'Floating nursing homes' anchor cruise business

**Ally** · 04-09-2008, 10:31 AM

Quote:

As a grand old ship steams into retirement, Alex Millmow recalls Cunard's halcyon days.

LAST month, the QE2 sailed from Station Pier to little fanfare. It was its 14th and final visit to Melbourne. In November, it sets out on its final voyage, to Dubai, where it will be become a luxury hotel. The Cunard ship has been in service for nearly 40 years. Sadly, it is the last British-built Cunarder, built on the Clyde like its illustrious predecessors, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth.

The QE2 initially had problems with its turbine engines. At one stage, Cunard considered selling the ship. Cunard had only just survived the 1960s, when the airlines were eating into the trans-Atlantic travel market. But Cunard persevered and the ship has circumnavigated the globe 26 times and crossed the Atlantic 800 times. It has carried more than 2.5 million passengers.

The QE2 went into service a few years before the Boeing 747 democratised air travel. It managed to survive, carving out a niche in trans-Atlantic travel and cruising. In the mid-1970s, the QE2 began world cruises. Cunard first came up with the idea of a world cruise in 1922........

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'Floating nursing homes' anchor cruise business | theage.com.au