THE SCOTTISH ADVENTURES OF A CRUISE SHIP ADDICT

MISSING... ONE MOTHER! I'm sitting here at 2.45pm, having lost my mum! She phoned earlier today to say her bus was due in at 2.30pm, and like a dutiful daughter, I went down at 2pm to collect her. I battled my way through the crowds and out to the buses, to be told her bus had arrived at 1pm and she was on board already. At some point I'm sure she'll turn up. On Queen Mary 2 it took me three days to find a friend who I knew was on board. I hope it won't take me three days to find mum! My friend Jess was right. The ship is full of stairs to nowhere! I found a set while trying to battle my way through the throngs of people boarding. They just stop!  My trip to the ship was eventful. Having thought, I'll get there early and board early at 11.15am, I found that they had put me on the same embarkation time as my mum, 3.30pm. Head in hands! I hadn't even had breakfast yet. In the end, the embarkation went really fast and I was on board ...

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 ...