Jaunted

Do you know how hard it is to take photos of fireworks and moving ships at a distance, in the night, in freezing wind? Very hard, indeed. Regardless, the fireworks rivaled many of the city's Fourth of July displays—the display was huge and seemingly went on forever as the three ships floated by the Statue of Liberty.

One of our favorite things when we spot ships is to figure out where they're heading, and so we did. The Queen Mary 2 (first ship out of the harbor) is due next in Fort Lauderdale, as the second stop of a round-the-world cruise including other stops in places like Montevideo, Uruguay and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The Queen Victoria (second ship out) is also heading to Fort Lauderdale, just before she transits the Panama Canal on her way to Los Angeles. And finally, the last ship out of the harbor and the newest to the fleet, the Queen Elizabeth is heading to her third port of her first World Cruise (after Southampton and NYC, of course). She's down to Fort Lauderdale too (!!), before hitting some Caribbean, doing the Panama Canal and heading around to such exotic locales as Pago Pago in American Samoa and Salalah, Oman.

[All photos and video: Cynthia Drescher for Jaunted]