Goodbye QE.2

[B_Artful Dodger]

Today marks the end of the era of the Great Liners. These have included the SS. Normandie, Europa, United States, Leviathan, Imperator, RMS. Queen Mary and Elizabeth, Lusitania, Mauretania, Aquitania, Olympic, Britannic and Titanic.

RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, last of the breed, set out on her last voyage today.
In her more than 40 years afloat she has carried more than 2.5 million passengers, circumnavigeted the globe a full 25 times, crossed the Atlantic 801 times and survived conscription as a troop carrier in the Falklands War.

A sad day for nautical fans :frown1:

 

[D_Jared Padalicki]

It is tragic, those ships were the first things that connected us with other worlds, other cultures, they are legends. Also a lot of ships are well known of the tragedies that happend with them. It's the end of the era, old isn't good enough now, it has to be new and bigger and more luxurious, but isn't it to luxurious. Isn't the old glamour more luxury to share. We shall miss those liners and keep them in mind.
There goed my dream to travel with one of those liners in the future.

 

[Xcuze]

Hey Arty, was Jane MacDonald booked on that final cruise?

She damn well should be!

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I loved the QE2. It used to be one of my clients. I used to take care of their horticulture on board and went on several times a yr. Oh the memories of that ship!

 

[deleted3782]

Damn, we could have done an LPSG cruise...

 

[2322]

The liners were special. They weren't cruise ships at all. They were built for one thing and that's speed. For over 100 years, liners plied the Atlantic and it wasn't until trans-Atlantic air travel became regular and practical in the early 1960s, that the liners began their steady decline.

The truth is, much like Titanic herself, the romance was more wonderful than the experience. A liner was built less for pleasure than for getting you where you're going quickly. Liners were necessarily narrow and therefore more cramped than today's cruise ships. They were strictly divided into classes, and amenities were relatively few as the days at sea were relatively short. The QE2 was the last of her kind because the market for what she provided has dwindled over the years. At the start, she was a liner, later becoming a cruiser, and yes, a troopship. Extensive refits tried to improve and modernize her facilities and accommodations for the cruising market, but in the end, there was only so much Cunard could do. Her age, her hull shape and deck layouts, had been surpassed by every other major cruise ship afloat and leisure travelers, now the biggest voyaging market, voted with their wallets. While QE2 was always regal and a symbol of British sea power and prestige, being the inheritor of the White Star tradition, she was fighting a losing battle. At 41, she's had a good life and I agree it's time to wish her well as she sails into the sunset.

To replace her, a new Queen Elizabeth is being built in Italy. She will be 92,000 tons at launch and be able to carry 2,000 passengers in the most modern and luxurious accommodations to be found.

So the torch isn't being extinguished, so much as passed to the next generation Queen Elizabeth.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

One of the things loved most about the QE2, and yeah it's just a detail, is the rugs had a great retro pattern.

 

[kalipygian]

Slightly surprised to learn from the Wiki article that the the RMS QE2 is not named for Queen Elizabeth II, but is instead the second Cunard ship to be named for the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. I was told by a friend who crossed the Atlantic in her, that she was not really luxurious, a lot of 60's plastic.

Cunard is also still operating the RMS Queen Mary 2.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Quite honestly I was surprised when I first boarded the QE2 that it wasn't majestic, but perhaps it was in it's time. But it was ENORMOUS. It had a full size movie theatre, a casino, a shopping MALL, numerooous dining rooms and ballrooms. It literally took forever to walk from one end to the other. The top of the line dining room was very nice but yes it was all a bt dated and hence the probablr reason for a new one. Either way it was glorious to be on it. Such expanses from the decks. From land it didn't look that large but when you were on it you felt in another country. You really got a sense of it's size when aboard! Again the carpets i liked ..lol....The passengers did a REAL number on the plants...but hey that's what we were there for.

 

[kalipygian]

Quite honestly I was surprised when I first boarded the QE2 that it wasn't majestic, but perhaps it was in it's time. But it was ENORMOUS. It had a full size movie theatre, a casino, a shopping MALL, numerooous dining rooms and ballrooms. It literally took forever to walk from one end to the other. The top of the line dining room was very nice but yes it was all a bt dated and hence the probablr reason for a new one. Either way it was glorious to be on it. Such expanses from the decks. From land it didn't look that large but when you were on it you felt in another country. You really got a sense of it's size when aboard! Again the carpets i liked ..lol....The passengers did a REAL number on the plants...but hey that's what we were there for.

It is smaller than it's predecessors, which would not fit through the Panama canal, or new cruise ships. Cunard was trying to keep operating costs down, and didn't know if it would pay for itself, in the late 60's.

Sixties design is maybe more appreciated by someone who didn't live through it, and meets it in art history class.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

Well all I can say is you'd have to have seen it. The place had all these elevator banks and stairways and I literally got lost on that ship many, many times. There were certain details that attracted me because I'm a 50's lover and if they had been 60s details they were very 50's. Every decade has a layover in design....I just loved that ship tho...........for so many reasons.....

 

[2322]

Cunard is also still operating the RMS Queen Mary 2.

There's a great story to the original Queen Mary. Cunard's managers were ready to launch the biggest and most elegant ship the world had ever seen and decided that something so grand and important should be named for Queen Victoria. To do that, they needed royal permission and so had an audience with George V, the king at the time. The Cunard managers approached the king and explained that their ship was so regal and so grand that they wanted to, as they said, "name her after the Empire's favourite queen!"

To which King George replied, "Oh my wife will be delighted! Queen Mary is a splendid name for your new ship!"

Unable to correct the king without extreme embarrassment, Cunard went back and changed their plans. With that, RMS Queen Mary entered the history books.

 

[yhtang]

There's a great story to the original Queen Mary. Cunard's managers were ready to launch the biggest and most elegant ship the world had ever seen and decided that something so grand and important should be named for Queen Victoria. To do that, they needed royal permission and so had an audience with George V, the king at the time. The Cunard managers approached the king and explained that their ship was so regal and so grand that they wanted to, as they said, "name her after the Empire's favourite queen!"

To which King George replied, "Oh my wife will be delighted! Queen Mary is a splendid name for your new ship!"

Unable to correct the king without extreme embarrassment, Cunard went back and changed their plans. With that, RMS Queen Mary entered the history books.

jason-els, you are a mine of information! This is a most interesting story indeed; thank you.

 

[Calboner]

It literally took forever to walk from one end to the other.

"Literally"? I don't think so.

 

[kalipygian]

There's a great story to the original Queen Mary. Cunard's managers were ready to launch the biggest and most elegant ship the world had ever seen and decided that something so grand and important should be named for Queen Victoria. To do that, they needed royal permission and so had an audience with George V, the king at the time. The Cunard managers approached the king and explained that their ship was so regal and so grand that they wanted to, as they said, "name her after the Empire's favourite queen!"

To which King George replied, "Oh my wife will be delighted! Queen Mary is a splendid name for your new ship!"

Unable to correct the king without extreme embarrassment, Cunard went back and changed their plans. With that, RMS Queen Mary entered the history books.

The wiki article has a slightly different version of the story, and says it may be apocryphal.

It was not previously done to name any ship but a Royal Navy capitol ship after a monarch or Royal Duke, I am not aware of the RN naming ships after any but male members of the royal family. So naming the Queen Mary after the Queen Consort was an innovation. Cunard is presently also operating a ship named after Queen Victoria, which presumably would not have been done in her time. I am not aware of any ships named for Queen Alexandra, or Queen Adelaide.

I really dislike having one of these giant cruise ships go by when I am Kayaking in Prince William Sound, they are so wide, they make a huge wake. It seem like they barely fit in the fjiord.