Archive through January 2009

[Jim Kalafus]

It's very frumpy looking now. Or...welll...it looks like the room where brunch gets served in the better class of retirement home. The sort with a name such as The Elms At Shaker Heights. Or, Colonial Corner At Lexington.

The room, as it used to be, was an expanded version of one of the better night spots on the QE2. And, was one of only a few rooms we did not snicker at upon entering.

The question arises, why START there?

Has the understated elegance of the Winter Garden been tampered with?

Where one can while away the hours in a setting that perfectly captures the style and ambience of the antechamber between the lobby and the Steak 'n' Stein at the Fort Lauderdale 1978 motel of choice...

AND, the Grande Descent leading down from the grill class restaurants. Has the daring combination of yello Formica, yello dalmation-print carpet, and artwork which pays homage to the produce department wall graphics in ca 1995 ShopRite stores, been peeled away and replaced?

Or the Harlequin painting, which whispers of sophistication and refined good taste?

Or...the panda and bamboo...uhhh...."artwork" off the atrium?

So much else on the ship was WORSE.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

*groan*

A new addition....

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2936060770067848439psCNpa

...homage to freshman year at art school. But, judging from the dimensions, this MIGHT have replaced the birds in the Winter Garden.

 

[Joe Russo]

Maybe the designer of the Winter Garden was a fan of The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. Animate those birds and they could charge admission.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

>Animate those birds and they could charge admission.

Joe, when you were aboard, did they still have the synthetic bird calls or had that concept been eliminated by then?

Another favorite what-were-they-thinking moment:

It cries out for ca 1967 Tina Louise, reclining seductively, in Harem Pants. It NEEDS Joey Heatherton, 1968, in a see-thru Teddy, kneeling on it and sucking a strand of pearls. It was created expressly for the purpose of ca 1971 Lola Falana to crouch on it in a leopardskin sheath while snarling like a tiger.

...in short, its a room that needs drag queens in order to work.

Odd that the one room abord the ship that was not a stylistic mishmash or just-plain-weird has been done over as a stylistic mishmash. But, at least now the ship has a consistent level of mediocrity....

 

[Joe Russo]

>did they still have the synthetic bird calls or had that concept been eliminated by then?

I never stopped in the WG. I think I was probably afraid that the loud pastels would make me seasick instead of the rolling motion of the ship

 

[Joe Russo]

>>Another favorite what-were-they-thinking moment

I thought it looked like the inside of Jeannie's bottle on I Dream of Jeannie. I kept looking for Barbara Eden behind one of those throw pillows.

 

[Joe Russo]

here is their inspiration for Todd English...

http://www.sitemouse.com/users/genie/bottle.shtml

 

[Jim Kalafus]

Jeannie's bottle. The boudoir of a seductress in a Matt Helm film. High end bordello, 1968. Take your pick....the end result was neither 'playful' nor 'post-Modernist ironic.' It would have been both, had the rest of the interior been....coherent.... but in the jumble of kitsch with small interludes of actual style that is the QM2, this little bit of Johnson-era Vegas Whorehouse is denied the opportunity to be camp. It fits in with the rest of the decor. And that's a really sad commentary.

 

[Jerry Nuovo]

Jeannie's bottle,Oh my god what a laugh.And I do agree that the I Dream of Jeannie inspired decor in the entrance room of the Todd English restaurant aboard QM2 really has to go.But if Cunard insists in keeping it then they might as well go all the way and add a few women who look like Barbara Eden and dress them up in Jeannie outfits that includes those silly harem pants and have them dance to 1960s pop music like "Dance to the Music" by Sly and the Family Stone.And then that room can be called "Jeannie A Go-Go".LOL.Regards,Jerry

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Another favorite what-were-they-thinking moment:<<

More like "What were they smoking?" The hell of it is that whomever it was that came up with this decor will probably win some sort of award.

 

[John Clifford]

The ironic thing about the QM2 Winter Garden is that it can be the ideal location to go to, either during, or right after, breakfast and lunch service on the Deck 7 Kings Court, especially on the starboard side.

I usually did that to enjoy one last cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice; also could sit there to write postcards and letters if it was too windy to go out on deck.

What rankled me, too, was the fact that they had to keep having the art auctions there in the late mornings and early afternoons; did not endear it as a social spot.

BTW, Jim, in addition to Barbara Eden's Jeannie outfits, one might also consider the semi-seductive outfit worn by Mariette Hartley in the 1969 episode of STAR TREK, called "All Our Yesterdays"; that was the one where Spock and McCoy end up in the ice age period of the planet that is about to be destroyed by its star's supernova, when Spock realized he was in a time when Vulcans were savage, and he fell in love with Mariette Hartley's character.
Like Barbara Eden in "Jeannie", Mariette Hartley was, also, not allowed to show her navel, due to network censors' issues.

Sorry, Jim, if this brings up more repressed memories.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

Believe it or not, John, I've never seen a Star Trek episode. Come to think of it, I can only recall seeing one or two clips over the last 42 years. Lost in Space was more my speed...

Hmmm... the art auction is one of those things, like buying a store warrantee on merchandise that already comes with one from the manufacturer, that I just don't understand. The quality of the...artwork...is generally horrific, and most of it is the mass produced stuff you can buy in malls. Yet...people attend. And overpay.

Once, on the Norway, a very elegant French woman and I refused to surrender our seats (she went first~ I only took her cue) on the VERY valid point that as paying customers why SHOULD we move for a shill concessionaire? The situation...deteriorated...rather quickly.

Back the Winter Garden. It's gross, but so too is King's Court. (And...WHAT KING? England doesn't have a King.) That entire complex should be torn out, and reconfigured so that...well...it runs port to starboard rather than bow to stern. As it is, at its best it has all the charm of eating in an airport seating area with crowds constantly passing by, and at worst it is like grabbing a snack in a bus station corridor.

Have you noticed that with the QM2 they have taken a massively large ship and done the impossible- made large sections of it cluttered and constructed? King's Court is the worst...an ugly clusterf*ck of an area...but the two lounge decks, as well, are very partitioned off and have more of a 'warren' feeling than one of intimacy.

 

[Tom Roesser]

Interestingly, the brightly painted parrots have been absent from the Winter Garden for years. They were stripped during the ship's first drydocking in 2005.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

Eew. The spectral parrots are even weirder. The effect is rather like Wedgewood being commissioned to create a relief for the Tiki Room. Having never progressed any further forward on that deck than the entrance to the Princess Grill since January 2004, I never got the chance to see this bit of tweaking.

 

[Joe Russo]

>>They were stripped during the ship's first drydocking in 2005<<

Odd that they would go through the trouble to strip the loud colors, but then leave that tacky artificial agapanthus in that "planter." They also left that "rain" falling in front of the mural.


>>Having never progressed any further forward on that deck than the entrance to the Princess Grill since January 2004<<

I avoided it too. I think it's like kryptonite for guys like us.