Today, we stepped off QE2 for the last time in her home port of Southampton. Our magical 10 day Farewell to the UK voyage was over. For Ryan, this would be the last time he would see her. For me, I would have one last time in New York in a weeks time to bid her a final farewell in New York City.Since we were being picked up by our wonderful UK hosts and fellow QE2 tablemates Roger and Wendy, we opted for the early self disembarkation, even skipping breakfast onboard. Our luggage load was reduced by one small, but extremely heavy bag that Myles had so gratiously offered to take across the Atlantic for me. He would hand over to me at the terminal in Manhattan in a weeks time when we were scheduled to meet to go to the Sequoia restaurant at the Seaport for a gathering of QE2 loyalists before some of us bid her farewell forever. Myles was taking the historic final crossing home. Since he offered, we also loaded him up with a QE2 replica life ring which obviously would have been an issue on the plane.
Exiting the ship was surprisingly quick. There were few passengers up at this hour and there was no lines in the lobby to exit the ship. We milled about the lobby for a minute and then proceeded down the gangplank, having our cards swiped for the last time. Ryan commented that his red Cunard card would be upgraded to the gold color now. His red badge of rookie QE2 passenger was history!
In hindsight, it probably was for the better we left this way since I did not have too much time to dwell on the significance of today, but Ryan clearly did. At this point, it is very clear that Ryan "got it", what it was like to be on the QE2, the greatest ship in the world.
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Great blog, Ken!
ReplyDeleteRyan is a very lucky boy to have a dad who takes him on such wonderful ships. I wish my parents had been like that when I was a kid - our holidays tended to be taken at home, unless it was a trip to France once or twice and my love of ships was treated with something approaching derision. Hopefully by the time he is an adult there will be more of a return to good-looking ships and not floating apartment bocks. We can but hope!
Many thanks and I look forward to reading more.