I decided it was time to raise my sights, look to

the horizon and sail off to the seven seas. My partner Deirdre asked me to assist her in her vocation. Deirdre is a host for Cruise Specialists on-board cruise ships around the world.

I started by flying Business Class to LA. Now that’s a good start!

Wealthy North Americans, English, Germans and Japanese buy their summer heat by taking cruises away from the daily foot-high snow falls. A good idea I think. After donning my new navy ―Reefer jacket, brushing the last snow flake from my sleeve, waving my white Visa at the purser, and smiling for the cabin-pass camera, I made it up the gangway through ―the Grills shorter line – the Executive Class at Cunard is called ―the Grills. I‘m feeling gooooood!

Once on board, I examined every single inch of the boat starting, of course, in the Commodore Club. It is one of the really great cocktail bars that I was to become ever so familiar with. It overlooks the bow. I now know it well.

The ship was launched by Queen Elizabeth II in October 2010 and is exquisite. Completed in Italy, it features marble, crafted woods, with a romantic turn of the century stylishness, enhanced by etched glass in an art nouveau fashion. The ballroom is styled after Queen Victoria‘s Osborne House. Thankfully they also have a stylized English pub. Oh – and apparently there is a gym on board; who would have thought!

So what does a fella do all day for four months? For me, this type of trip is really about discovering my inner aspirations, and then living them. Noticing whether the butler has laid out my dinner jacket correctly, whether the room service soup is hot, has General Cosgrove a wit, do the silver service waiters smile when serving dinner during the late sitting, or whether your dance partner for the Ascot Ball has a good understanding of the Fox-trot and Quickstep as the ten piece band plays crooners till midnight.

For me, the best bit was having fun with my friend Deirdre; looking, feeling and touching the most fantastic monuments that mankind has created, from the Sphinx to Petra and the Dubai Experiment – with her, to see the contrast between developed democracy and dictators disasters, to luxuriate in spoilt splendor with the context to really appreciate it – and to allow it to influence me.

Signed,
Lucky To Have Tried a World Cruise
Kim Brumpton