One of the best in-port time killers is Canyon Ranch, a monstrous marble-and-indigo-hued oasis that would seem large on dry land. The $49 Spa Club Passport grants us limitless access for three days to the saunas, whirlpool, steam rooms and aquatherapy pool in the spa's Aqua Therapy Centre, which flushes the whole "you're on a ship, conserve water" argument down the drain. In lieu of spending $199 on Aqualift Replenishing Facials, we choose instead to lie in the bubbling vats and do nothing but wrinkle.
I ask an attendant spraying deodorant into a stack of plastic slippers if he's enjoying the peace. He looks up and shrugs. "For now at least. Just wait till they all get back on the ship."
Sitting on the deck of the Queen Mary 2 as it passes through the Eastern Caribbean.
(John Deiner - The Washington Post)
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A QM2 Hit Parade
You can spend a week on the Queen Mary 2 and do nothing but race from one activity to another. So how to choose? Here are nine sure-fire activities.
• Go to the library. With magazines, Internet-for-a-fee and more than 8,000 volumes ranging from travel guides to classics, the QM2' s library -- the largest afloat -- is not only beautifully appointed but functional.
• Have an afternoon drink at the Commodore Club. This intimate U-shape room tucked on Deck 9 toward the bow features a bar adorned with a giant model of the ship, but go for the amazing views.
• See both planetarium shows. Two starry extravaganzas are in repertory at the Deck 3 Illuminations theater, and both dazzle. You need a free ticket for a set time, so pick it up in the morning on days at sea or risk losing out.
• Have lunch at the Golden Lion Pub. The pub grub (fish and chips, bangers and mash, etc.) isn't widely publicized in ship literature, and it's only served from 11 .a.m. to 2 p.m., but the food -- fried up fresh and served piping hot -- is smashing.
• Sun at the Splash Pool. If you like your privacy, head to the top deck toward the bow, where you'll likely have this pool and its hot tubs to yourself.
• Buy a Spa Club Passport. Services at the Canyon Ranch spa range from expensive to stratospheric in price, but a one-day pass to its spectacular Aqua Therapy Centre (pools, spas, saunas) starts at $19. A better deal: the three-day pass for $49.
• Eat at Todd English. The Deck 8 view isn't great (pool chairs and a bar), but the service, food and plush decor make Todd's a QM2 highlight. It's $20 extra per person for lunch, $30 for dinner, but worth it. Book early; there's a reservations kiosk right before you get on the ship.
• Go to Big Band Night. Find out when the Queens Room Orchestra will be cranking out Tommy Dorsey and Co., then put on your dancing shoes. It's the ship's most elegant affair, and it's plumb wonderful.
• Buy a poster. Hermes and Veuve Clicquot champagne are duly represented aboard, but the top souvenirs are the vintage Cunard posters ($30) in the bookshop on Deck 8.
-- John Deiner
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"Are you sure we can do this?" I'm sitting nervously at Table 67, an eight-seater several feet away from our assigned spot, set for two, in the trilevel Britannia dining room. We'd eaten at the two-top the night before and, much to our surprise, felt lonely.
"Of course you can. Last night there were only five of us here. Just sit there and shut up," says Jim Ellis, a 69-year-old retiree from Orinda, Calif. Ellis and his wife, Joyce, had become our insta-buddies a few hours earlier while we waited in line together before a formal-night cocktail party. Now they couldn't shake us even if they wanted to.
We'd unwittingly been recruited to the staff captain's table, one of several where deck officers sit each night to eat and talk up cruisers. By week's end, we'd meet several officers, as well as two other couples who'd also started off at other tables. (For their part, the Ellises had been randomly selected to sit at No. 67. They just didn't feel like sitting there alone.)
Oddly enough, though the ship doesn't have a "free-style dining" policy, defections from one Britannia table to another are common -- but the food is not. Meals are lovingly served and artfully prepared, ranging from exquisite duck and grouper to a sterling Cointreau crème brulée.
Other dining spots on board include the Kings Court, a labyrinthine quartet of breakfast/lunch buffet areas that become four restaurants at dinner. It's frequently crowded and always noisy, with crashing Wedgwood typical as guests try to maneuver overloaded trays back to their tables. Apparently, Cunard underestimated how many people would prefer buffet gluttony to sit-down elegance, so during a refitting later this year, the cruise line is promising to improve this rare dark spot on the ship.
On the second formal night, we dine at Todd English, the Boston chef's first restaurant afloat. Even by QM2 standards, Todd's is sumptuous (as it should be, since patrons pay $30 extra apiece for dinner), with gleaming wood walls, high-back upholstered chairs and floor-to-ceiling windows. For a couple of hours, girdled by elegant tux-clad diners sipping champagne as waiters soundlessly scurry about, we forget we're at sea. We dive into crabcakes, sea bass and tenderloin, but the meal's high point is dessert, a mound of pound cake oozing a river of steaming chocolate.
At the next table, a group of women unhappy with Britannia try to get reservations for each of the cruise's final three nights. Todd's, they are told, is booked.
As "Rock @ the Opera" -- a big-budget production featuring the ship's song-and-dance troupe -- comes to an end, Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" gets the full-screech treatment. Dancers lumber around in goofy goth outfits while singers belt out the '70s classic and generally take the whole thing way too seriously.
