We came into New York at 5:00 am on Sunday 8 August 2010.  Daddy woke us up to see the sunrise and to see the ship dock at 6:00 am.  We didn’t disembark until 10:00 am, so that gave us plenty of time to swim, eat and play shuffleboard.

In New York

We got to watch a lifeboat drill while we were having breakfast.

William Watching the Lifeboat Be Lowered

It didn’t take long at all to get through customs and immigration or even to get a taxi to LaGuardia airport.  That gave us five hours to wait in the airport.  We were tired by the time we got on the plane to Detroit.  William watched the clouds all the way there, but Henry fell asleep.  We were very happy to see Grandpa waiting for us at the Detroit airport.

Our long adventure is over.

Daddy and Henry on the Last Leg of a Very Long Trip

One dresses for dinner on the Queen Mary 2.  We usually had a swim before we put on our suits and ties and went for dinner.

Even the Model is Huge

It was fun to get dressed up.

One night the Captain had a children’s cocktail party, so we got to meet him.   The music was too loud for us, though, so we went next door to the ball room and danced to the big band songs.

William, Henry and Captain Nick Bates

The food on the Queen Mary 2 is just delicious.   For breakfast there’s a huge buffet with anything you could want.  We always start with the fruit buffet.  Henry’s really enjoyed the grilled mushrooms and the bacon.   There are lots of good choices for lunch too.  Our favorite is the pasta bar where you tell the chef what you’d like tossed in with your noodles.  Henry likes olives and parmesan.  William likes onions, garlic and tomato sauce.  There are always lots of desserts, plus an ice cream machine.  One day there was even a chocolate buffet.  Then there’s tea in the afternoon.

We were at the 6:00 pm seating for dinner in the Britannia restaurant.

Table 202

Dinner was always appetizers, salad, entree and dessert, but that was too much for us.  So we had a fruit salad and then the entree.  It’s hard to decide which one we liked best: the chateaubriand, the duck a l’orange, the lobster.   And then we’d order the triple scoop ice cream for dessert even though Mommy thought we should have one of the pastries.

Henry with Dessert

Daddy always had a second dinner later in the evening, but we were always asleep in our bunks by then.

The Queen Mary 2 is very large and very elegant.

A Very Useful Placard

Our cabin is on deck 6, close to the kids’ zone and the kids’ pool.  Our breakfast and lunch restaurant is on deck 7.  We like to walk around the ship on deck 7 every morning before breakfast to get some air.  It was foggy most days but that didn’t stop us from swimming or walking or even playing soccer.

The Kids' Pool

The ship also has a planetarium, where we saw two astronomy films, and a theatre, where we enjoyed a classical concert.  There’s also a ballroom where we had afternoon tea with scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam as well as tea sandwiches and cakes.

We liked the hallway with the games tables.  We worked on a couple of puzzles and played chess.

Our Floating Chess Game

The coolest thing, though, was that our bunk beds came out of the ceiling.  So during the day it looked like there were only two beds in the room, but at night there were four.  And we got chocolates on our pillows at night too!

Our Shipboard Bunks

We walked around Gunwharf Quay in Portsmouth in the morning and then took a taxi to Southampton to board the Queen Mary 2.

Before we embarked we had time to find our cabin, have lunch, play soccer on the top deck and participate in the lifeboat drill.   We didn’t get to get into a lifeboat.  We just had to report to our muster station (a restaurant one deck above our cabin) and put on our life vests.

Safety Drill on the Queen Mary 2

We tried out the kids’ pool as we sailed out the Solvent into the Channel, then it was time to get dressed for dinner.  The Queen Mary 2 is a very fancy ship, so one dresses for dinner.  Tonight was “elegant casual” but we like wearing ties, so we wore ours anyway.

Dressed for Dinner

Sadly, we had to say good-bye to Janet and Tom and continue on our way back home.   Of course we stopped at a castle on our way to Le Havre.  We couldn’t see much of the chateau of Bauge, but it did have an interesting exhibit about le Roi Rene.

William and Roi Rene

It’s a good thing we made it to Le Havre with some time to spare, because the ferry to England left early!   It was a very speedy ferry.  They don’t call it The Norman Arrow for nothing.

We arrived in Portsmouth in time to see a beautiful sunset while waiting in line to go through customs and immigration.  Then we went right to our hotel to go to sleep.  It’s a good thing that traditional British cabs are so big or our luggage wouldn’t have fit.

Waiting at British Customs

Today we drove through medieval towns in Tom and Janet’s old red Renault and our new blue Renault to the Royal Abbey where Elinor of Acquitaine and Richard the Lionheart were buried.

Driving in the Loire

The Abbey is a huge complex with a beautiful cloister walk.  It also has a unique kitchen made in a round tower with nine separate cooking bays, each with its own chimney.

The Cloister Walk in Fontevraud

After that we had lunch at our usual picnic spot and then returned to Saumur where we saw some amazing tapestries telling the story of Saint Florent.  He drove the dragons from Saumur in the fourth century.

Our third day in the Loire we picnicked at our favorite spot and then went to visit a mushroom museum in the caves about the Loire.  The caves were originally dug to provided the limestone for the chateaux and villages all around.

In the Mushroom Caves

Then we visited a troglodyte chateau built into the cliffs in the sixteenth century.  Nowadays its a winery.

Then we went further down the road to Saumur to see its chateau on a hill overlooking the Loire.  The interior is under construction, but we walked around the ramparts and visited the courtyard.

Henry in the Loire

We had a lot of excitement when we heard meowing from the well.  It turned out that a cat had a litter of kittens behind the ivy in the well house.  One of the kittens fell into the well.  We tried hard to rescue her, but we couldn’t.  So we moved the mother and the other kittens to the shed.

The next morning, the cat woke William up as she was moving her family into the eaves behind his pillow.   We moved the kitten back into the shed and shut the windows.  The cat had climbed up the remains of the oven on the side of the house and jumped the rest of the way up the wall into the window.

William and Madame le Chat

We’ve found a favorite picnic spot on the Loire.   There are several shady tables and a walk down to the river.

Picnicking on the Loire

After lunch we waded in the river.

Wading in the Loire