The world's most famous cruise linerBy Laura Clout Last Updated: 11:19am BST 18/06/2007
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Huge crowds lined the shores of Sydney Harbour in February this year for an historic reunion between the Queen Mary II (back left) and Queen Elizabeth II (front left) cruise liners
A flotilla of yachts crowded the harbour and onlookers were treated to a fireworks display as the giant Cunard ships greeted each other with blasts of their horns.
The £400 million QM2 sailed into the harbour shortly before dawn as part of a round the world cruise
As high as a 23-storey building, she was too tall to sail under the Harbour Bridge and too long to berth at the normal cruise ship terminal at Circular Quay, in the city centre.
Instead the liner, on her maiden visit to Australia, docked at the Royal Australian Navys Garden Island naval base
A few hours later her sister ship, the QE2, was also welcomed by large crowds as she sailed into the harbour
It was a sight not seen in Sydney since the two ships predecessors - the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth - converged on the harbour as troop carriers in 1941 to take Australian soldiers to North Africa and the Middle East
They were nicknamed "grey ghosts" and their arrivals and departures were closely guarded secrets, with stiff penalties for anyone caught photographing them
But there was no such secrecy this time around. After less than 24 hours in port, the 150,000-tonne QM2 departed Sydney for Hong Kong while the QE2 will leave on Thursday for Brisbane
Sorry but this is very sad. She is just too fine a vessel to have speakers blaring 5 times a day from her so everyone's butts can go in the air on her at the same time....
First it was US ports and now it’s England’s QE2. Speaking from under my foil hat, but Dubai certainly is sticking it’s nose into Western shipping interests lately.
Pity. We took my family over to England for a year on the QE2 in 1974-75, along with a year’s worth of baggage and our VW Bus in the hold. That’s one thing you couldn’t do on an airliner.
I can safely say I water skied the wake of the QE2 as she cruised through the Panama Canal somewhere around 1978. Mighty big wake!
Luckily for him, not the sloppiest reporting I've seen all day. He gets a runner-up award. I guess no one uses copy editors any more.
It is The Queen Mary which is in Long Beach, not The Queen Mary 2