Roblightbody dot com
  • Home
    • What's New?
    • About Rob >
      • QE2 Talks & speaker
    • Contact
  • Rob's Blog
  • Gadgets
  • Ocean Liners
    • Queen Mary 2 >
      • QM2 News in service
      • QM2 News (When New)
      • QM2 News (Pre Float-out) >
        • My Travels
      • QM2 Reviews
      • QM2 A Ship of Superlative Comparisons
    • Queen Elizabeth 2 >
      • QE2 in Dubai (QE2 Today)
      • QE2 Forum (link)
      • My own QE2 Story >
        • My QE2 Photos
        • 2008 Stephen Payne QE2 Lecture
        • 2008 QE2 Last Thoughts
        • 2008 QE2 Clyde Farewell
        • 2008 August QE2 Cruise
        • 2007 December QE2 Cruise
        • 2007 September QE2 Clyde
        • 2005 August QE2 Queensferry
        • 2003 June QE2 Queensferry
        • 1987 QE2 April Bremerhaven >
          • QE2 April 1987 Exterior Photos
          • QE2 April 1987 Interior Photos
      • QE2 News >
        • QE2 Dubai News (2008 to 2015) >
          • Fears grow over bid to turn QE2 into a hotel in Dubai
        • QE2 News 2008
        • QE2 Sold to Dubai Articles (2007)
        • QE2 News 2007
        • QE2 News 2006
        • QE2 News 2002 to 2005
        • QE2 News 1998 to 2001
      • QE2's Name
      • QE2 1987 Rebirth
      • QE2 Reviews 1997 to 2007
      • Speed Queen
      • QE2 Storm Photos
      • QE2 1975 Guide
      • 1969 Shipshapes
      • QE2 Sydney 2006
      • QE2 Cutaways
      • QE2 in 1969
      • QE2 Fuel Economy
      • QE2 Facts
      • Bridgecam Snaps
      • QE2 1995 Freak Wave
      • QE2 Bridge View
    • SS France >
      • SS France Swan Song (2001)
      • 2006 Finalé >
        • Telegraph April 2006
        • Miami Herald
        • AP News May 2006
        • Justin Huggler Article
        • BBC News June 2006
        • July 2006 (MSNBC)
      • Scrapping Allowed (2007)
    • United States >
      • Maiden Voyage
      • NCL Buys SS United States
    • Queen Elizabeth
    • Queen Mary >
      • No rushing Churchill and his ship of state
      • RMS Queen Mary News >
        • 2007 Fate of rusting Queen Mary in the balance
        • 2006 Queen Marys Meet
        • 2004 As ship and work of art, the QM still an original
        • 2001 Is Queen Mary seaworthy?
        • 2000 Sir John Brown Dies
        • 1998 - Queen of Kitsch
    • Normandie
    • Lusitania & Mauritania
    • Aquitania >
      • Aquitania Emails
    • Other Liners >
      • Transvaal Castle
      • Saxonia
      • Ivernia
      • Caronia
  • Cars
    • Classic Mini >
      • My Classic Minis
      • History >
        • End of Mini >
          • FT Sep 2000
          • Glasgow Herald
          • BBC News
          • Autocar March 2000
        • Sexist Adverts
        • John Cooper Dies
      • Brochures
      • My Archive
      • The MPi Minis >
        • Official Launch Documents
        • Classic Mini Postcards
        • MPI Mini Colours and trim, 1997 onwards
        • 1998 - Examples of MPI changes from SPI
        • 1998 MPI Mini Price List
        • Extracts from the 1996 Brochure launching the 1997 model year Minis
      • SPI Mini ACR2 Fault Code Reader
    • First new MINI
    • Ford Puma
    • Mazda MX-5 Miata
    • Austin Princess
    • Favourite Cars
  • PS Waverley
  • Scotland
    • Jeely Piece Song
    • Flower of Scotland
    • Where's the Glasgow?
    • I Belong to Glasgow (link)
  • Chuckles
  • Cool Websites
Home > Ocean Liners > QE2 > QE2 News 2007 (QE2 Sold articles) > QE2 will secede her saltwater throne

QE2 will secede her saltwater throne

By Mary K. Nolan
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jun 30, 2007)


http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1183177981064&call_pageid=1126519607402&col=1126519607416 

By now you've likely heard that the QE2, perhaps the world's most celebrated ocean liner, has been sold.

She's been purchased for more than $100 million US by a state-owned investment holding company in Dubai known as Istithmar (which sounds uncomfortably similar to Ishtar, one of the most spectacular movie bombs of all time.)

The plan is to turn her into a floating hotel that will be berthed at a specially constructed quay at The Palm Jumeirah development in the Persian Gulf. Frankly, there'd be a classier future for the grand old lady in a scrapyard or at the bottom of the sea. This place makes Vegas look like Huntsville.

The Palm is an undertaking so ostentatious and overwrought, so extravagant and decadent that it is an affront to the rest of the planet.

With self-important flatulence, this manufactured mecca bills itself as the eighth wonder of the world, using a thesaurus of over-the-top adjectives such as deluxe, magnificent, exclusive, luxury, five-star, lush, sumptuous, world-class, unprecedented, premier, ad vulgarium.

They are not the sort of descriptives that have been applied to the Cunard flagship for nearly 40 years -- gracious, elegant, sleek, sophisticated, dignified, royal.

It was a royal who concocted the idea of The Palm. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president of the United Arab Emirates, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, considered it the answer to the growing hotspot's increasing shortage of beachfront.

Well then, we'll make some, His Royal Superlativeness must have mused. We'll make them in the shape of palm trees that will proliferate not with dates or coconuts but with villas, residences, palaces, hotels, water homes, marinas, dive sites, theatres and retail shops all jammed together as tightly as in some cookie-cutter subdivision in Mississauga. And we'll make it so that nobody but the super-rich can afford to even breathe the air there.

The "trunk" of The Palm Jumeirah stretches two kilometres across the water before sprouting into 17 "fronds" that are connected by subsea tunnels to an 11-kilometre crescent surrounding the palm.

The properties boast names such as Kingdom of Sheba, Taj Exotica, Palm Grandeur, Tiara Residence and Emerald Palace. There's nary a Day's Inn among them, but naturally, The Donald will weigh in sometime in 2009 with The Palm Trump International Hotel and Tower, obscenely priced at $600 million US.

And Palm Jumeirah is only the beginning. The project also includes two other islands -- The Palm Jebel Ali, half again as big, and The Palm Deira, which will have 41 flippin' fronds and 8,000 two-storey villas by the time it's done.

The storied QE2, launched by QE II herself in 1967, has rescued stranded passengers at sea, survived a mid-Atlantic bomb hoax and ransom demand, served as a troop ship in the Falklands crisis, sailed into uncharted offshore rocks and stood up to a 95-foot wave during Hurricane Luis.

The goodbyes will be long and sad. Cunard is planning six farewell voyages starting in September 2008, including two transatlantic crossings in tandem with the Queen Mary 2.

Cunard's longest-sailing liner, and still the fastest in the world, will embark on her final voyage on Nov. 11, 2008 -- Remembrance Day-- sailing from Southampton to Dubai.

And there, among the ersatz fronds, is where the majestic monarch of the seas, the blueblood who has crossed the Atlantic 800 times and ferried 2.5 million people between continents and around the world, will spend her well-deserved retirement.

God save the queen.

Sections

Rob's Blog
​Gadget Reviews

Ships

PS Waverley
Queen Mary 2
Queen Elizabeth 2
RMS Queen Elizabeth
RMS Queen Mary
More Liners

Cars

Classic Mini
New MINI (2001)
Mazda Miata MX-5
Wedge Princess
Ford Puma
Other Favourites

Everything Else

Whats New
About Rob
Contact Rob
Chuckles
Cool Sites