TRAVEL ... with David Bray
Cruising isn’t for everybody, but I reckon that if you choose your ship carefully there’s probably a great voyage there for you. Do your homework. Pick the right line and you should be fine.
There are plenty to choose from, now that they seem to have decided Australia is a fruitful market. We sailed with Cunard aboard Queen Mary 2 and really enjoyed the ship and all who crewed aboard her.
She’s big. The biggest liner, as distinguished from the huge cruise ships, given that she is basically designed for regular trans-Atlantic line voyages: 345 metres long, 150,000 gross tonnage, 2620 passengers. (We had 2464 as we left Auckland, 1351 Aussies, 572 Brits, 260 Yanks, 76 Canadians ... 28 nationalities in all.) An early surprise is that, despite having Southampton on her stern, our Queen is American owned, as are her equally regal sister ships Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. Carnival Cruise Lines, of Miami, Florida, have owned Cunard for years. They bill themselves as “the world’s most popular cruise line”, with 22 “fun ships” operating voyages ranging from three to 16 days to the Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Europe and Bermuda.
The ownership shows. It shows in big ways and small. Prices are in US dollars. The menu lists appetizers and entrees. There’s a casino off one of the main lobbies. My credit card paid into a Florida account.
Basically the ship is superbly sailed by Brits. We had Cunard’s Commodore Bernard Warner at the helm, which he handled with distinction in what must have been a challenging part of a long voyage. Christchurch is devastated by its earthquake the day before we leave Sydney headed for that NZ city. Fukushima, quake and tsunami, hit when we are not far out of Osaka, heading for Nagasaki which is closed to us and all other shipping.
Several groups of passengers ashore in both countries are brought safely aboard. Size and seaworthiness make our Queen serenely steady. In four weeks aboard, covering thousands of nautical miles, there is never a hint of roll, just a bit of pitch when we were right forward, as at the gym, or aft. Hey, you want sometimes to feel a bit of movement to remind you you’re at sea.
Her size is also a problem for the ship. All those people make long queues when going ashore. And here’s what I reckon is the big drawback: She’s simply too big for most ports to handle. In Sydney we board, after considerable palaver at Glebe Island, at Garden Island naval base, not an attractive place. Auckland sees us out at a container berth while smaller cruise ship slips onto a berth in the very heart of town. Guam is grim, ditto Xingang for Beijing and Waigaoqiao for Shanghai. Hong Kong has no room at all so, as the South China Morning Post reports, “Queen Mary is pushed to a far-from royal berth out of town”. In fact it’s not a berth, but an anchorage at Junk Bay in Sai Kung. Forty minutes in a tender to Central.
Which brings us to the end of Part One of this Odyssey.
Stay tuned.
