She is a magnificent ship -- or was, when new. Actually, the Queen Mary 2 is rather well named, because she is showing her age, and badly needs her upcoming make-over.
We sailed on her from Hong Kong to Sydney. As we live in Wellington, New Zealand, we did consider the option of sailing all the way home, but time (and money) dictated otherwise.
And now we are so pleased we left the ship in Sydney, as she has had a very strange cruise since then, courtesy of Cyclone Pam.
She did make it to the Milford Sound, but then turned up the west coast, not the east, so missed her scheduled call at historic Akaroa. Instead, she moored in the Marlborough Sounds, and the passengers were shuttled to the busy little port of Picton.
After that, she was supposed to come to Wellington, but somehow she didn't make it.
As reported, she meandered, instead.
The 345-metre long ship was due into Wellington Harbour on Wednesday morning but, after a circuitous route across Cook Strait, the pilot aborted entry to the harbour at 5.10am because of a heavy swell and bad weather.
The Wellington leg of the cruise was cancelled and the ship is now heading up the North Island west coast to Auckland.
Ship tracking website Marinetraffic.com shows the roundabout route the ship took overnight.
It left the Marlborough Sounds on Tuesday night and sailed as far north as opposite Palmerston North. It then looped back to near the Wellington Harbour entrance before again heading north to the sea off Kapiti Island and then northwards.
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