Well I have had a thoroughly fun, thoroughly Pasadena-ish and thoroughly Cunard-ish New Years so far. Sorry I have not blogged about it yet, but as I am sure you, my dear readers, can understand, I have been quite busy!Picture at right is from Rambling of a ShipGeek's flickr account. ramblingshipgeek
Any who, late as it is I wish all of you a happy and prosperous 2011 and I hope you had a great New Years holiday! May this year be full of cruises and ships for all of you!
My 2011 started off great, also most importantly to this blog and to anyone reading this, my New Years has been very Cunard-ish like I said. First of all, there was the Rose Parade. For those of you who did not see the Rose Parade in person, or at least on TV, you missed out because it was beautiful! The marching bands were all great, the horses were cool, and all the floats were b
eautiful (remember that in the Rose Parade, every square inch of visible surface on the float must be covered with some kind of plant material) and of course one float in particular stood out as the most beautiful...CUNARD’S FLOAT!!!
Unfortunately during the parade, the float went by rather fast and I didn’t get to see as much of it, in action, as I had hoped. However I saw enough and let me tell you, it was nice. The Float had won the ‘Queen’s Trophy’ for the best use of Roses (there were a ton of them) and onboard had many people waving and dancing to a live band playing Big Band music, as well as Cunard Bell Boys walking along side the float. From front to back, it had a black and white bow (decorated with different kinds of seed to replicated Cunards livery) flanked by dolphins, made from silver leaf, jumping out of an ocean of blue and white flowers. After that there was a lounge space with bottles of champagne, a ball room with dancers, and a stained glass ceiling with a giant chandelier, a live band and then a grand staircase with a large golden globe and a floral graph depicting the three Cunard Queens. All that remained after that was an area with the Iconic Cunard funnel (which was giving off smoke) and 2 levels of out door deck space. It was beautiful and despite the fact that it went by too fast, I did get a video and some pictures. Both of which can be seen on Ramblings of a Ship-Geek’s Youtube channel and soon, it’s Flickr account!
Any who, late as it is I wish all of you a happy and prosperous 2011 and I hope you had a great New Years holiday! May this year be full of cruises and ships for all of you!
My 2011 started off great, also most importantly to this blog and to anyone reading this, my New Years has been very Cunard-ish like I said. First of all, there was the Rose Parade. For those of you who did not see the Rose Parade in person, or at least on TV, you missed out because it was beautiful! The marching bands were all great, the horses were cool, and all the floats were b
eautiful (remember that in the Rose Parade, every square inch of visible surface on the float must be covered with some kind of plant material) and of course one float in particular stood out as the most beautiful...CUNARD’S FLOAT!!!Unfortunately during the parade, the float went by rather fast and I didn’t get to see as much of it, in action, as I had hoped. However I saw enough and let me tell you, it was nice. The Float had won the ‘Queen’s Trophy’ for the best use of Roses (there were a ton of them) and onboard had many people waving and dancing to a live band playing Big Band music, as well as Cunard Bell Boys walking along side the float. From front to back, it had a black and white bow (decorated with different kinds of seed to replicated Cunards livery) flanked by dolphins, made from silver leaf, jumping out of an ocean of blue and white flowers. After that there was a lounge space with bottles of champagne, a ball room with dancers, and a stained glass ceiling with a giant chandelier, a live band and then a grand staircase with a large golden globe and a floral graph depicting the three Cunard Queens. All that remained after that was an area with the Iconic Cunard funnel (which was giving off smoke) and 2 levels of out door deck space. It was beautiful and despite the fact that it went by too fast, I did get a video and some pictures. Both of which can be seen on Ramblings of a Ship-Geek’s Youtube channel and soon, it’s Flickr account!
From Rambling of a ShipGeek's youtube account...
My experience with this float did not end there though, for the very next day I spent ten dollars and did a ton of walking up hill and in the rain (ok no rain…yet) just so I could go to the float viewing and take almost 100 pictures (which are now available to view on our Flickr page) of the float. I also took pictures of the other floats just in case you readers are interested (they will be available on Flickr soon).
After that I expected my story with the float would end, and that I would probably not see it again….But I did!
First some back story…every year a couple of days after the Rose Parade (usually on the second) the floats are taken back to the ‘float barns’ where they were built and decorated. When this happens some of the floats pass down the street in front of our house on their way to one of these barns (so its like we get our own personal Rose Parade right outside our door!). Well this year after the floats passed, my cousin, a friend and I, decided to follow the floats in a car and pick up and flowers that were dropped along the way. Our flower scavenging lead us to one of the barns, the so called ‘Rose Palace’, where we discovered that if you asked nicely they would let you come in and pick what ever you wanted off the floats. We came back home with the motherlode!
After that I expected my story with the float would end, and that I would probably not see it again….But I did!
First some back story…every year a couple of days after the Rose Parade (usually on the second) the floats are taken back to the ‘float barns’ where they were built and decorated. When this happens some of the floats pass down the street in front of our house on their way to one of these barns (so its like we get our own personal Rose Parade right outside our door!). Well this year after the floats passed, my cousin, a friend and I, decided to follow the floats in a car and pick up and flowers that were dropped along the way. Our flower scavenging lead us to one of the barns, the so called ‘Rose Palace’, where we discovered that if you asked nicely they would let you come in and pick what ever you wanted off the floats. We came back home with the motherlode!
With our flower hunting success we decided to go out early the next morning and ask for more flowers. Well next morning comes and as we are standing in front of the Rose Palace we chicken out and decided to go to another float barn in a city called, Irwindale. I am glad we did!....I had a date with destiny.
When we got there we stood outside for about 10 minutes trying to work up the courage to ask if we could go in and look, and pick flowers. Eventually we did and I think you can all guess what float I made a beeline to...yup, the Cunard float! We ended up picking tons of flower from the float and then tons more from the other…a ton a flowers which are now all over the place in my house! I was really hoping that I could take something with the Cunard logo on it but I had to settle for just flowers. Oh well..at least they were Cunard flowers! We were there for about an hour picking flowers and by the time we left my car was full of them.
This is where I finally said goodbye to the Cunard float. But the story of Cunard and me is not over, oh no, it will go on forever until the stars turn cold! I look forward to next years Rose Parade with the hope that Cunard will continue participating in it. But for the immediate future I am looking forward to 2011, QV and QE (Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth) being here in Los Angeles in just a few weeks (LET ME VISIT THEM CUNARD!!! PLEASE!!!...pretty please?), my first cruise, which I am determined to do this year and a great year for this blog to grow even more!
I hope you all have a great 2011 and I hope you continue to read and enjoy this simple blog!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
They had a great float this year! I'm hoping to see them back again in next year's Rose Parade. Happy New Year!
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