For the past week the family has been on a transatlantic travel from New York to Southampton in the UK as the first part of our four month European trip. We sailed on the Queen Mary 2 for a week before arriving on the 25th of August. I really enjoyed the voyage, and so far Southampton has been very fun, but today I want to tell you about one of the bad experiences I had on the cruise, although it definitely didn’t make the trip lose anything for me.
On the 23rd of August, Dad and I decided to go to the hot tub together. We were housed on deck six, and the ship had two decks with hot tubs, one on deck six, and two on deck eight. The one on deck six was larger, but the area was more trafficked so it was usually being used by others, prompting Dad and I to go to one of the smaller ones. We enjoyed the hot tub for around an hour before I decided to get out to shower so I could get ready for the gala dinner that night. I walked through the small restaurant that we had walked through to get outside and got to stairwell/elevator B, which was right by our room, just two decks up. After taking the elevator down and walking about ten feet towards the bow to arrive at our room.
Just as I got to 6099 I realized that Dad was the only person who had brought a keycard out of the room, so I had to go back to the tub if I wanted to get in the room. Foolishly assuming this would be an easy task I walked up the stairs back to deck eight. Upon reaching my destination deck I turned towards the aft of the ship. Finding a door marked “Staff Only” I turned around, thinking I had somehow gone the wrong way. Walking the other way I came to a dead end. Before I had been annoyed, but now I was really fuming and confused. Storming down to deck six, I slammed open the door and ran to the back of the ship. Arriving at the pool on deck six I took the outside stairs two at a time, almost flying back up to the hot tub. Dad was astonished to see me back, obviously not having showered. When he asked me what I had been doing I was confused, before he told me I had taken 20 minutes to get to the room and back. I was astonished because it felt like less than 5 minutes to me. This ship really is BIG!Fortunately he was able to help me back to the room, and I greatly enjoyed the gala dinner.
