Tag: ocean liners

Thoughts on the Queen Mary 2’s refit

I’m a huge fan of the Queen Mary 2. My Dad and I did a transatlantic crossing on her not too long after she entered service, and it remains one of my all-time favorite vacations. The QM2 is a splendid ship. Her interiors are beautiful, the food is first-rate, and the atmosphere on board is pleasantly relaxed. She also retains a sense of intimacy despite the fact that she’s the largest ocean liner ever built. But after twelve years of service, Cunard has decided that it’s time for a change. Next month, she’ll travel to the famous German shipyard Blohm + Voss for a month-long refit.

Carinthi-Cam01_37V PICTURE 1_zps0lygzqz8
A rendering of the Carinthia Lounge courtesy of Cunard.

One of the biggest changes is that the Winter Garden will be replaced with the  Carinthia Lounge. For me, it’s a sad development. The Winter Garden was one of my favorite public rooms on the QM2, though I realize that’s a minority opinion. Critics and passengers alike tended to view it as the weakest of the ship’s public rooms. Many saw it as kitschy, and they had a point. Originally, the Winter Garden featured a mural of tropical birds sitting amidst a backdrop of generic jungle foliage and an equally leafy carpet, and they both looked like something from Blanche Devereaux’s bedroom on The Golden Girls (sadly, the mural seems to have been replaced with a frosted-glass version of the same motif, as seen here). There was also wicker. Lots and lots of wicker.

Winter-Garden
The classic incarnation of the Winter Garden, complete with birds. Photo courtesy of Cunard.

Nevertheless, the Winter Garden has a place in my heart. It was usually fairly empty, and it was a great place to have a drink since there was a bar right there in the room. I also liked the fact that the Winter Garden had a sense of history behind it. Winter gardens, verandah cafes, and the like were fixtures on transatlantic liners throughout the golden age of ocean travel. The following photos come from a 1920s Cunard brochure in my collection:

mauretania
Mauretania
lancastria
Lancastria
andania
Andania

 

Their decorative DNA lived on in the QM2’s Winter Garden, but the Carinthia Lounge lacks any connection with the past beyond its name (the Cunard fleet had four separate Carinthias over the years). Although the space is named after the Carinthia that entered service in 1925, the decor doesn’t do much to evoke the feel of the 20s. On the contrary, it seems more reminiscent of the 50s. That’s not to say that it’s an ugly room; far from it. It just feels rather generic. Say what you will about the bird mural, but at least it was memorable.

However, most of the changes to the QM2 are to be welcomed. I’m particularly pleased that Cunard has decided to downsize the casino in order to add single-occupancy cabins. This is a wonderful development. For me, one of the biggest impediments to cruising is that the fares are based on double occupancy. My usual travel companions aren’t terribly interested in cruising, which means I’d have to either pay the exorbitant single occupancy surcharge (which can be 150-200% of the advertised fare) or allow the cruise line to match me with a cabinmate for the voyage. Neither option is particularly appealing, so I never considered cruising a viable vacation choice. Until now.

I’m also glad that King’s Court will be overhauled. It always seemed like a problematic space. When I was on board, it felt like a glamorous cafeteria, which seems a bit incongruous given the QM2’s reputation for luxury. To some extent, there’s not much Cunard can do about that. Any place where you collect your food from serving stations and carry it to a seating area to eat is going to feel like a cafeteria. I do think that the proposed changes are a step in the right direction, though. It won’t change the way people interact with the space, but it will make it more appealing.

One thing that surprised me is that G32, the ship’s nightclub, won’t be axed. It’s a bizarre place. Tucked away at the stern, you can only get to it by walking through the ballroom. It’s also tiny, and there’s not much room for dancing. When I poked my head in, I saw a bored DJ playing songs for an empty room while the bar staff huddled around the bar, chatting. Of course, with the average QM2 passenger being in their mid-60s, it’s hardly surprising that nobody’s interested in hitting the club, which makes one wonder why they’re keeping it at all.

All in all, I’m happy with the changes Cunard is making to the QM2. I think they’ll hold her in good stead as she sails through her second decade.

 

Titanic Redux

An Australian billionaire has announced plans to build a replica of the Titanic. Naturally, the ship will be named Titanic 2 (most media outlets seem to be writing the name with Roman numerals, but ships traditionally use Arabic numerals, e.g. Queen Mary 2) and it will be constructed in China by CSC Jinling Shipyard.

As a liner enthusiast, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m not too keen on the recent trend toward ever bulkier passenger ships. Ships like the Norwegian Epic and the Oasis of the Seas look more like floating condos than naval vessels. Even the Queen Mary 2 suffers from balconyitis, albeit to a lesser degree.

Epically Obese
Photo of the Norwegian Epic courtesy of Brian Burnell @ http://nuclear-weapons.info

The Titanic, on the other hand, looked very much like a ship, with a lean superstructure and four raked funnels. Aesthetically speaking, the Olympic-class ships were a masterpiece, both inside and out.

The sister who survived
I couldn't find a picture of the Titanic in full profile, so I had to use the Olympic. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

As far as I can tell, no designs for Titanic 2 have been released yet, so it’s unknown how closely she will resemble her namesake. However, it’s already been confirmed that she’ll have a bulbous bow for greater fuel efficiency, bow thrusters for greater maneuverability, and a larger rudder. They’ll also have to figure out a new place for the lifeboats. On the original ship, they were stored 59 feet above the water on the boat deck, but current SOLAS regulations require lifeboats to be stored no higher than 49 feet (though Cunard was able to negotiate an exemption for the Queen Mary 2 because of the nasty conditions on the North Atlantic).

The interior will need to be changed as well. I doubt they’ll have steerage, for example, and second class will probably be ditched too. Even first class will need adjustments (back in 1912, private bathrooms were the exception rather than the rule, even in first class!). If they’re truly faithful to the original design, there won’t be any balcony cabins like we know them today. True, the so-called ‘millionaires’ suites’ on B- and C-decks had ‘private promenades,’ but those were totally enclosed. The lack of balcony space could prove detrimental to the ship’s commercial success. After all, one of the reasons the Queen Mary 2 has so many balconies is that they were thought necessary to help recoup her $900 million price tag. Granted, the Titanic 2 won’t be nearly that large, but if she’s constructed like a true ocean liner, she’ll be a lot more expensive than an ordinary cruise ship.

Ultimately, the whole enterprise seems macabre though. After all, the Titanic is only famous because her maiden voyage resulted in the deaths of 1,500 people. I do wonder how they plan to handle that in the brochure!

Remembering the SS France

Today ended up being a very happy day here at Casa Loch. Earlier in the week, I won a set of deck plans from the SS France on eBay and they just came in the mail. I’m thrilled to bits; not only did I snag a great deal, but they’re even more incredible than the photos led me to believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s a photo of the exterior of the ship:

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The France is one of my all-time favorite ocean liners. At 1,035 feet long, she was the longest passenger ship in the world at the time of her construction (a record she held until the construction of the Queen Mary 2 in 2004). From the beginning, she was heavily subsidized by the French government, who hoped that she would become an oceangoing showcase of Gallic culture and design. But when she entered service in 1962, the transatlantic passenger trade was already in decline. Her owners, the French Line, increasingly used her for cruising during the off season, but, like many ships built for the transatlantic run, she wasn’t well suited to sunnier climates. She had little open-air deck space, and both of her swimming pools were indoors. Still, she remained a popular ship, and she continued to sail for the French Line until 1974, when the rising price of oil forced the French government to stop subsidizing her (the funding went to the Concorde instead).

Instead of going to the scrappers, the France received a second lease on life when Norwegian Cruise Line made her their flagship with the new name of Norway. She sailed for NCL until 2003, when a boiler explosion forced her withdrawal from service. By that point, it would have been prohibitively expensive to repair her, and in 2005 she was sold for scrap. By 2008, this grande dame of the seas was no more.

I’m not sure why I like the France so much. Her decor was very much a product of the 60s, and that sort of sleek modernism isn’t usually my thing. But her exterior was amazing (despite the silly little wings on her funnels!), and to me she epitomizes the lean look of a transatlantic greyhound. I wish I could have had the chance to sail on her, and it’s really too bad that she couldn’t live on as a museum ship like the first Queen Mary.  At least I now have these deck plans to remember her by.