Do you remember your FIRST time?

[Louis De Sousa]

What did you feel and remember from that very first time you went onboard?

[Janice Naylor]

I was invited as the guest of a lecturer who was filling in for someone who had to back out at the last minute.  She received the request to fill in just 4 days before the QE2 sailed from NYC.  Immediately she began calling friends and acquaintances looking for someone who could make the trip with her on such short notice.   When she called me it took 15 minutes for me to get the 3 weeks off work, arrange for someone to "dog sit" my pet and I called her back and accepted.  I had 3 days to prepare b/4 boarding the QE2.

I'm telling you this to put my first time in perspective.  I had, of course, heard about the QE2.  She was legend.  Under normal circumstances I would have spent time researching the ship, reviewed her history, read about the transatlantic route and maybe even her layout but with only 3 days notice there was only time to finish projects at work and try to organize packing and a wardrobe.

When I got out of the taxi and saw the QE2 in front of me, I was overwhelmed by her size and as I've said previously on this site, the Titanic flashed in my head.  I remember actually hesitating, wondering if I had made a rash decision but that only lasted a second and I walked up the ramp.  I remember the officers waiting at the top to greet everyone and my surprise at how huge the doubledown room looked to me.

An hour or so later as I stood on the QE2's outside deck at 7PM on a spring evening watching her sail past the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty was when the reality of what I had committed to finally sunk in.  Less than a week before the QE2 was a vague notion, now I was standing on her on my way to Southampton.  Amazing.

Janice

[peter ward]

I was 18 yrs old , fresh out of catering college in liverpool,I received a telegram telling me to make my way to southampton to join the QE2..wow... my first ship would be this magnificent liner! I boarded a train to southampton and arrived five and half hours later ,got a taxi to southwestern house (cunard offices) then over to dock gate 4 and the ocean terminal. Standing on the quay I was greeted by this metal wall of blue and white and out of a hole in the side was a small gangway where I was guided up and then down to the bare metal walls of the working alleyway and the writers office ..and my first meeting with the infamous Chief steward Gordon 'mother ' Phillips !!Such an alien environment ,I was very nervous as I knew no-one but was put at ease by some friendly faces and shown to my cabin ..a four berth cabin on five deck forward.within minutes of putting my case down I was in the britannia restaurant with the rest of the new signings (sounds like a football team) and given tasks...everything was being packed away and stacked up ,we were sailing at four pm but without passengers ...we were off to Rotterdam for the yearly refit, and I was part of the skeleton crew that would keep her ticking over for the next four weeks ..

[Lynda Bradford]

I never do things in ones so I remember three first times on board.

Just days after she was launched, I stood on her decks for the first time, when she was only a shell and even then I knew she was special.

The first time I was onboard was when the people from Clydebank got the opportunity to see around the ship after she had been fitted out.  She was a thoroughly modern lady and I loved her, but an eighteen year girl could only dream of sailing on such a beautiful ship.

The first time I sailed on her was for my husband's 50th birthday.  I had always wanted to sail on the QE2 and my husband wanted to go to New York so we booked the transatlantic crossing to New York.  It was a dream come true to step on board.  I will never forget entering the midship lobby where the harpist was playing and the feel of my feet sinking into the carpets.  It was like coming home and being reunited with an old friend.  Like me she had matured but she was still beautiful and words could not describe my emotions that day. 

I look forward to a fourth first time and that is when I step onboard the QE2 in her new life whether as a Classic Cunard Ship, or as a hotel ship in the UK or elsewhere in the world. I look forward to welcoming her home. 

[Matron]

I flew out to LA to join her, having never seen her 'in the flesh' before.  She seemed enormous and very daunting as I arrived with the other joining crew.  The crew gangway was steep, narrow and rather tricky with a large suitcase and the first place I 'landed' on board was Sailor's Square - brimming with people of umpteen nationalites, baggage and supplies.

On that first day I was given a tour of the ship and couldn't imagine ever getting to know my way around - there was just so much to take in.  I'm not very good with heights and even looking down to the LA quayside from Boat Deck was terrifying!  3 deck corridor also left an impression - just stretching out to eternity whichever way you looked.  I also had to sort through all the uniforms that I had been issued - and was terrified of wearing the wrong type or wrong combination.  That did happen to people from time to time - as you entered the wardroom, a cry of 'wrong rig' would hit you...  Talking of wrong rig, a new doctor was putting on his formal rig for the first time with the help of his cabin steward.  For some reason his mess jacket had 'board loops' on the shoulders and so the cabin steward siezed the opportunity to play a joke and told him to wear his boards (even though there were stripes on the sleeves).  A priceless moment when he appeared in multi-striped regalia...... and one he's never been allowed to forget!

I was supernumary for 2 days initially and was accommodated in cabin 2070 (QS), which was beautiful - it was then a bit of a comedown to move to the (single) nurses cabins....  But they were on 1 Deck forward and had a porthole - I never tired of springing out of bed each morning to see what was outside - never the same from day to day.  I also used to get up early in those first few months and walk along Boat Deck before breakfast.

I didn't know a soul when I joined, but the thing that struck me was how friendly and helpful everyone was - one of the hallmarks of the QE2 'family' and one of the things that made her so special.

[Cruisemarsh]

I remember having this feeling of sheer excitement. It was October 1998 and I was 11 years old. I had always wanted to sail on Queen Elizabeth 2 and now the moment had come. I remember stepping aboard and looking around the midship's lobby in amazement and awe. I think my jaw could have hit the floor. I was truly in dreamland and from that moment, my love for the QE2 grew and grew.

[Rob Lightbody]

April 1987, aged 14, - I remember seeing her huge bright red (and then newly fitted) funnel from the coach that took us to Bremerhaven from Bremen, it was towering over the shipyard and looked awesome - that is the precise moment when QE2 took hold of me.  We had to walk up an incredibly steep, scary gangplank in the shipyard to get on board.  The ship was in chaos, so my memories are fragmented but the strongest ones are the lift that accidentally took me to the bottom of the ship, while i could still hear my mum yelling my name... Lorna Dallas in the Grand Lounge, The fantastic bread rolls in the newly refitted and renamed Mauretania restuarant, the funky square leather seats in the Queens Room, the yacht club, and more strongly than anything i think the area around the magradome, both inside and out.  Harrods too.

[cunardqueen]

Rob
 Do you remember any of the onboard presentations or events to mark the handover from the shipyard to Cunard, how was the sailaway, did you actually depart from the dry dock? were you aware just how unfinished QE2 actually was, and who else was onboard for the unique voyage.Of all QE2s voyages, this was perhaps just a bit more special than most...  and just how lucky you were...

[Rob Lightbody]

Rob
 Do you remember any of the onboard presentations or events to mark the handover from the shipyard to Cunard, how was the sailaway, did you actually depart from the dry dock? were you aware just how unfinished QE2 actually was, and who else was onboard for the unique voyage.Of all QE2s voyages, this was perhaps just a bit more special than most...  and just how lucky you were...

I wasn't aware of the presentation.  Our first few hours were spent trying to console my upset mother, because we had no cabin to go to because ours was underwater (5 deck - the water looked quite deep when you looked down the stairwell...).  The queens room and outside spaces appeared fine, as did our restaurant, the yacht club and the grand lounge was OK too so to me it seemed to be mostly the accommodation areas that weren't ready.  I can clearly remember my tired Mum in floods of tears at the piano in the midships bar - she had to go to bed to recover, and so she missed the fireworks and incredliblky enormous crowds who lined the shore of the river to see us off.

Lots of my dad's colleagues were on board - many of whom had simply never been able to afford to go on QE2 (the same as us).  The trip was free, although we had to pay to get ourselves to Bremerhaven, and home from Soton.  There was fierce pride in our (scottish) QE2 despite the new German work - half the people  on board, or more, were German - i think Dad found it a shock.

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

My first time...

I just went to keep my mother company. Cruising had never been my idea of an ideal holiday, but I enjoyed the thought of having a holiday with my mother, years after our last holiday together.

It was all new to me, whereas she had been on QE2 once before. Flying to Southampton, an English friend collecting us there and driving us to the port. There, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch together, with mounting excitement. Those were the days when security had not yet ratcheted up to its present madness. When I had asked Cunard whether my friend could accompany us on board, I received a letter to show at embarkation, and he too got his photograph taken with us as we boarded together.

Together, we did the whole procedure of awaiting our turn, boarding through the gangway, and being led by the sommeliers to our cabins, past the harpist in the Midships Lobby. We had been allocated the two exceptional cabins, 2153 and 2154, where a photograph of me sprawling on my bed was immediately taken by my friend.


Two beds to choose from


Cabin 2154

We then went and enjoyed afternoon tea together -- a practice which we kept up during subsequent voyages. Afternoon tea was not normally on our programme -- but on embarkation day, it was a must! My friend then asked "Does this ship have a Boat Deck?" -- and so, we discovered one of my favourite places, to which I would return again and again, especially every night before retiring to bed.

Somehow, I felt at home on board straight away. And enjoyed what the ship had to offer -- including meals at a large table in interesting company in Princess Grill, where the glass figurines on the tables were still intact.

It was the start of a very special decade, the last decade of QE2's seagoing life, which we thoroughly enjoyed. My mother had loved QE2 from her first voyage, two years earlier, and her enthusiasm was infectious. And finally, it brought me here!

[Thomas Hypher]

Lovely memories Isabelle. I too also felt at home onboard very soon after boarding for the first time, as did my parents. No other ship I've travelled on has caused this feeling quite as strongly as QE2 did. All part of her charm back in the old days!

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

Had you seen QE2 before you boarded for the first time? And what was your first impression once you were on board?

One of mine was amazement at the long line of sommeliers waiting to take us to our cabins. And then, getting lost along with them, because the numbering of cabins 2153 and 2154 is out of line with the other cabin numbers. I did not realise until much later how lucky we were on that first sailing to have been allocated these extra special cabins. In the excitement, the music of the harpist completely passed me by, but we enjoyed her and it greatly later.

[Thomas Hypher]

Not that I recall, although my parents saw her leave from Calshot about a year before we first went onboard from what my Dad has said/we collectively recall. That's when my parents decided it was now or never on what was their and our most expensive holiday to date at the time. What a good decision it was!

I don't really remember the boarding parts as a 6 year old (those memories come from later voyages when it was like returning home) other than the scale of what we could see of QE2 from the dockside at QEII Terminal and having our ship card photos taken. I do remember seeing QE2 in the distance though as we drove into Southampton on the dual carriage way with the overpasses that runs alongside the docks, I was jumping up and down with excitement on the back seat of the taxi upon seeing QE2's wonderful funnel in the distance and all of our excitement and realisation that we were actually sailing on QE2 after all my parent's hard work came to the fore more and more as we got closer to QE2.

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

What lovely memories! I can just see you jumping up and down in the back of the taxi, filled with the excitement of the dream coming true    .

[Chris Thompson]

Joined QE2 as Casino tech in 1988, was very excited to be boarding one of the Queen's having visited the Queen Mary in long Beach. Boy was I.....disappointed! I think at that time QE2 was not looking her best, the Casino's tan carpet, green walls and black ceiling were very uninspiring. The only rooms i found really attractive were the Queens room and Queens grill, the grand lounge at the time had the shops upstairs which diminished the grandeur of the space.
I was however always impressed by her size, elegant exterior and speed, such a shame that we will never see a ship built like that again.