A new Queen is touring the world today.
It is the Queen Victoria, latest in the Cunard Line’s distinguished series of ships named after British monarchs. And like its four predecessors — the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Mary 2 — the new Queen brings a regal tone to the world of cruising.
Rich woods, muted colors, marble floors in some areas and tasteful furnishings lend an aura of understated elegance to the ship. Service is quiet and efficient, in keeping with British tradition, and the ship has the same two-tier ”Grill” stateroom/dining system as the other two current Queens.
But the QV is no clone.
Though it can take about 250 more passengers than the QE2, the 2,014-passenger QV is substantially smaller than the massive 150,000-ton, 2,620-passenger QM2, which entered service in 2004 as what was then the largest passenger ship afloat. That can work both to advantage and disadvantage.
Topics: 'CUNARD'
MINIMUM AGE TO SAIL: 4 months
WHY THEY’RE GREAT: Parents of children younger than 5 receive a pager for use during the cruise in case they need to be contacted. Toddlers don’t have to be potty-trained (parents supply diapers and wipes) to participate in Camp Carnival’s free program for 2- to 5-year-olds.
Here, kids can play picture-bingo to win prizes, finger-paint, put on puppet shows and listen to stories. Mascot Fun Ship Freddy (modeled after Carnival’s trademark ship’s funnel), poses for photos and joins dance parties (plush Freddys are for sale in the gift shops).
Children younger than 2 can take a turn with the toys during designated Family Play Times, when accompanied by a parent.
Baby-sitting services for children younger than two are available at Camp Carnival during limited hours (check when you board, rates are $6 for the first child/$4 each additional). Activity books and crayons are available in dining rooms.
MINIMUM AGE TO SAIL: Varies by itinerary: 6 months for some sailings, 1 year for transatlantic and many of the exotic itineraries.
WHY THEY’RE GREAT: On Queen Mary 2 and new ship Queen Victoria, nannies take care of children age 1 and up. Onboard nurseries are stocked with everything from Lamaze toys to Fisher Price Little People and Little Tikes Light and Sound Toys. Diaper changing and naps in the nursery’s full size cribs included (the program is gratis for all ages).
Preschoolers can go on treasure hunts, jump around in a soft play area, and attend a pirate party.
Queen Mary 2 has a 3-4 foot deep Minnows pool for families, plus a 6-12-inch-deep splash pool for smaller sailors. (QV has no children’s pool, but the Play Zone for ages 1-6 features a nursery for infants/toddlers, video games, arts and crafts, a large plasma screen for videos and movies and a secure outdoor area with climbing.)
Be sure to escort your little one to the Children’s Tea, served in King’s Court every evening with balloons, artwork place mats, crayons and kid-friendly treats.
Queen Mary 2 has the largest library at sea with more than 8,000 books including a well-stocked children’s section.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office, responding to more than 150 consumer complaints, is looking into whether the fuel supplement fees that major cruise lines began charging last fall are appropriate and properly disclosed to passengers.
”Our office has received more than 150 complaints about this issue and we are engaged in ongoing discussions about this with the cruise lines,” said Sandi Copes, press secretary for Attorney General Bill McCollum.
Copes said the Attorney General’s Office “is conducting a preliminary review. We’re looking into whether or not it’s appropriate and whether or not they are accurately disclosed at the point of sale.”
Tim Gallagher, a spokesman for Miami-based Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise operator, acknowledged that Carnival and other cruise lines are under review. ”We believe our fuel supplement complies with applicable laws and we are cooperating with the review,” he said.
Last Nov. 7, as fuel prices soared to record highs, Carnival Corp., which operates 11 brands, announced it was tacking on a $5-per-person, per-day ”fuel supplement” at Carnival Cruise Lines, Costa Cruises, Cunard Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and The Yachts of Seabourn. Those lines will carry some 8 million passengers this year.
The cruise giant, which capped the charge at $70 per person per voyage, had previously added a fuel charge on European brands.
Other big cruise operators, including Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises and Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line, soon followed suit with their own versions of fuel-supplement fees.
Logo from Carnival.
Port Everglades got a taste of royalty Wednesday as the gleaming new 90,000-ton Queen Victoria — Cunard Line’s latest luxury liner on her inaugural voyage around the world — sailed into Fort Lauderdale’s fast-growing cruise port, anchoring beside the grand old QE2.
The two queens arrived from New York, where they had been joined by the third ship in Cunard’s fleet, the Queen Mary 2, marking the only time the three vessels will ever meet.
The Queen Victoria, built in Italy by Fincantieri, is bound for Aruba after which she’ll transit the Panama Canal, head for Costa Rica and then on to Acapulco, Los Angeles, Hawaii and points beyond.
The price for the 105-day voyage, which began in New York and will end in Southampton, England, ranges from $20,000 for an inside cabin to $203,000 for a master suite. Fares for shorter trips, such as a 12-day voyage departing Barcelona, Spain, on Aug. 25, start at $2,395, Cunard said.
“Cruise lines are striving to become more creative, offering innovative opportunities for travelers. Princess Cruises says it is the only big North American line to offer wedding ceremonies at sea performed by the ship’s captain. Other lines offer wedding packages,
but Princess ships are registered in Bermuda, which grants captains the authority to perform marriages on the high seas. Norwegian Cruise Line boasts the first full-size bowling alley, aboard the Norwegian Pearl. Royal Caribbean, which offers rock-climbing walls and ice skating rinks, sports a regulation-size boxing ring on Freedom of the Seas.
Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas also takes the swimming pool to the next level with its Flow Rider surf simulator and an interactive water park called the H2O Zone. Carnival Cruise Line water activities include signature four-deck high twister waterslides, and Seaside Theatres, 12-by-22-foot screens poolside that show movies, sporting events, and concerts.
For those who prefer interactive excitement, Norwegian Cruise Line has begun offering
Race car enthusiasts will be happy to discover that passengers age 16 and older can try out the Grand Prix racing simulators on the Costa Serena and Costa Concordia. Guests can virtually compete in races reaching speeds of over 200 miles per hour. For those whose tastes favor quieter pursuits, Cunard offers twice-daily watercolor classes on trans-Atlantic cruises aboard Queen Mary 2. Queen Mary 2 is also home to the only planetarium at sea, with a 150-seat theater that offers three shows, including two developed by the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium.”
Photo by smh.com
“The Queen Elizabeth 2, Cunard’s longest-serving ship, left Manhattan for its 26th and final around-the-world journey — a farewell tour that will usher in its retirement in November, when the liner will become a floating hotel in Dubai. The Queen Victoria, which
came into service last month, embarked on its maiden world cruise. And the Queen Mary 2, the largest trans-Atlantic liner ever built, weighing about 151,400 gross tons, sailed to the Caribbean from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
For 40 years, the Queen Elizabeth 2 ruled the trans-Atlantic, ferrying up to 1,778 passengers at a time between England and the United States. The Queen Mary 2, which carries up to 2,600 passengers, began traveling the same route in 2004, but in reverse: When the Queen Elizabeth 2 left its home port in Southampton, England, for Manhattan, the Queen Mary 2 would leave the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook for Southampton, said Peter Knego, co-editor of a Web site, maritimematters.com, devoted to the history of passenger ships.
“They would only meet in the Atlantic and were never in port together,” Mr. Knego said of the original Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. “To have the two of them here, plus a third Queen, is truly momentous.”
It took Cunard two years to prepare for the occasion. The company had to plan each of the ship’s itineraries to make sure the vessels would converge in New York on the same day and to reserve space in the terminals to allow them to dock and depart at the same time.”
Photo by Ratlines
As I sail across the Atlantic at the start of the 40-year-old QE2’s last world voyage, NINE exciting new ships are set to be launched this year.
They are costing more than $2.5billion and carrying nearly 26,000 extra passengers. Another nine ships are due next year, and 12 in 2010.
Brits are rushing to get on board. Fares are low. You’re looking at around �100 a night, with your food and entertainment included, which is about the same as comparable holidays on land.
And with more ships than ever being based at UK ports like Harwich, Dover and Southampton, there’s no need for hassle with flying and luggage limits.
The QE2 is due in New York tomorrow along with her new sister Queen Victoria, sailing alongside us. There she will meet up with the Queen Mary 2, the only time three Cunard Queens will ever be in port together.
The QE2 is going at only two-thirds speed, while the Queen Victoria is going flat-out at 19knots and is struggling to keep up. She’ll be fine in the calm waters of the Caribbean and the Med, but she’s just not cut out for the 30-foot waves here in the North Atlantic.
Launched in 1967, the QE2 retires later this year to become a floating hotel in Dubai.
Cunard’s new Queen Victoria cruise ship is on its first world tour, sailing in tandem with the Queen Elizabeth 2, which is on its 26th and final trip around the globe.
The two ships had a historic rendezvous Jan. 13 in New York Harbor with the Queen Mary 2, which homeports in Brooklyn.
It was the first and only time the three ships will ever meet. The Queen Victoria was launched in December and the QE2 will be retired later this year and turned into a floating five-star hotel in Dubai.
Thousands of New Yorkers stood along the waterfront of Lower Manhattan to watch the three grand vessels twinkling in the winter darkness as they lined in front of the Statue of Liberty amid fireworks.
“They are big!” said Brammy Sturley, 8, who watched from aboard a Circle Line boat nearby in the harbor. Brammy’s dad Steve described the boy as a “Cunard fanatic.”
A cold rain began to fall on the crowd on shore before the fireworks were over, but Manhattan resident Nadine Ellman, who sailed twice on the QE2, wasn’t about to leave early. “This is for the die-hards,” she said. “I’m having such a good time.”
Photo by WorldShipNY
Dazzling firework displays will light up the night sky over Southampton as the city says bon voyage to five cruise ships this weekend.
History will be in the making tomorrow when the legendary Cunarder, Queen Elizabeth 2 sets a course for her last world cruise after a career that has lasted almost four decades, while the new Queen Victoria begins her first circumnavigation.
The classic liners Saga Rose and Saga Ruby are due to mark their departures from the docks at the start of their annual world cruises with a glittering show at about 9.30pm this evening.
The best vantage points for sightseers to see the display is either Town Quay or Hythe Marina.
Tomorrow QE2 will leave on her final world cruise, a voyage of 106 nights that will take her across the Atlantic to New York then on to South America where the liner will round Cape Horn and then cruise across the Pacific, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean before heading back to Southampton where the ship will arrive on Tuesday, April 22.
Leaving at the same time as QE2 and sailing in tandem will be Cunard’s latest addition to its fleet, Queen Victoria, which will undertake her first Atlantic crossing which also signals her maiden world cruise.
Norwegian telecomms group Telenor ASA said on Wednesday (2 January) that its fully-owned subsidiary Maritime Communications Partner AS (MCP) has signed a contract to install and operate the cellular network onboard all ships in Princess Cruises, Cunard Lines and P&O Cruises Australia’s fleet.
The agreement covers 21 ships at the signing of the contract. The fleet of cruise ships has a total passenger capacity of approximately 45,000 people, as well as a crew of 20,000.
The MCP service will allow everyone onboard to use their own mobile phones when sailing, Telenor said.
MCP is the global maritime cellular operator focused on providing cost effective GSM and CDMA communications solutions specially created to fulfill the requirements of the shipping industry.
Telenor is a mobile operator, with nearly 83m subscribers in 12 countries and a provider of television services in the Nordic region. Telenor has some 27,600 employees and annual revenues of nearly NOK70bn. Telenor is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker ‘TEL’ and on Nasdaq under the ticker ‘TELN’.
Photo from Stock.xchng.
