Three Queens leave Southampton

[Scubbie]

Last Sunday Cunard kicked off their 175th Anniversary celebrations in Southampton with a parade of their 3 ships down Southampton Waters. On Monday 24th they plan to host a spectacle in Liverpool.



If you are interested and able to get to Liverpool for the event, then I will hope that the weather holds out for you. Looking on one site, the weather forecast at this time looks to partly sunny with a shower. Temp in the mid teens.

[Isitme]

Nice one Scubbie. It brings back memories, it is 55years almost to the day since I sailed from Southampton, bound for Northern Rhodesia, via Cape Town.

[Scubbie]

No problem. I'm glad that you liked it.

The Cruise industry is currently thriving and Southampton is very busy with a variety of Cruise Ships coming in and out every week at present.

I know that Liverpool wants the business back and that there are a lot of politics involved in the discussions, but hopefully they'll stay based in Southampton now.

The holding group, Carnival Corp., own a number of cruise lines and a fleet of some 100 ships. Each cruise line has kept their own identities and Cunard is very much the 'posh' one.

[Isitme]

My wife and I have been on many cruises over the years, but we always go with the smaller ships like those used by Thomson Cruises. I think the largest we have been on was the Ocean Village, twice cruising the Caribbean. I'm afraid I don't like the enormous floating shoe-boxes which have become so popular.

[Scubbie]

Obviously the cruise companies love the larger ships as it means they only have the one vessel to worry about, compared to an additional two or three, perhaps four, vessels.

It does mean that 5 or 6 thousand passengers arrive at a single destination in one go. It also means that potentially more people are likely to want to go to unusual places, making those excursions possible.

On the downside there is more chance of nasty infections being present on the ship, such as the Norovirus.

QM2 is the maximum size they could make for her intended use. As the only Translatlantic Ocean Liner, she just fits under the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge, New York, at high tide. She has a clearance of 4m.

[Isitme]

Yes, even Thomson are up-sizing, their latest ship is more than twice the size of any of their previous ships at nearly 70,000 tonnes. Still a midget compared to the Queens, but very large nevertheless.

[Scubbie]

In the video above I have tried to show just how large these ships are.

They are huge. Anthem of the Seas holds joint 3rd place for size at this time, with her sister ship Quantum of the Seas. The two largest being Allure & Oasis of the Seas which are also owned by Royal Caribbean.

Queen Mary 2 is currently the 9th largest.

Source: List of the world's largest cruise ships - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I guess they are going the same way that our supermarkets went. I wonder if they'll suffer the same fate?

[Scubbie]

If anyone is still interested and in or around the Liverpool area tomorrow, the events kick off around 10.45am. There is also a Fireworks display tonight...

[speedyrite]

Great movie! I especially enjoyed seeing "Anthem of the Seas" departing, as it was my first opportunity to see it and get an idea of the size and scale of the ship. We've recently been on a two week cruise on Anthem which was excellent. A very modern high-tech ship that will appeal to the family market (the atmosphere reminded me of Ocean Village in that respect - the cruise for people who don't do cruises as they used to say in their marketing).

[Scubbie]

Thank you speedyrite.

I trust that both yourself and Mrs speedyrite had a lovely time?

Anthem of the Seas is most certainly not a small boat.

I'm not sure if you were boarding or had already left, but when I was in Southampton the other day, she was in again and I took a few pictures of her. This is one image I have processed:



I've had to reduce the size of the picture to upload to the forum. The original has a little more detail.