2023-01-04 – Atlantic Ocean – New York to Southampton – Day 2

2023-01-04 – Atlantic Ocean – New York to Southampton – Day 2

Wednesday January 4, 2023

We soon got into our usual routine that will likely be regular pattern for the “Sea” days. Namely, Anne rises early, goes to Mass (2 Catholic Priests on board one from Detroit and the other from across the Canadian border) does some exercise, returns to the cabin for Roger then to breakfast, lectures, lunch, Anne back to the fitness center, odds and ends in the afternoon, dinner, theatre show and bed with perhaps some dancing. Not too shabby a way of life! 

Today however, this was interrupted by an unfortunate passenger who had to be air lifted off by helicopter off the ship, fortunately, we were near Cape Cod. 

The first lecture by Carol Ann Lloyd was an interesting history lesson on the “back story” of how Richard III who despite being the 7th child, became king of England. This was followed by Bill Miller (author of 100 books on maritime history mainly ocean liners) on Floating Palaces – how ocean liners were built to resemble luxurious palaces for the first class passengers, while steerage passengers had to buy their own mattress, and were packed into the lower decks only permitted to see daylight for 1 hour a day. As today was the first time we were to move the time one hour forward, this took place at noon which a second later was 1pm. So the usual lunch break between noon and the 1:15 PM lecture was reduced to 15 minutes. The third lecture was by the social historian Dr. Emerson Smith on “Crossing the Atlantic from 1840 to 1950”. This was a bit disjointed and not as good as most. We then enjoyed a nice pub lunch with the mandatory Guinness after which we met up with the world cruise concierge in the Atlantic Room – a special room set aside exclusively for those of us doing the full World (4 month) Cruise – a nice Frenchman Oliver. 

Donning our formal attire for the Red and Gold gala evening, we enjoyed a nice dinner with complementary champagne. This champagne substitutes for the captain’s cocktail party on the first formal night of each segment. There are approximately 356 passengers doing the full 4 month cruise (which actually starts when we leave Southampton England, next week) and about 850 other guests who were on the Christmas / New Year Caribbean cruise, on their way back to Europe. As the capacity is 2,500 guests and 1,500 crew, we are only at 50% capacity.

The evening show was two formally trained Opera singers from Chester, England who were working in a local pub, one as a waitress and the other a chef, when they decided to team up, reaching the finals of the TV program – The Voice. “Bella Voci”, as they call themselves, sang beautifully both Opera as well as Broadway Musical tunes.