I decided to visit Europe this summer, old haunts that my late husband and I visited many times: Paris, Venice, and Girona in Spain. I dislike flying and when I found an excellent price for the Queen Mary, disembarking in Southampton, I decided to take it. Talked my sister, still healing from a broken leg (7 places), into joining me. Very nice, accommodating sister.

Before we left I registered on Cruise Critic, Roll Call, for our crossing, so had already made friends before leaving New York. If I were to search for the negative, I'm sure I could find it, but in just about every respect we both had a wonderful time. Admittedly, we participated in very few of the activities, mainly because my sister was still recovering and got tired easily. We did lots of trivia, almost every day after we found out about it, and met very interesting people from just about everywhere. We had early dining (I prefer late but I owed something to my sister) and am happy we did. We were at a great table, upper level, for eight with wonderful views and wonderful dining companions. Still correspond with some of them.

Our cabin was inside on Deck 5 and quite comfortable. Plenty of storage space. Bathroom, as just about everyone notes, is small, but it is a ship after all. We were well taken care of by our cabin steward with no complaints in that department. We hit some rough seas but only noticed the sway when we were walking through the corridors. Sleeping was fine, not noticeable at all. Read more