THE SCOTTISH ADVENTURES OF A CRUISE SHIP ADDICT

Thursday 30 October 2008 - At Sea In the morning Nana and Aggie (Evie's great aunt) took Evie, Oscar (The Longlevens Infant's School Ted) and Rex (my aunt's work's rhinocerous teddy) around the ship to be photographed. Meanwhile Campbell and I rendezvoued with an old friend - Retired Commodore Ronald Warwick. The name Warwick is synonymous with QE2. Ron's father, Bil, was the first Captain of the QE2, and Ron himself was QE2's Captain for many years before transferring on to Queen Mary 2. I think Ron is wonderful. I remember my first meeting with him. It was just after I'd published my Queen Mary book and I had had a bad review from a magazine. I was really down in the dumps about it because the magazine had totally misread the market my book was aiming at. It was a real hatchet job. Ron said that I shouldn't be bothered with them and that they didn't understand what I was trying to achieve - my books are for joe public not rivetcounters (the cruise

Wednesday 29 October 2008 - Lisbon Well this morning was great fun. I woke at two o'clock feeling seasick and the ship was rolling. Speaking to a couple of passengers, they had glasses falling off ledges, bottles of water off shelves, clothes falling off hangers, and people almost rolling out of bed. One of the shops lost 5 ghastly QE2 limited edition plates - I can only think it was a blessing! Evie and Campbell took off for Lisbon on the shuttle bus. Evie got off the bus and then started asking Campbell "when do we go home?" Despite ice cream, drinks and a new watch, he had to take her home early. Nana, Agnes and I thought we'd take a short stroll around the marina as we had been to Lisbon before. Then we decided to walk a short distance to the monument. Short distance my foot! It was about a mile. I was totally exhausted and we had to take a taxi back! Evie, Campbell and I had dinner in the informal restaurant called the Lido. It was a French Evening. We tried to c

Tuesday 28 October 2008 - At Sea We headed out through a Force 7 Gale and rough seas last night doing a speed of 28 knots. To put this into perspective, a normal cruise ship can do a maximum of 23 knots (downhill with a tailwind) and would start to avoid anything as rough or rougher. Imagine, normal cruise ship equals Nissan Micra, QE2 equals a Porsche. But the QE2 can go faster, she can do about 36 knots, second only to the SS United States which could do over 40 knots. No wonder they chose QE2 for the Falklands. Unfortunately this morning Nana looked like an extra from Rentaghost. She was suffering from seasickness and was sick at least two times. She began to look better once she had something solid in her stomach. As for me, I was feeling seasick, but I follow the routine of fruit for breakfast, one Biodramina (a wonderful seasickness pill) and plenty of sleep and I'm usually fine. Campbell and Evie headed down to the indoor pool this morning. Evie is in her element - swimming

We're finally on board and QE2 is as beautiful as ever. A few people warned me she was held together with sticking plaster, but that is totally untrue. She is as wonderful as the last time I was on her. Everyone is settled into their cabins and Nana and Agnes really like the ship. They too weren't expecting much, but I think they are overwhelmed by her. Not many ships today have character.  There have been rumours that she is going to Dubai with all her paintings and fixtures on board. I cannot believe Cunard are letting the Aspey's Silver QE2 go off to Dubai. This model QE2, made entirely in pure silver, is about three foot long and about two foot high! Also there are real paintings of the Queen and Prince Philip when they were young and also the Queen Mother on board which were on the original Queens, and they are going too! Sacrilige! Anyway, we all on board and enjoying ourselves.

As I am about to board one of my favourite ships - QE2 - this afternoon, I wanted to talk about her name.  Originally the name of Cunard's ships ended in -ia, eg Britannia, Carpathia, Bothnia. But when Cunard and the White Star Line (owners of the Titanic) merged in 1934, this created a problem as all White Star Line ships had the suffix -ic, eg Olympic, Cedric, Britannic.  The first Cunard White Star liner to be completed after this merger was Hull 534 at John Brown's Shipyard, in Clydebank, Scotland. What could they call her? Then someone had an idea. King George V was approached and officials asked if they could name the ship "after Britain's most illustrious Queen" - meaning Queen Victoria. The King replied, "of course you can name it after my wife". Thus the new liner ended up as Queen Mary. Now the original Queen Elizabeth liner, didn't have such problems as it was named after the Queen at the time - Queen Elizabeth.  The Queen Elizabeth 2 was

From tomorrow, my blog will slightly change as I will be heading on board QE2 for her last proper cruise before she goes off to Dubai. I'm not sure whether posting this blog from QE2 will be easy or not, so it might be a little sporadic.  I am in port on these dates: 29 Oct   Lisbon (last time I was here it was so foggy I couldn't see the huge bridge across the Tagus! We were right under it!) 31 Oct   Sardinia  1 Nov   Naples (Pompeii)  2 Nov Sicily (its a Sunday - everything will be closed)  3 Nov Dubrovnik (gorgeous)  4 Nov Zakinthos (there's nothing there - I'll get to practice my Greek on the locals)  5 Nov Athens (The Acropolis)  8 Nov Gibraltar (Shopping - ye-hey!)  9 Nov Vigo (its a Sunday again - 4th time lucky, I'm hoping to finally get to visit this place!) 11 Nov Southampton (a big party!) We're taking two stowaways with us: Oscar, my daughter Evie's school teddy, and Rex, the rhinocerous from my aunty's work.

On Thursday morning, a very upsetting piece of junk mail flopped through my letter box. The brochure was entitled "Announcing Saga Rose's Final Voyages". I was a Guest Lecturer on Saga Rose on a Christmas/New Year cruise down to Madeira in 2006. Despite me being at least 14 years younger than the minimum age for a Saga cruise, I thought the ship and the people on board were amazing. The food was the highest quality I have had on a cruise ship, the service impeccable. The rooms were of the 'old school' - filled with wood and panelling. They were gorgeous. Captain Rentell had a totally wicked sense of humour, including playing the baddie in the Christmas Pantomime, and the Cruise Director, Jane Edwards, worked tirelessly to make sure we all enjoyed ourselves. Even the weather over the Bay of Biscay was good - miracles really do happen! In fact, my favourite story was sitting down to lunch one day. I looked out the window to see the sea washing it. We were at least 3

Well, that was a bit of a shock...NOT! It was just a matter of time before someone was caught trying to smuggle drugs on a cruise ship. For those who have not heard the story. The BBC news reported yesterday that seven people had been taken into custody off the P&O cruise ship Arcadia after 30 kg of drugs were found strapped to their bodies.  The latest reports from the BBC say that four people have been charged, aged 19, 25, 26 and 41. How stupid could these supposed drugs carriers have been? The three younger people would have stood out on Arcadia like a sore thumb, especially if they were not related. The demographic of P&O line is 50+ and couples. The exception to this is the school holidays when a lot of children travel. Not on Arcadia though - she's a child-free ship. But I've travelled many times from Southampton and I have yet to see customs officers stop people coming from a cruise ship. I have a theory that sniffer dogs must have smelt the drugs on their cases

When Samuel Cunard's little 1,100 ton steamship Britannia chugged her way out of Liverpool towards the new world in 1840, it was amazing to think that she sparked a competition which is still around today. The race had started to build the biggest and fastest ships across the atlantic. These ocean greyhounds would attract the creme of society who would want the kudos of travelling on the newest and biggest ships. Immigrants were also attracted by the size and speed because this meant they could start their new lives faster and it was thought that the largest ships were also the safest! In fact, travellers in the early days of steamships were very influenced by funnel size - the more funnels a ship had the more safer and sophisticated it was! A few ships even had 'dummy' funnels in order to attract more passengers. Question: can you name all 13 four-funnelled ships? In 1840, the passenger ship was 1,100 tons (Britannia), by 1911, it was 45,000 tons (Olympic), by 1937, 79,200

Three giants have appeared in Southampton! Firstly, there is Cunard's QE2. Not a giant in size but a giant in reputation. The modern's world's most famous ocean liner is embarking her passengers today for her final double transatlantic voyage - from Southampton to New York and back to Southampton. Cunard have been famous for their transatlantic voyages for over 160 years, since their first scheduled sailing by Britannia in 1840. This will be a particularly poignant voyage as this will be the last time she visits her second home, New York. Rumour has it that New York will not let her leave without a massive celebration. Accompanying her on this double transatlantic is her sister, Queen Mary 2 - a giant in size at almost 160,000 gross registered tonnes. This is a real treat for ocean liner lovers everywhere. Finally, in port at the same time is P and O's Ventura, She is the newest and largest addition to the P and O fleet at over 100,000 gross registered tonnes. Ventura i

Professor Willms presentation at the 1st International Cruise Conference in Bremerhaven started me thinking about my own experiences of cruise ships in port and the visitors they attract. I think the most amazing vision of this was arriving in Cherbourg on Queen Mary 2's maiden arrival in France. Over 10,000 people were waiting to see the ship arrive at 7am, and this had swelled into 15,000 by the time she left! On our arrival, fire boats were spurting plumes of water as a salute to the uncrowned queen of France, and a large floatilla of small boats  hovered dangerously near this enormous ship's bow. But the crowning moment was when she approached the terminal, she let out a roar from her massive horn! We all covered our ears and my daughter screamed - we couldn't hear her scream! One of these horns was from the original Queen Mary (now in Long Beach, California) and can be heard from over 10 miles away. France was proud of its Queen! But why had these people come to visit

The 1st International Cruise Conference took place on 26/27 September 2008 at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremerhaven, Germany. I presented a paper at the conference on 'establishing the need of a standardised rating system for cruise ships' - part of my undergraduate dissertation at University. I was a bit overawed, as the speakers either had PhDs or worked in the cruise industry. But what I lacked in experience and academia, I hoped I made up for in enthusiasm about the cruising. As a passionate cruise traveller and cruise ship lecturer, I come across people who are so confused by the variety of different cruise lines and ships that they do not know which one to pick. I'm hoping my little piece of research might just highlight the need for a proper rating system which is easily understood and accessible. Other speakers at the conference included Brian Johnson, Director of Fleet Training and Employee Relations at Princess Cruises, who spoke fascinatingly on "