Being on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic gives you plenty of time to think. To keep your mind of unpleasantries like “Just how far is it to the bottom of the ocean?”, “How fast are we killing the planet?” and “Who are all these rich people?”, I guess you’re supposed to attend scarf-tying classes and all the other activities.

Instead, I slept a lot and read all the literature they gave us. Here’s what I know now. (Photos from Peter; see them all here.)

1) It’s an ocean liner, not a cruise ship. Flimsy little cruise ships are too feeble to even get anywhere if they’re in serious swells.

Each day at noon, the commodore came on the intercom for announcements, just like in school. Unlike in school, I could listen from the comfort of my own bed. Which I often did, and dozed off again when he handed the mike to the German announcer.

On Day 3, when the ocean was quite rough, with serious pitching such that every 10 seconds or so you felt like you were on one of those free-fall rides at the fair, the commodore came on the intercom to say cheerily, “This is real ocean weather for a real ocean liner–something to savor.” I think I will savor that phrase forever.

2) It’s a crossing, not a cruise. Actually, I knew this already from the literature, but it was surprising how many people (ie, lots) had done cruises before. Also, it’s still ridiculous to me that straight people use this as a verb so innocently. I managed not to snicker whenever someone said, “Yes, we’ve cruised quite a bit,” while patting his wife on the knee, but it was difficult.

3) I’m not old, but I’m not young. Peter went to crash the “young adults” get-together, for people 30 and under, in the G32 disco, but by the time he got there, everyone was over 60, as they were everywhere else on board. This wasn’t terrible, but also not very invigorating.

Peter and I got to be on nodding terms with the only other person in our age bracket, a solo girl of about 30, who read a lot and stared moodily out to sea. Also, apparently this guy was around, but I’m not certain we ever saw him.

4) Singalongs are fun. They’re overdue for a comeback. On Day 3, the day of real ocean weather, we happened across a mob assembled for “Groovy Choir,” even descending the two main curving staircases, like a Broadway musical. We sang a bunch of 80s songs, and “Waltzing Matilda,” while swaying with the ship. At one point, someone was doing a disco move in the glass elevator as it went up the atrium.

(Corollary wisdom: Karaoke isn’t as much fun outside of Asia. Or Peter and I need to work on our act. “King of the Road” isn’t a natural duet, really.)

5) Jonathan Franzen is overrated. I checked out Freedom from the surprisingly good ship’s library, and I’m still irritated that I wasted three perfectly good reading days on it.

6) I was tricked into going to a resort! On Day 6, it came to me: Duh–the QM2 is just an all-inclusive on the water.

But the fact that it took me that long to realize why the whole dynamic felt familiar (buffet lines, activities, karaoke every night, etc.) is pretty good testament to how well the QM2 manages to preserve the lingering romance of the trans-Atlantic crossing. And even if you’re just eating a hot dog for lunch, at least you’re sitting out in the salt air and seeing nothing but horizon all around.

7) The Titanic wasn’t a disaster. On airplanes, they take care never to remind you that planes can crash. But on the QM2, you can have your portrait taken in front of a Titanic-interior backdrop. The Titanic sinking spot is marked on a map on Deck 8, and the commodore announces when you’re passing it. And, the commodore later told me, the movie Titanic actually caused a spike in demand for trans-Atlantic crossings, and motivated the building of the QM2.

8 ) Americans are over-eaters, but I owe them. I read in the Cunard literature that the buffet-style service (as opposed to formal table seating) was added, following demands from Americans. But the buffet was the only place you could eat at night without dressing up in formalwear, and I had seriously underpacked in this respect. And the buffet wasn’t a disgusting explosion of gluttony–it was actually quite tame, with only a few options each night.

Plus, if we’d had to eat sit-down fancy food every night, I think we would’ve been ill. Even with the best of intentions, dinner for 600 in one seating is going to be all wrong. Imagine a whole week of wedding food.

Due to our preferences for comfortable shoes and green salad, we basically abandoned our assigned table-mates in the formal dining room. One night midway along, we peeked in and saw the four of them sitting there. Oops–we’d assumed everyone would go their separate ways.

So when we ran into both couples very near the end, we felt a little sheepish. We had a nice talk with one set, a just-retired couple from Long Island who were off to Paris for a week. But then we spotted the other couple in the G32 disco, and, well, you haven’t been snubbed until you’ve been snubbed by a 50somethng gay man in a navy-blue club jacket.

9) The commodore is the captain. I went most of the week thinking he was some flunkie, assigned to doing the daily announcements and glad-handing us all at a cocktail party on Day 2. But then we got invited to dine with him. Peter wasn’t quite as clueless as I was about the commodore’s rank, and had slipped him a copy of his book at the cocktail party.

The commodore was thoroughly charming, especially considering he has to spend most of his time making announcements and chatting with people at dinner every night. (His wife, I noticed, was showing a little luxury-lifestyle fatigue, as she had strawberries for dessert instead of baked Alaska.)

The other people at the commodore’s table that night were

• a couple of vintage-car collectors from Australia, fresh from the show at Pebble Beach;
• the Lessers, a frequent-cruising couple with Diamond status on Cunard, the man of which introduced himself as “the evil of two Lessers”; and
• world-champion ballroom dancers, recently wed.

On the cocktail party night, the commodore made a very nice speech about how we were carrying on a grand tradition of travel, there in the ballroom in our fabulous formalwear. (Well, mine was from the Salvation Army, and might’ve counted as formal only in 1974.)

And the history is certainly the thing that makes the QM2 not a soul-killing cruise that induces David Foster Wallace-style alienation and despair. Plus, the decor is all Art Deco-ish, and genuinely classy.

So how about some jazz bands and phosphates and sleeve garters? There was only one man aboard who was sporting mustache wax, and that is just a tragedy. And I want to see the return of the bouillon cart I read about on one of the history panels all over the ship. This was an afternoon service for everyone bundled up in blankets on their deck chairs–loads better than tea. What the heck, throw in some con artists and flimflam men too.

Other ideas? I have a direct line to the commodore.