Tom Burke’s Blog

QE2 at her berth, 10 October

Today is QE2’s last call at Southampton, her home port. She leaves this evening on her last voyage ever, to Dubai where she will be converted into a hotel. There is a full programme of events, including a visit on board by the Duke of Edinburgh, a poppy drop to commemorate both the date (11 November) and (I presume) QE2’s own ‘war service’ – she went to the Falklands in 1982 – and a fireworks display this evening.

Mind you, she may be reluctant to leave Blighty. It seems that she managed to run aground on Bramble Bank on her way into Southampton. Practicing for this evening, perhaps? Anyway, here’s a link to a story about her last day in Southampton.

The picture is one I took at the end of our cruise on Ventura, and shows QE2 lying at her berth (at the QE2 Terminal) on the morning of 10 October.

There have been some interesting cruise ship happenings at Southampton recently.

(Image copyright Andrew Sassoli-Walker, and used with his permission.)

First was the arrival of P&O’s new ship ‘Ventura’, described by the line as “The Superliner designed for Britain”. Well, OK – although it’s about the 8th or 9th ship based on the original ‘Grand Princess’ design, there are a lot of changes specifically to appeal to the British market. For example, Brits tend not to gamble on cruises, so they’ve reduced the casino to an area just a third the size of what it is on the Princess ships. And in the space they’ve put – a bar! Yes, they discovered that Brits like to drink on cruises. it must be all that gambling we’re not doing….. Alternatively, perhaps we just like to drink – any excuse and all that.

Ventura arrived on a cold 6 April, then did a pre-Maiden Voyage voyage (I mentioned this in an earlier blog), then entertained industry visitors before an official naming ceremony on 16 April, followed by the beginning of the official Maiden Voyage on 18 April. Here’s a link to some pictures of her during that period.

At the end of last week “Independence of the Seas” (IoTS from now on) arrived in Southampton. Sister to Freedom of the Seas – FoTS – and Liberty of the Seas = LoTS – (who dreams up these names?!?), IoTS and her sisters are the joint-largest cruise ships in the world, as regards gross registered tonnage. IoTS will be based in Southampton for this summer season, as will Ventura, the rest of the P&O fleet, plus of course ships from various other lines. There must be a lot of Brits going on cruises these days!

(copyright Aad Hoogesteger and used with his permission.)

But even the keenest fans of P&O and RCI will agree that the week’s most spectacular event was the meeting of the 3 Queens in Southampton on the 22nd. This wasn’t originally scheduled to happen – the after-dark encounter in New York in early January was supposed to be the only time it would – but I believe QEII’s schedule was amended by having some repair work arranged, and thus it came about that all three Cunarders – Queen Elizabeth 2, Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria – were in Southampton at the same time. Unfortunately living in Yorkshire (and being at work) I wasn’t able to get to it, but I have been reading accounts, and looking at pictures, with great interest. Here’s a link to a good set of pictures of the event and here’s a link to John Heald’s blog (he was on QM2) which has an account of the day, and a lot of pictures. By the sound of it, it was an occasion to savour and remember. I suspect that pictures of the ‘3 Queens’ on April 22 2008 will be appearing for a long time.

There are some excellent pictures around of all these events – if I can get in touch with one or two of the picture-takers and ask nicely, I may be able to use one or two of them here.

There’s an interesting series of posts on Cruise Critic from someone who’s on the maiden voyage and is blogging from it. On day 7 the writer had this to say, on the very topic that I’ve been writing about:

“I have asked a number of fellow passengers, folk conversant in the ways of ships, if there was anything about the Queen Victoria that made it particularly a Cunard ship and not a ship of some other line. They all thought it a good question, but not one of them could point to anything that marked this vessel as a Cunard vessel and not, say, a Princess one or a Holland America one…… What makes a Cunard vessel particularly Cunard is the staff, the persons who learn and carry on the traditions of the company. On my last few sailings on Cunard vessels, I have been seated at officers’ tables, the hosts of which had spent their entire careers with P&O/Princess. That is another wonderful seagoing tradition, but it is not Cunard.”

Interesting comments, I thought.

Here’s the link to the whole blog.

Not, not the actual monarch – I’ll leave that to David Starkey. I’m talking about Cunard’s new ship “Queen Victoria”. She arrived in Southampton on Friday and was christened by the Duchess of Cornwall yesterday.

I did a post a few months ago about her, or specifically whether or not a ship that has near-identical sisters in four other lines can be representative of the traditions of the company she’s actually sailing for. At that time I probably tended towards the opposing view, but I’ve changed my opinion now: even though the ships may be very similar, as long as the differences inherent in the lines themselves are implemented on board, then whichever ship you’re talking about is a true ‘whatever’ ship. In other words it’s perfectly possible for two quite similar ships, e.g. Carnival Spirit and Queen Victoria, to be a representative Carnival ‘fun ship’ and a classic Cunarder. It depends, I suppose, on the attitude of the staff on board as much as anything.

There have been quite a few photos of her at Southampton, but these are some of my favourites.

So I’m probably a convert, and from what I’ve seen of her interiors I’d like to cruise in her. Queen’s Grill class, of course…..

I recently saw some pictures of the forthcoming Cunard ship “Queen Victoria” on her sea-trials. Here’s one:

Now, there has been some history about this ship; or rather, about a ship with this name. “Queen Victoria” was first announced in 2003, when an order already placed with Fincantieri for a new Vista-class ship for Holland America Line was instead transferred to Cunard and given the name “Queen Victoria”. Both Cunard & Holland America are owned by Carnival Corporation. In 2004 Cunard’s other new ship (Queen Mary 2) went into service and based on her early experiences changes to the still-under construction Queen Victoria were requested. These were impossible to incorporate so she was reassigned again and eventually became P&O’s “Arcadia” (P&O is also owned by Carnival Corporation). A new order was placed subsequently with Fincantieri for a revised design to become Queen Victoria; this new ship will be 11 metres longer than the earlier ship, 5,000 tons larger, and will hold slightly more passengers. This website gives the details of all this merry-go-round and also includes some pictures.

Carnival Corporation have used this basic design for a number of ships, starting with their own Carnival Spirit and her three sisters, and another two almost identical ships with Costa. Then the Spirit design was tweaked a bit and four Holland America ships were built – this was when they started to be called ‘Vista’ class. In addition there is P&O’s Arcadia which I’ve mentioned, and of course the ship I’m writing about Cunard’s Queen Victoria. She’ll be the 12th ship to the same basic design. Then there are two further ships of this design ordered for Costa, and another two for Holland America – a total of 16 ships.

I’m not arguing about the merits of the design itself: I haven’t been on any Vista or Spirit ship, but I believe it’s a popular design, and although not the biggest ships around they are capable of transiting the Panama Canal. This is important for Cunard and; P&O, as both of them feature ‘World Cruises’ each year. However the marketing, both currently for Cunard and previously for P&O has tried to stress how special & unique the new ship was/is, how it reaches new levels of luxury/convenience/excellence, and fulfills the grand traditions of both lines. Yet as I have outlined above, Arcadia (previously) and Queen Victoria (shortly) are simply the latest examples of a large class of widely-spread ships, all of which are actually pretty interchangeable.Can ships which are the eleventh and twelth of a common design (even with some detailed differences) truly be the heirs to the grand traditions of their current lines? Or should we accept that the advantages in cost-efficiency of construction, ease of maintenance hrugh familiarity, and long-term flexibility of deployment, render the construction of standardised ships inevitable?

(This post seems to be getting some on-going attention, so I ought to mention that I’ve revisited the topic twice: ‘More thoughts on Queen Victoria‘ and ‘Even more thoughts on Queen Victoria‘.)