ABOARD THE QUEEN MARY 2 – We had a most interesting lunch today. Four of the people who joined our table in the Brittania Dining Room were part of the Road Scholar group and they were absorbed with studying British murder mysteries. The question they discussed between themselves today was which was better: The Detective Morse mysteries or the Endeavour series (which we learned came after the original Morse series but told of his younger years.)
Now, I have read a lot of English mysteries but I don’t know too much about Detective Morse. (I confess I will have to do some Googling just to write this part of the story accurately.)
Roads Scholars is an educational travel program that has been around since 1975. It used to be called Elderhostel and at its beginning focused on offering inexpensive housing (usually on college campuses) combined with lectures and tours usually led by professors. My parents went on many of their trips. Today it offers 6,500 trips in all 50 states and 150 countries.
Now days, the program has expanded to full-blown tours devoted to any number of topics. On this particular trip, the group is traveling to Europe on the QM2 and then going to London and Oxford … all along the way immersing themselves in this particular literary genre. After lunch they were heading off to a private showing of a movie featuring Detective Morse.
While this particular group was doing much of their own programming, the ship’s entertainment staff certainly has been offering a plethora of activities during these days at sea. There are four lecturers aboard as well as several featured entertainers. There is bingo, bridge, watercolor classes, trivia, ballroom and line dancing, jewelry seminars, classical music concerts, wine tastings and computer sessions.
We have taken in several lectures and seen the planetarium show about wind on the various planets while others we know were being pampered in the spa or they were working out in the fitness center.
The weather is still quite gray and chilly so, except for those who brought winter jackets, almost everyone is inside and a favorite activity is reading. Most folks are carrying either an iPad or Kindle, but some actually have a real, printed book. It should be noted that the QM2 has one of the nicest libraries afloat and a small bookstore as well.
Tomorrow: Let’s talk entertainment
Heidi, Editor-In-Chief
