We’re always looking for reason — some might say excuse — to go to New York. Isn’t everyone? One slipped into our email box this week from Cunard. It’s the Royal Reunion.
This isn’t Cunard’s first such assembly of its ships, but it’s the first one to include the Queen Elizabeth, the new ship (below) that gets doused in champagne in October on the other side of the Atlantic. 
So on the 13th of January there will be three Queens in New York, and if you want to go somewhere else with that thought, be our guest. Four Queens, actually, if you include the borough. The three on the water are called Elizabeth, Mary 2 and Victoria.
Cunard did this three years ago, the first time in the company’s now-170-year history that its three regal ships met in the same port (Queen Elizabeth 2 later retired to Dubai). It gave New Yorkers a chance to see sailing royalty from four prime locations: Battery Park, Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, The Esplanade and Hudson River Park — free. And those who could withstand the elements of a January evening were able to enjoy a fireworks display when the ships left for their various destinations…as much as you can enjoy fireworks in the middle of January.
There will be fireworks at the Statue of Liberty, just like the last time, so if you’re planning to be in the area the place to check is The Royal Rendezvous website.
Exactly when the ships will be coming and going is unknown. The Queen Elizabeth will be on the first leg of its 103-day inaugural World Voyage (day 9). The Queen Victoria (right), leaving Southampton the same day as the QE and presumably sailing alongside its sibling (nerves and all), will also be heading south, through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles. The ships are scheduled to sail the Canal a day apart.
As for the Queen Mary 2 (below), the ship with the largest capacity, it will be returning from an 11-day round-tripper to the Caribbean.
Add it up and, on that Thursday, sailing in New York Harbor will be 8,712 Cunard passengers, and thousands more on the shore who wish they were.