Saturday - February 05, 2005
Cocktails with the Captain
During the course of a cruise like this, the Master of the QE2, Captain Ian Mc Naught, hosts many evening cocktail parties for passengers. These events are usually organized according to the dining room that one eats in (there are four) and they are large events normally held in the in the Queen's Room. We have attended a couple of these events, but just this week we received a special invitation from the Captain to a more select cocktail party.
Our day long journey to the South Island and the port of Lyttleton was a tad hair raising because of the heavy fog we encountered. It was overcast and misty during the day, but by the evening, the mist had turned to dense fog along the water. And this fog proved to be a source of disappointment to us.
A few days earlier, Mike and I had received an invitation to attend a cocktail party in the Captain's private quarters for that same evening. We have no idea why we were invited, but we were excited about the idea of seeing the Captain's private space. We were asked to RSVP, and told that our cabin steward would pick us up at 7:15 pm to take us up to the Captain's quarters. Then, during the day of the party, a corsage and a boutonniere were delivered to our cabin. Wow, we thought, this will be special. At 6:45 our steward called to say he would pick us up in a half hour, so the excitement continued to build. I was just putting on my lipstick when there was a knock at the door and we were off, with one other couple.
We were taken up to the top deck where we were met by a young man in grey tails who directed us up a flight of stairs where a harpist was playing. And finally we entered the hallowed confines of the Captain's quarters - only to be met by the second in command, the Staff Captain. The dense fog we were passing through meant that the Captain had to stay on the bridge all night and was not able to attend his own party. The Captain usually introduces the Staff Captain by saying that it is his job to do everything that the Captain doesn't want to do, so maybe this was one of those duties! But the party was fun. It was attended by a number of the officers and about 30 or so passengers. We sipped our champagne, admired the spacious sitting room, and shared some interesting conversation before we headed down to dinner.
Later that evening, we stood on deck and could see nothing around us, not even the water. The fog felt warm and damp, and it all seemed very eerie. We went to bed that night with the fog horn sounding every couple of minutes as we wended our way south. While I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come and listening to the soothing sound of the horn, I decided that maybe I should send a message to the Captain saying that seeing as he was unavoidably detained from his own party and deprived of the pleasure of our company, I would like to make it up to him by inviting him to our cabin for a glass of champagne (we do have a bottle in our little fridge). Furthermore, I would send my husband up to his quarters to escort him down to our cabin, and we would play some classical music on our Ipod as we all engaged in polite conversation. How could he possibly turn down an invitation like that?