Ian wrote on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:45:20 +0100:

In message , Roland Perry
writes
In message , at 06:18:55 on
Sat, 28 Aug 2010, Ian Jelf remarked:

I always wanted to fly on a Concorde and sail on the QE2. I never
managed the former but did the latter in its
penultimate year of doing "real" crossings.

I think Goodwood had a package which was Concorde out and QE2
back.

Yes, they were quite popular, I think. But rather out of my league
in terms of price.

By the time we went on the QE2 she was in her last years of
sailings and prices were significantly lower! Not an
especially luxurious vessel by modern standards but levels of service
I've just never encountered elsewhere and a "real
ship" as opposed to the floating gin palaces bobbing around
the Caribbean pretending to be the Same Thing [TM].

I first travelled to the US on the old Queen Mary. Despite running into
a hurricane and having water splashing on the uppermost windows, even
sailing steerage (tourist) was amazingly luxurious to an ex-graduate
student. This was despite sharing a cabin with three others and
salt-water baths (you were provided with a large jug of fresh water for
a final rinse down.) Even such baths had a touch of class with one's
steward knocking on the door and saying "Sir, your bath is ready." I
even managed a very mild shipboard "romance".

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not