My husband and I both have fond memories of ocean voyages decades ago. He and his mother and brother traveled from Panama to New York in the 1950s when his dad was in the Navy. I traveled from New York to Norway and back in the 1960s. We both remembered enjoying being at sea, and have never been interested in island-hopping cruises with non-stop manufactured fun. We stumbled on a cable program about the building of the QM2 several months ago, and knew that this was the ship we'd been waiting for.
My husband's initial thought that the QM2 was way beyond our budget was allayed later that evening when I did some online checking and found prices that we could afford. And a few weeks later the opportunity came to get away. I found a too-good-to-pass-up deal online on a Britannia Club stateroom, and we jumped on it.
We drove from Baltimore to the Brooklyn terminal on the morning of embarkation. With EZPass we didn't waste any time at toll booths. The only real bottleneck was at Exit 13 of the New Jersey Turnpike (just past the toll booth), where there were more cars than lanes to get onto the bridges to Brooklyn. The only other delay was sitting in a long line of vehicles inside the terminal area, inching our way toward the terminal building to unload.
Loved the room! Quiet. Liked being on a short hallway, with the bridge observation area at one end and enclosed pool at the other.