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A tale of two crossings
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That's a lot of money for a nearly extinct form of transportation. There was a time, it's true, when virtually every newcomer to North America — save the ancient natives who wandered across the land bridge from Kamchatka — arrived by boat: the passengers aboard the Mayflower, the throngs of newcomers who were processed at Ellis Island, and my father, to name just a few. In the first part of the last century, it all culminated in an era considered the golden age of ocean liners, when the gilded set booked passage aboard a Cunard or White Star vessel bound for America. They wore tuxedos, and they paid through the nose.
But then commercial airliners began taking to the skies between Europe and North America, and almost overnight the age of the ocean liner — which, in truth, had been in decline for a few decades — came to an abrupt end. The idea of traversing the Atlantic by ship is as outmoded today as crossing the Rockies in a covered wagon, a quaint relic of a bygone era. A berth on the QM2 costs twice as much as an airline ticket and takes roughly 20 times as long. Like fountain pens and watches that need to be wound, the ocean liner would have no business in the here and now were it not imbued with so much romanticism.
There's a lot to be said for romanticism. And there's a lot of romanticism to be found on the QM2. It's hard to take ten steps without being confronted with some misty-eyed depiction of Cunard's storied past. There are oil paintings of the Caronia and the original Queen Mary sailing during the heady blue-sky moments of yestercentury. Adorning the walls on deck five are ancient menus. (They served calf's brains and roast Long Island duckling for a dinner on July 5, 1953; it is my belief that passengers had higher culinary standards half a century ago.) All over the ship, you find bits of Cunard trivia and photo after black-and-white photo of fabulously dressed celebrities from days gone by, including Cary Grant, David Niven, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. It is impossible to visit deck five without concluding that back then all men were well versed in the art of tying one's own bow tie.
Accordingly, every second night or so, we passengers — the male ones, at least — donned tuxedos and headed to the dining room for dinner. (The folks who paid more got to eat in an exclusive dining room known as the Princess Grill.) Afterward, we would retire to the Royal Court Theatre, or dance to big band music from an actual eight-piece big band in the Queen's Room.
It's all a finely orchestrated charade. Celebrities may have sailed Cunard ships across the Atlantic a hundred years ago and dressed in tuxedos, but now they fly in Gulf Streams and wear $500 jeans. I'd wager that you could count on one hand the number of guests who tie their own bow tie today. But movies and TV shows are also make-believe. So are expensive dive watches worn by nondivers, and SUVs that never leave the city. If you look closely at the Art Deco wall moldings on the QM2, you can see that they aren't made of plaster and appear to be some kind of preformed plastic. But that's only if you look very closely. The point is, it doesn't feel make-believe.
Take the following typical day: I was traveling with my brother, and after breakfast we visited the Illuminations Theatre to take in a lecture on the Concorde — another bygone mode of luxurious transatlantic transportation. For lunch, we headed to the pub, where we ordered fish-and-chips and pints of ale and settled in for a long and hilarious afternoon of darts (and more ale). That evening the attire was formal, and we had dinner at the Todd English restaurant, where I had the best meal I have ever eaten while not on land. Following dessert, we took in an Alan Ayckbourn play. The cast consisted of actual working actors from London's Royal Court Theatre, and the level of talent was starkly superior to that of the B-list entertainers who usually wash up on the cruise ship circuit. And then it was time for one last game of darts.
That day, you'll notice, was spent almost entirely indoors. And that's because it was freezing and windy outside — not what you would call prime tanning weather, unless windburn qualifies as a tan. But the truth is that the positively English weather made the ship feel that much more cozy. It's thrilling, in fact, to stand in a pub and hit a triple twenty, take a sip of ale, and then look out the window at the North Atlantic, dark green and roiling, its waves crested with spume.
Every cruise must come to an end, and it's the ending that sets apart the transoceanic sailing from all others. On most cruises, you return after your week at sea to the same place you started out (usually Florida), at which point the whole thing feels like it took place in your head. Planting your feet on a different continent after days and days at sea is considerably more memorable.
The evening before docking in Hong Kong, we spent the night slowly navigating past a series of illuminated buoys. By first light, we were in our berth and the harbor was already alive with ferries shuttling back and forth. Across the water stood Hong Kong's gleaming towers of commerce. Next to us, a little motorized junk was tootling around the harbor. It would stop and the driver would extend a fishing net into the water and pick up bits of trash. I walked off the ship onto Chinese soil, took a taxi to my hotel, and then went out for dim sum.
As we approached New York, the QM2's funnel looked like it was going to bring down the Verrazano-Narrows. But it cleared the bridge with all of nine feet to spare. The vessel turned its nose to the right and all of New York lay in front of us — Manhattan dead ahead, New Jersey to port, and Brooklyn to starboard. I nodded hello to Lady Liberty.
When I stepped onto land after so many days at sea, it didn't feel like land at all. It felt like the ocean, as the ground seemed to rise up under a relentless swell and then sink down again, dropping me so suddenly that I actually stumbled. The wave wasn't big — maybe 15 feet. After crossing this planet's two biggest oceans, I knew it was nothing I couldn't handle.
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