We waved goodbye to England and Trudy's stranded family (watching Mandy's broken car being towed away from the port) and we were away!

Not knowing how we should start our time on the QM2, we very quickly grabbed the champagne and made a beeline for the outdoor hot-tub. One broken champagne flute and several lagers to the good we headed to the free poker lesson in the ship's casino. There we met an intoxicated Australian called Audrey H. aka Paul, whom we immediately attached ourselves to (and the word Stingleton was coined!). Patrick joined forces with us en route to the ship's nightclub, G32, where we lowered the tone by some margin.

It was while dancing to that classic 80s hit Ghostbusters (requested by Tom of course) that we all met two yanks, both of whom were totally appalled with our choice of song. Little did James and Mike know that together we would lower the tone inside G32 further with our replication of the tin whistle scene from Titanic, and Steerage was born. It was also in G32 that we met David, a very confused man who took a particular shine to Tom!

The next day brought possibly the worst hangover of all time, which can be summed up by Tom's comment to Trudy: "If Death walks in the room and says it is my time Trudy, then I'd hug him and beg him to carry me off to sweet oblivion". The fact that this was the roughest day at sea ABSOLUTELY did not help (although we were able to blame our green complexions on seasickness!).

The hangover continued through into the next day, which was not helped by the sight of some crazy old lady in the restaurant at lunch wearing nothing but her glasses and dressing gown... Tom took this opportunity to discuss manners with Trudy, whereupon she replied: "Tom, there's a women over there in a dressing gown, don't lecture me on decorum".

Anyway, take the above and repeat three times, and that is pretty much our crossing to NY. We added a little variety with some onboard activities such as karaoke (go Steerage, the ever growing entity who acquired Clare and Michael!), pub quiz (100 yard dash anyone?), board games (thanks for teaching us backgammon Paul, with this knowledge I can and will defeat William Gregory of Derbyshire), plenty of ping-pong (driving Tom to a near nervous breakdown - forgetting to verbalise entire conversations), Green Lantern (oh dear), visits to the planetarium and the neverending game of hide and seek we all played with David (that guy is really good at finding you though).

We arrived at New York early on Sunday morning and it was a blessing that Customs decided that Trudy might be the weak link (definately Tom at this point), so they proceeded to interrogate her on our movements in the US - she got us 6 months with good behaviour (I can't make that promise...). Anyway, we had an amazing time on the boat and it was great to meet Steerage, hopefully we'll see youse again (not you David, although I'm sure you're constantly nearby).

We wanted to write this blog sooner, however we've been swaying around New York like drunken idiots (thanks for the warning about post cruise sea/land sickness!!). Three days later and symptons persist...