat in roughly the same area again. However, there were a couple near us and lo and behold they were from the Arcadia. Lots of nattering and comparison chats there so we were more or less the last people left in the restaurant and had to pick up on the hints, from the staff, to bugger off.
We ended our night at the late night trivia quiz back in the Carinthia lounge. We were rubbish but met a couple of very experienced cruisers (Diane and Andrew) who may turn out to be new quiz partners. Again, lots of chatting ensued.
Oh, by the way. 1991 was the year. Today’s blog will now not go on.
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