When I was first offered a spot on Queen Anne, The Other Professor Sanders decided to join me to see the new ship as well as some ports in the Adriatic which she likes (as opposed to the Caribbean which she doesn’t). However, the dog sitter pulled out as she was anxious about looking after a five month old Vizsla, so TOPS pulled out as well. Thus, I’m on my own – six talks in a voyage from Trieste to Southampton. To catch up with the ship means a train to Paris, two flights with a short turn around and an overnight in Trieste, which makes me slightly anxious in case the chain breaks anywhere.
No problem to Paris Montparnasse and I pick up a taxi immediately to CDG – €65 but TOPS says there’s loads of stairs if I go by train. Hey ho. Lots of time to drop the bag off, but a rather surly chap looks at his screen, looks at me, his screen again, and then asks if I’m a seaman. When I confirm I’m not a septuagenarian matelot, he demands evidence I’m joining a ship. I don’t have evidence so Monsieur Jobsworth calls his boss, who arrives and asks for a contact number at Cunard. He then disappears, comes back and nods. Cruise lines have deals with airlines to move their staff about at cheap rates so I’ll need to remember to carry confirmation letters in future – never happened before.
Flight to Milan leaves 40 minutes late so I worry about the turnaround but the driver puts his foot down and Milan airport is surprisingly small so no problem with the connection to Trieste. Which itself is teeny. Only one taxi is outside and it may be pre-booked but I ask anyway in my best pidgin Italian and he’s free. He squeezes two other people in as well for the 30 km drive to the city, which is great as we share the fare. The hotel has given away my room as I’m allegedly late, but happily put me in a suite which is very posh for the same price. I wander out into the maze of streets and find a nice little bar with a lady who lectures me on local wines. Excellent.
Next day, Reception shows me how to get to the cruise terminal on foot and I’m there within ten minutes and straight through security and onto the ship. Nice cabin but no letter from Ents, which is unusual. I mention this to the young woman who does the safety briefing and she takes me to the Ents Office where a chap welcomes me but is a bit put out when I ask him who he is. Deputy Entertainment Director it turns out, who’s very busy. He gives me the letter which tells me I’m only doing three talks, not the six including the one on disasters I’ve prepared. I protest but he tells me the theatre is being used a lot to train new staff, so tough. I have to do the sound check while two sopranos battle it out on stage, and I can’t see the screen to check the video format. Oh well, it’ll be alright on the morning.
Nervously I go to the restaurant – I often have a battle with maître d’s but this bloke is a delight, shakes my hand, asks me what I do and says I can eat where I want when I want. So I go into the restaurant, and while perusing the menu one of the wine waiters comes over to say hello – he was on QM2 in January to Cape Town. And it happens again – he knows which wine I always order. This is quite serious.
First day is a port day in Sibenik, which I haven’t heard of. It’s a tender port and there are 45 minute queues for the tender – even if you get a tender it’s then a 30 minute bus ride to the town so I give up, until there’s an announcement that there’s no queue so I cross to the fishing village of Zablace. Nothing much there so I decide to return straightaway which was interesting – the tender driver was, I think, in training, and it was 5 minutes to get to the ship and then a very rocky 20 minutes to park. The driver’s mates were laughing, the officers were getting cross, but the best way to learn is by making mistakes I reckon, even if it does make one of the guests grumpy. Then up to the library where the acting librarian was also learning how to unlock the barriers. I sense a lot of new crew. Oh well, I start tomorrow. I suppose it would be unprofessional to moan publicly about only doing three talks…
Pretty good turnout for the first talk – the DED comes in to introduce me and expresses astonishment about how many have turned up… About half way through I realise my widescreen slides are being projected in the wrong format which isn’t good for a talk on visual illusions – the aviation bloke before used the traditional format and they didn’t change it on the projector. This is all because we didn’t get to do a vision check when I got on board. And the sound doesn’t work at first. Anyway, the talk itself went well and lots of people said they enjoyed it. Three days till the next one…
…on conspiracy theories, which also goes well, I think. Even bigger audience now, to the continued amazement of the DED. I’m slightly put off by the four or five who go to sleep, head back, mouth open, but the rest seem to listen pretty carefully. Overall I think this is the most receptive audience I’ve ever had.
The last talk is a different kettle of fish, as it were. The ship’s been pitching all night and there’s no sign of it slowing. My breakfast lands on the floor. One minute before the talk is due to start, there’s still no projection in the theatre – the DED says it’s because the ship’s been pitching all night – right. Finally gets going and I can start. I decide to use a stool as we’re right at the front of the ship and it’s very unstable but it’s difficult to talk from a sitting position and the audience isn’t as engaged as usual. At the end, one chap comes up to complain that the microphone wasn’t loud enough and he couldn’t hear what I was saying. Might explain the apparent lack of engagement, but while the technical staff are very polite and enthusiastic, they don’t seem terribly familiar with the kit – I suspect they’re quite new on board.
So, overall? Appreciative audience and a decent cabin. Virtually no interaction between speakers or the Ents team, so it’s been a bit lonely, apart from the art teacher who was on QM2 in January – she’s quite funny. The guests all seem to be having a good time except for one lady sitting next to me at dinner one evening – the tables are very close to each other – who was complaining about everything: where the ship docked, the weather, the gustatory monotony of soups of different colours, the carpet in the lift, the comedian, the angle of incline of the gangway at some ports…her husband was silent throughout.
As I left the restaurant after breakfast on disembarkation day, the maitre d’ made of point of coming over to say au revoir, which was nice. He said in his experience it takes about 18 months for a new ship to settle as at least two crews have to be trained and familiarised with the ship. I guess that explains things and makes perfect sense.
But to finish there’s a wonderful conspiracy theory – the female captain left suddenly in Lisbon to attend to a family emergency, it was announced. But some of the guests know better – she refused to sail as the weather’s so bad, so Cunard got in a new one who wasn’t put off by the storm. I’ll never understand people, which isn’t a good look for a psychologist…
thehairypsychologist 