7 nights at sea aboard the last grand ocean liner
The Queen Mary 2 keeps a romantic age of transatlantic sailing alive.
By Christine Mi, November 3, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EST, Yesterday at 5:00 a.m. EST, 10 min
Mi wrote and illustrated this comic after spending seven nights aboard the Queen Mary 2.
This summer, I made a voyage from New York to England in the only remaining passenger ship of its kind: the Queen Mary 2.
Cunard’s flagship promises to be exceptional. The luxury cruise line’s website lavishes the vessel with praise: “sumptuous,” “legendary,” “astonishing.” YouTube is full of breathless videos about its glamour and romance, hearkening to the golden days of ocean travel.
It’s technically an ocean liner, not a cruise ship — which is how I rationalized the $2,000 ticket.
For centuries, the transatlantic passage was life-changing for millions of travelers — including the immigrants and enslaved people who made the perilous journey. By the 19th century, it had become fairly reliable thanks to steam engines, which quickly ushered in an era of ocean liners, each grander than the last. But the ocean was still vast and willful, and each crossing felt like a small victory against an ancient, behemoth force.
I found myself seduced by the idea. I was going to sail more than 3,000 miles to a new continent and experience the true immensity of the act. I felt ready — I had already crossed America by train.
This was going to be inspiring, profound. Like the Titanic, I was destined for greatness at sea.
About 30 hours later, stuffed with buffet food, seated heavily in plush velvet chairs and watching lithe dancers performing “Be Our Guest” in tight spandex and even tighter smiles, I already found my spirit flagging.
A luxury liner designed to entertain thousands of passengers is nothing like an intimate train car on an aging rail system. It’s designed to be, well, a cruise — with the peculiar kind of dull, aching restlessness that accompanies a life stripped of all friction and responsibility.
So, for seven days, unmoored in the high seas, I slowly lost my mind.
On a searing July day, I took a car about 10 minutes from my apartment to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. In spectacularly unsexy fashion, I fell victim to an online U.K. visa scam while in line to board, and I missed all the grand welcomes while trying to sort out my hiccup.
By the time I was done dealing with my credit card company, we had started pulling away. I watched the Statue of Liberty disappear into the distance.
The Queen Mary 2 is indeed special: It is the largest ocean liner ever built and the most expensive. It weighs three times what Titanic did and cost nearly $1 billion to build. It has four stabilizers (each weighing 70 tons), four diesel engines and two marine gas turbines, which allow it to cross the Atlantic Ocean about 20 times a year, often through stormy winter swells and rough seas.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Comic: Crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 – Washington Post
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