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Who where Mary Mastony and Beatrice Muller?


ace2542
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I have noticed their names being mentioned in a different post today. I am just wondering who they where and who they where in terms of where the Cunard brand has been and where it is going.

 

Who where they? Did the live onboard the ships?. They seem to be well known on here so obiviously well travelled. I don't mean any offence by this next question I really don't. Where they like the real hyacinth bucket from keeping up appearances (an english sitcom if you don't know what that is). Like a hoity toity a person who very posh and proper and from high society. Where they threwbacks to the days when Cunard was prim posh and high society or at least thought it was? I mean no offence by that question I really don't

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Posted (edited)

Mary Mastony was also known as the QE2 Diva a name given to her by a wife of one of the QE2"s captains because Mary always liked to sing opera at the passenger talent shows aboard ship. Mary was also aboard the QM2 and maybe Queen Victoria. Mary passed away on June 27,2018. Beatrice Muller was known as the lady who lived aboard the QE2. In January, 2000 she and her husband boarded the QE2 for the world cruise. During this world cruise Bea's husband passed away and after his funeral Bea's sons suggested that she would be much more happier living aboard the QE2 full time than living in an old folks home. Bea agreed with her son's suggestion and sold her house in New Jersey to move aboard the QE2. She stayed aboard the QE2 from 2000 to 2008 when the QE2 was sold and taken out of service. Of course when the QE2 was placed in the drydock during this 8 year period Bea had to leave the ship. Bea was not happy when the QE2 was sold and taken out of service that she wrote an angry protest letter to Micky Arison who is the chairman of the Carnival Corporation which is the parent company that owns the Cunard Line. She was offered cabin space aboard the QM2 and Queen Victoria. Bea tried both ships but did not like either ship and turned down Cunard's offer. Beatrice Muller passed away on October 4,2013.

Edited by Cruise Liner Fan
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I occasionally met both of them, they were both friendly and pleasant to me, but the crew tended to divide into 3 groups - those who really got along with them, those who could manage about a week in their company, and those who thought it best to steer well clear. They did have their own world despite being on a mass transit vessel, and usually someone from Cunard keeping a bit of an eye on them - not sure whether they were protecting them or the other passengers or both.  There is one lady in that category on QV a lot, sometimes QM2, who I won't name to protect her privacy, and she has been known to peek into this board. But she is a much nicer character and much loved by the crew.

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I met them both on several occasions.

 

They both convinced themselves that they owned the ship. Bea could be quite brash at times, Mary quieter.

 

Just two of the world's characters.

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4 hours ago, Pushpit said:

I occasionally met both of them, they were both friendly and pleasant to me, but the crew tended to divide into 3 groups - those who really got along with them, those who could manage about a week in their company, and those who thought it best to steer well clear. They did have their own world despite being on a mass transit vessel, and usually someone from Cunard keeping a bit of an eye on them - not sure whether they were protecting them or the other passengers or both.  There is one lady in that category on QV a lot, sometimes QM2, who I won't name to protect her privacy, and she has been known to peek into this board. But she is a much nicer character and much loved by the crew.

This lady who is aboard Queen Victoria a lot and sometimes QM2, Does she know of the stories of Beatrice Muller and Mary Mastony aka the QE2 Diva?

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1 hour ago, Cruise Liner Fan said:

This lady who is aboard Queen Victoria a lot and sometimes QM2, Does she know of the stories of Beatrice Muller and Mary Mastony aka the QE2 Diva?

I feel she must do, since her travel history goes back some years, but I really don't know. I've only had brief little chats with her, and she won't know me from Adam. But I haven't heard a bad word said against her. Someone from Cunard does sort of block her preferred space in the Queens Room if she makes it known she is going to attend there, they show up extra early to hold the seats, and then slip away when she turns up, but that's not much on the diva-Richter scale is it? She doesn't go there all the time.

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Although I did not meet Bea Muller she was pointed out to me on one of the crossings of the last year QE2 was in service, 2008. 

 

Our outside cabin (they call them ocean view cabins now) had some inside cabins across from it. One day we heard sawing and hammering coming from one of them. The door was open so we had a look and said hello to the two carpenters.  My wife said: "It looks like this cabin is being rebuilt."  One of the men said this was the cabin of "the lady who lives on the ship."  She wanted the bed relocated to the other side of the cabin.  Of course cabins on older ships had furnishings that couldn't be simply moved around. So it was a big deal. 

 

Later I was chatting with the Hotel Manager (who was a friend of my travel agent) and I asked him if there were any other permanent guests on board. He confirmed it was Mrs Muller. Apparently no-one dared to ask her why she wanted her cabin re-organised when there were only about six months left before the QE2's retirement.  

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32 minutes ago, david,Mississauga said:

Although I did not meet Bea Muller she was pointed out to me on one of the crossings of the last year QE2 was in service, 2008. 

 

Our outside cabin (they call them ocean view cabins now) had some inside cabins across from it. One day we heard sawing and hammering coming from one of them. The door was open so we had a look and said hello to the two carpenters.  My wife said: "It looks like this cabin is being rebuilt."  One of the men said this was the cabin of "the lady who lives on the ship."  She wanted the bed relocated to the other side of the cabin.  Of course cabins on older ships had furnishings that couldn't be simply moved around. So it was a big deal. 

 

Later I was chatting with the Hotel Manager (who was a friend of my travel agent) and I asked him if there were any other permanent guests on board. He confirmed it was Mrs Muller. Apparently no-one dared to ask her why she wanted her cabin re-organised when there were only about six months left before the QE2's retirement.  

It looks like Beatrice Muller was such a headache to these ship's carpenters to demand that the furniture to be re-arranged with only 6 months left til the QE2 leaves service.

 

 

 

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I've known folk that like to move furniture around periodically because they get bored.

 

I prefer to figure out the optimum layout then leave things like that for ever, or until habits change to such an extent that a different layout works better.

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My husband met Bea Muller on our first cruise (2006). He is a bridge player and she was truly 'Queen Bea' of the sessions. It sounded as if she didn't tolerate fools (or anyone she considered to be one) gladly!

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1 hour ago, Slugsta said:

My husband met Bea Muller on our first cruise (2006). He is a bridge player and she was truly 'Queen Bea' of the sessions. It sounded as if she didn't tolerate fools (or anyone she considered to be one) gladly!


I have heard she was at her worst with bridge, but nice to babies. Either way, it is not good to have treated the crew as if they were her servants.

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1 hour ago, exlondoner said:


I have heard she was at her worst with bridge, but nice to babies. Either way, it is not good to have treated the crew as if they were her servants.

So I guess it is ok to think that Bea let her status of being the resident of the QE2 go to her head that she thought that she was the Queen of the QE2. Maybe if and when Cunard builds another ship and Cunard can not think of any new names for this new ship, Cunard could name this new ship Queen Bea or actually Queen Beatrice. This suggestion of mine is just a joke but does anyone know if the UK ever had a Queen Beatrice? Remember that I'm just an American who does not know much UK history. 

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Posted (edited)

There was a recent Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, she abdicated in 2013 so she reverted back to Princess Beatrix. She is related to the UK royal family.

 

We have a Princess Beatrice, daughter of Prince Andrew, she is 9th in line to the throne.  There have been other princesses of the same name, notably Queen Victoria's final and favourite child, who died in 1944. I think she was the last member of the Royal Family whose native tongue was, like Victoria, German.

Edited by Pushpit
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11 minutes ago, Pushpit said:

There was a recent Queen Beatrix, she abdicated in 2013 so she reverted back to Princess Beatrix. She is related to the UK royal family.

 

We have a Princess Beatrice, daughter of Prince Andrew, she is 9th in line to the throne.  There have been other princesses of the same name, notably Queen Victoria's final and favourite child, who died in 1944. I think she was the last member of the Royal Family whose native tongue was, like Victoria, German.

Thank You for the information

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1 hour ago, Pushpit said:

There was a recent Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, she abdicated in 2013 so she reverted back to Princess Beatrix. She is related to the UK royal family.

 

We have a Princess Beatrice, daughter of Prince Andrew, she is 9th in line to the throne.  There have been other princesses of the same name, notably Queen Victoria's final and favourite child, who died in 1944. I think she was the last member of the Royal Family whose native tongue was, like Victoria, German.

Even this American knows why the House of Hanover changed names to Windsor…even though we still have Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. 

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Dr Fred Blanchard is currently  living permanently onboard the Queen Victoria. He moved over from the Queen Elizabeth a couple of years ago and intends on staying onboard "until the money runs out or they take him off in a box" as quoted to me a couple of years ago. He's a very interesting guy, ex-engineer who moved onboard when his wife died and he didn't want to give up travelling. He's very approachable and always good for a laugh over a drink.

 

Mary was a treat, she used to sing at the passengers talent contests dressed in an old worn wedding dress and at the end of the aria she would have crew throw plastic red flowers at her from the floor. Her talent at singing was .....questionable. Mary  traded very much on her title of "the Qe2 Diva" and wrote several books under the pseudonym. They used to carry them in the bookshop but not more recently which is a shame as they were a real "Hoot".

 

Bea was another old character, and everyone seemed to have a different experience with her.

 

I interviewed them both and wrote an article for a magazine about them a couple of years ago,

https://roscoesseafever.blogspot.com/2014/08/around-world-with-diva.html

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7 hours ago, NE John said:

Even this American knows why the House of Hanover changed names to Windsor…even though we still have Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. 

And off Oxford Street in London.

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7 hours ago, roscoe39 said:

Dr Fred Blanchard is currently  living permanently onboard the Queen Victoria. He moved over from the Queen Elizabeth a couple of years ago and intends on staying onboard "until the money runs out or they take him off in a box" as quoted to me a couple of years ago. He's a very interesting guy, ex-engineer who moved onboard when his wife died and he didn't want to give up travelling. He's very approachable and always good for a laugh over a drink.

 

Mary was a treat, she used to sing at the passengers talent contests dressed in an old worn wedding dress and at the end of the aria she would have crew throw plastic red flowers at her from the floor. Her talent at singing was .....questionable. Mary  traded very much on her title of "the Qe2 Diva" and wrote several books under the pseudonym. They used to carry them in the bookshop but not more recently which is a shame as they were a real "Hoot".

 

Bea was another old character, and everyone seemed to have a different experience with her.

 

I interviewed them both and wrote an article for a magazine about them a couple of years ago,

https://roscoesseafever.blogspot.com/2014/08/around-world-with-diva.html

Roscoe39, Thank you for the link to your magazine article. It was an interesting read. And I hope that Dr. Fred Blanchard enjoys his forever home aboard Queen Victoria. And if there are any other unknown persons living permanently aboard any of the 4 Cunard Queens I wish only best wishes for them also.

 

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I read that there was a gentlemen living on a Royal Caribbean ship. He was quite celebrity on the ship. I think he had tshirts and caps advertising his residency. As there ships tend to repeat the same itinerary I would have thought it would be a bit boring. Monday so Cozumel again. 
 

We could mention the World and possibly Vie Villa. Passengers have moved luggage on the latter but cannot sleep on the ship or sail anywhere of course the World has been around for years. An ex Cunard QE2 cruise director was involved. I am not sure if he still is. 

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Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, stephen@stoneyard.co.uk said:

I read that there was a gentlemen living on a Royal Caribbean ship. He was quite celebrity on the ship. I think he had tshirts and caps advertising his residency. As there ships tend to repeat the same itinerary I would have thought it would be a bit boring. Monday so Cozumel again

On Royal they call him Super Mario. He is the most travelled passenger on Royal and maybe even the most travelled person on any cruise line. He has been onboard since 2000 he runs some kind of consulting/accounting business from onboard to pay for his travel as he is not super rich like the  long term Cunard people might be . He has a roped off area on the pool deck with a little sign saying Mario's office. It is Royal who have a made a celeb of him and he chose Royal because of the speed of the wifi on the ship.

Edited by ace2542
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23 hours ago, Cruise Liner Fan said:

Roscoe39, Thank you for the link to your magazine article. It was an interesting read. And I hope that Dr. Fred Blanchard enjoys his forever home aboard Queen Victoria. And if there are any other unknown persons living permanently aboard any of the 4 Cunard Queens I wish only best wishes for them also.

 

Not sure about full time but there is a guy who spends at least 6 months a year on QM2 and teaches a course about the proper way to tie a bow tie. He was there a couple of years ago at least

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On 8/18/2024 at 4:38 AM, roscoe39 said:

I interviewed them both and wrote an article for a magazine about them a couple of years ago

nemesis? That's a powerful word to throw about. Why was Bea Mary's "nemesis"? The article does not say that much

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Posted (edited)

Just last night I did find this book I bought aboard the QM2 in June of 2009 when I did a NY-Southampton-NY round trip transatlantic crossing. It is during this crossing that I did buy this book titled "Bravo Diva of the QE2" It is written by Mary Mastony aka the QE2 Diva and book was about the QE2 Diva aboard the QE2 doing the 2003 World Cruise. On the Special Tributes page she does thank the QE2 Captains Ronald Warwick and Paul Wright, Hotel Manager John Duffy, Cruise Director Trevor Stephenson and Cruise Hostess Elaine MacKay. There is even special tributes to the passengers and one of the passengers she does mention is Beatrice Muller. Mary Mastony was aboard the QM2 for this crossing and she did sign my copy of her book. And when she did sing opera at the passenger talent show aboard the QM2 during this crossing while yes her voice may not been able to carry a tune because she was older and her vocal chords just did not have it anymore, the passengers still respected her act and applauded her at the end of her act. Does anyone know if the Mary Mastony aka the QE2 Diva did any World Cruises aboard the QM2, Queen Victoria or the current Queen Elizabeth after the QE2 was retired in 2008?

Edited by Cruise Liner Fan
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Following this thread made me rush to a 2nd hand bookseller online nd ourchased QE2 Diva for less than £4 including postage.  

When I opened the cover today a label affixed inside saying “QE2 Library” so Im feeling very smug and pleased with myself now.

 

Will be my Bank Holiday reading material

 

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