We had set our alarms for 6 am, got packed quickly, and enjoyed the breakfast the hotel “had sorted” for us. Not only cereal and milk, but yogurts, breads, and jams as well. We left with the sweet taste of The Devonshire’s hospitality in our mouths.

We knew no one would be at the hotel at this hour. At the bottom of the stairs, I pushed on the door to the pub and restaurant to get to the front door and – LOCKED. We tried the two keys on our room keys with no luck. We knocked on the glass pane of the door, hoping maybe someone was here. We saw a door marked “Private” and knocked on that. There was a door behind to a rear patio, but the space looked enclosed. We were stuck. Finally, Santo decided to explore the patio area while I stayed at the door. In a minute, I saw him waving me to come out. There was an emergency exit gate around the back corner of the patio. When we got through the gate, I couldn’t at first see a path to the street, just the stone walls of the surrounding buildings. But there was a narrow walkway between two buildings—free at last.

Once at the car, we did the final rearranging of our luggage in preparation for boarding the Queen Mary. Once we were onboard, we could unpack for an entire week. Heaven!

We were excited for the adventure ahead, and especially to see Alison and Maurice. Alison and I had met forty-five years ago, in September 1978, on the first day of my junior year abroad at Trinity University in Dublin. We lived on the same floor of a Trinity dorm located on the outskirts of Dublin. We became fast friends. During my year there, I spent many bank holiday weekends, when other students went home for the weekend, with Alison and her family in Belfast. Her parents, Eric and Sadie, were so like my own parents. I fell in love with them immediately.

In the intervening years, Alison visited me in the states twice and I visited her in Northern Ireland twice. Every time, it was as if we had never been apart and no time had passed. Friends can be soulmates as well, picked by God to accompany one another in life, whether they are on the same continent or not.

As I was planning our trip, I had consulted with Alison about our time in the U.K. She had suggestions for our itinerary. After several variations, I settled on our plans for our U.K. visit. I sent Alison a copy of the spreadsheet I had created for the trip, showing the U.K. portion to double-check it with her. As soon as she got it, she noticed at the very bottom “Southampton—Board the Queen Mary.” She immediately texted back, “Are you sailing home on the Queen Mary?!?!?! I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do the transatlantic crossing to America!”

“Yes,” I answered. “It would be wonderful if you could join us!” I didn’t really think it would be possible, particularly since our cruise was already booked and the dates set. But she said she would “work on” Maurice, her husband, who would be more reluctant about the trip. I didn’t even say anything to Santo. About two days later, I could a text from Alison, “Maurice agreed! Can you send me the details of your booking?” WOW! I was beyond excited. Then I realized I had never asked Santo what he thought of Alison and Maurice joining us. They had visited us when all of our children were young and I knew Santo enjoyed both of them very much. But still … I think perhaps I should have asked him. When I did, he was as excited as I was. Whew!!!! In another two days, Alison texted again, “We’re in the stateroom next to you!” It all seemed unbelievable and too good to be true.

Now we were within hours of reuniting with Alison and Maurice.

The drive from Grassington to Southampton was rainy the whole way, but we didn’t seem to care. Once we were on the main highways, Santo was very comfortable driving. We hit some traffic, and the weather slowed us a bit, but we made it to the Southampton airport, where we would return the car, in plenty of time to get to the cruise terminal for our 2:15 boarding time.

I had set the GPS to the Avis Car Rental at Southampton Airport. Just as we pulled up to the sign, I realized the mistake I had made: this car was rented from National NOT Avis. The sign said Avis, Hertz, EuropCar, and Enterprise, but not National. Apologizing to Santo, I tried to re-set the GPS to find the National car return. I set it to an address that seem correct, but when we got to “our destination” there was no National car rental in sight. The airport was a mass of one roundabout after another. We looped around for a bit, then pulled into a building where there were lots of cars and activity. Santo parked illegally while I ran in to see what I could find out. It turned out this was the train station. The uniformed man at the counter knew nothing about car rental places and told us to get to “the airport.” We thought we were AT the airport. Another gentlemen waiting for a train overheard us and tried to direct me how to get back to the main terminal, and said that the car rentals should be near there.

Back in the car, we looped around some more, then decided to reset the GPS to the Avis location and ask there where the National was. We got back to the Avis sign, and noticed that at the bottom it said, “All other car rental companies, go to Short Term Parking.” We found Short Term Parking in the GPS and headed out again. It turned out Short Term Parking was right next to where we were, except we had to loop all the way around to get there. We pulled in and took a ticket. We figured we would be returning the car so wouldn’t need to pay anything. We drove around Short Term Parking and still no sign of National. We asked a man we say if he knew where it was, and he told us National was Enterprise. Enterprise had been on the original sign with Avis, Hertz, and EuropCar. There was only a barrier of low cement posts that divided Short Term Parking from the car rental return, so we could see the Enterprise booth. We drove up, and I crossed over to ask how to return our car. The woman at Enterprise said we needed to go out of the parking lot, around to the other side of the building, and come back in at the exact spot we had first arrived at when we got to the airport! She told us to ask the guy at the gate nicely and we shouldn’t have to pay for the “parking.” He was not happy about it, but he did let us through. We pulled round to the other side and go the car returned. Finally!

We made the short walk to the terminal and were advised by some agents outside the building that we needed to go inside to order a cab. There was a desk just for this purpose, and within  minutes our taxi was there and we were on our way to the cruise terminal. We would not make our 2:15 check-in time, but thankfully we had until 4:00 to board.

The agent on the sidewalk at the cruise terminal was very helpful in getting our bags checked onto the ship. Then we began the boarding process. It was very organized, with lots of agents directing you into serpentine lines that moved very quickly. As we were making our way to the first line, Santo heard shouts, “Debbie! Debbie!” He looked over, and saw a woman waving from the line going into security. Santo bumped my arm, “Look!” and pointed to the woman. I looked over. “Who is it?” I said, and then in an instant realized it was Alison and Maurice! It wouldn’t be long now.

We were a bit muddled finding our cabin, but got there without too much trouble. Our bags were already waiting outside our stateroom, including the one we had had shipped from Auburn. As we were opening the door and beginning to get the bags inside, Alison and Maurice came out the door to the adjacent stateroom. Lots of hugs and smiles and the kind of euphoric feeling that comes at life’s rarest and most special moments.

The stateroom was even more lovely than we expected, with a comfortable sitting area with loveseat and coffee table, balcony with two chairs and a table, king size bed with nightstands, desk and chair, comfortable bathroom, and plenty of room to store our clothes. There was even room under the bed to store the suitcases. We were really here!

I unpacked enough to get ready for dinner. Standing on the balcony for a minute, a beautiful rainbow came into view. A lucky sign? It popped in and out, even double at one point.

Santo was still getting his stuff organized so I popped over to Alison and Maurice’s cabin. We were all a bit confused about everything, especially where to go, but we knew we would figure it out. Santo joined us, and we had a quick chat. We would meet shortly for dinner. We had a table for four for the 6 pm seating.

The Britannia dining room on Deck 2 was magnificent. Two levels, rich red carpeting, gleaming wood, polished brass, white tablecloths, and crisply uniformed waiters. A two-store bronze relief of the ship towered two floors at the center of the dining room. There was just one other table for four between us and the windows opening onto the ocean (for now, Southampton Harbor). 

We enjoyed our first four-course meal of many to come. It was so easy to talk to Alison and Maurice, as if we were with them all the time. We laughed, told stories, marveled that we were here, talked about our kids, and began to think about what we would do during our time onboard.

While we were lingering over our coffee, the waiters started trying to get us to leave so they could get ready for the next seating. Finally, a supervisor came over to advise us we needed to leave. So we just moved next door to the Chart Room to continue talking. Sitting near a window, we waited for the ship to set sail. The originally scheduled 5 pm departure had been delayed to 10 pm due to weather. Eventually, we saw that we were pulling away from the dock and gliding forward. We were underway!

Tired from the day and still not recovered, we headed to our room. We still needed to unpack before we could get into our bed. Getting everything settled away in closets, cabinets, and drawers was such a freeing feeling. No more packing or unpacking for a solid week!

I feel into the last bed of our long journey and was cradled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the ship.

It was a grand first evening.