Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 216 days

As Queen Victoria left the southern hemisphere, her big sister Queen Mary 2 was being welcomed in New Zealand and Australia. Auckland was a special celebration, as Trelise Cooper, the internationally renowned New Zealand fashion designer, chose Queen Mary 2 as a tableau to display her new collection when Cunard’s flagship paid her third visit to Auckland on 4 March.

One hundred and fifty of New Zealand’s fashion community came together on the top deck of Queen Mary 2 to enjoy the flamboyant colours and the exotic fabrics that are the hallmarks of any of Trelise Cooper’s collections. Her unique approach to style is born out of the adventurous New Zealand spirit, and embraces the quirkiness and originality that comes with living at the edge of the world. Trelise Cooper’s international client base includes Julia Roberts, Liv Tyler, Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon and Catherine Zeta Jones and her garments are sold throughout Europe, America, Asia Australia and of course New Zealand.

In addition to the fabulous collection, guests enjoyed an amazing view of Auckland Harbour that only the top deck of Queen Mary 2 can offer, while they enjoyed a cocktail reception of Moet & Chandon champagne and fine canapés laid on by Executive Chef Karl Winkler. Queen Mary 2’s International Band, Vibz entertained VIP’s, guests and media during the event. Sunshine prevailed and the day showcased Queen Mary 2 at her best proving that the models were not the only well dressed ladies in port that day.

Three days later the largest ship to ever visit Australia arrived in Sydney in spectacular style marking the half way point of her 101-day World Voyage, and her third visit to this truly magnificent city. At 5:00pm she slipped through the famous Heads into Sydney Harbour.

Despite the slightly breezy conditions, a welcoming armada was waiting inside the harbour, in the many small coves that grace the Harbour’s edge, ready to greet Queen Mary 2 as she made her way slowly into the channel past Quarantine House on the North Head, and Vauclause Bay in the Eastern Suburbs. Craft appeared from every quarter, and in no time at all Queen Mary 2 was escorted by a growing flotilla of every conceivable variety of pleasure boat, from a jet boat to a water Taxi. 

Several helicopters buzzed the ship with photographers hanging precariously form their sides recording the event for the evening news. Australian flags appeared from the balconies of several staterooms adding to the atmosphere of the occasion. After Captain Bates made his turn off Fort Dennison Queen Mary 2 then backed up towards the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge.

What a fantastic picture to see Queen Mary 2 from this view, especially when you consider she is two-thirds the length of the bridge and taller than the bridge’s road deck! To huge crowds she then proceeded to pass the famous Opera House, which she seemed to dwarf.

She then headed to her berth in Garden Island docking at 7:00pm 

Guests then went ashore to enjoy their first of two evenings in this amazing city with Queen Mary 2 leaving late the following night. I’d like to thank James Morgan for sending me these fantastic pictures and to David Stephenson, Queen Mary 2’s Hotel Manager, for all his help in putting this Blog together.

As promised I’ll be back tomorrow with a report from Queen Victoria’s World Voyage Dinner and my regular post on Thursday. I did mention it was going to be a busy week! Cheers Alastair

Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 237 days

A highlight of every World Voyage, is visiting Sydney for two days, and this year on Queen Victoria was no exception. In fact, as you saw on Thursday’s Blog, it included a world first with Queen Victoria being the first ever liner being bathed in pink light. I’ll let our President and Managing Director, Peter Shanks, take up the story in a special guest Blog.

Guest Blog – Peter Shanks – President and Managing Director of Cunard Line:

Tickled Pink Down Under in Sydney…………………… and then I climbed the bridge

It was with a real sense of excitement that I set off from Heathrow for Australia last week. I was on my way to Sydney to see our ship Queen Victoria. Excitement changed to a sense of being rather knackered – it really is a very long way and you lose all sense of which day it is and where you are. I flew on the new Qantas Airbus A380 – it’s a terrific aircraft but any aircraft loses its appeal after 22 hours. Nonetheless I arrived safe and sound with two objectives in mind for the visit – to catch up with my friends and colleagues on board Queen Victoria and to give a well deserved shot in the arm for our colleagues in Carnival Australia who are doing so much to grow Cunard’s awareness in the Australian market.

I thought I would share with you three remarkable things I got up to during my short visit.

Turning Queen Victoria Pink – We worked with the National Breast Cancer Foundation to host an event to launch their fund raising efforts for the year ahead. The champion of the foundation here in Australia is Sarah Murdoch, and what a delightful and famous Australian she is. Many of us find ourselves contributing to charities, but very few people are passionate enough to drive and champion a foundation as brilliant and well deserving as Breast Cancer – so hats off to Sarah and her colleagues. Our little bit to help was to offer Queen Victoria for a reception on the aft deck at sundown. It was an awesome setting; on the port side the Opera House and on the starboard side Sydney Harbour Bridge. But being a Cunard event we had to give a twist. So we thought; how about we turn the ship pink to support such a famous ‘Pink’ charity.

Well the pictures speak for themselves. Not only did we turn the ship pink; the resulting media pictures went right around the world.

That gives us so much pleasure – of course it helps to see a Cunard ship a part of such a fabulous event but to help the charity in a small way is jolly satisfying for all of us.

Climbing the Bridge -The next afternoon I had a few hours to spare prior to setting sail for Melbourne. I thought the only view to have of Queen Victoria would be from the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is something I have always wanted to do. Well, I can now recommend to everybody who visits Sydney to climb the bridge if they can. It is the most well organised I have ever seen. They are meticulous in preparation; medical checks, complete kit of overalls, harnesses, headgear, hats and radios. We were a group of 14 strangers from all over the world, but over the course of three hours became friends through the adventure. I tried not to remind myself that I don’t like heights. Once you get up the ladders onto the top structure – it’s a walk in the park and you climb up the beautiful curve of the bridge. It did not take long until we were right at the top, looking down on one of the most beautiful vistas in the world. But today that vista was even more special because below us was Queen Victoria.

OK, so I stand accused of going to any length to gain positive coverage for the Cunard brand, but I have to admit that having a picture of myself and Queen Victoria from the top of Sydney Harbor Bridge is pretty cool. In fact why don’t I lay down a challenge to see if any of our competitor cruise lines can better that? I very much doubt it.

To the real reason for my visit to Queen Victoria – Many of you will know just how special White Star Service is to Cunard Line, our staff and our valued guests. As we sailed from Sydney to Melbourne we launched the new and revitalised White Star Training Program to the ship’s company. Over three presentations during the day, I was able to share our plans face to face with every member of the ship’s company. We are investing in new training programs, new personal development opportunities, as well as awards for ‘Star of the Month’ and ‘Staff Suggestions’. At the end of the presentations we also gave every member of the ship’s company a small gift, to thank them for their incredible efforts in looking after our guests on the World Voyage. Later that day there was another highlight, as we launched the new Cunard Long Service Awards. Along with senior officers, we presented 33 awards to staff who have been with Cunard for more than 20 years. This included stewards, able seamen, waiters and many others. They each received a special White Star Pin, a certificate and an award commensurate with their length of service.  The longest serving officer was awarded for over 38 years and 7 months of dedicated service to Cunard Line – how special is that?

So we arrive in Melbourne today which presented another chance to share Queen Victoria with travel agents and media guests. Tonight we have our famous World Voyage Dinner in the National Gallery in Melbourne to those guests travelling right round the world with us. Then it’s back to London for me, suitably knackered (technical term), but immensely proud of the team we have on board.

What was the highlight of my visit? No question, it was seeing the pride and delight on the faces of our staff when they received recognition for their dedicated service to Cunard – good for them.

We will be back in Australia next year with both Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth in Sydney on the same day. And to make it special, it will be the 70^th anniversary of when Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth met in Sydney in 1941 – I can’t wait…………..

Best Regards

Peter Shanks

Thank you Peter for this guest Blog and I can say that it’s been a busy, but very exciting time on board Queen Victoria. As we said goodbye to Peter we are now heading, for the very first time, along the southern coast of Australia to Adelaide and then Perth. I’ll post some more pictures and news as we go along. Peter mentioned Queen Victoria’s current longest serving officer, and I’ll be interviewing him in a week or so. He is the Crew Housekeeper. His name is John Davies and he has a fascinating story.

I’ll also be back later in the week with a special announcement about Queen Elizabeth along with some new pictures from her under construction in Italy. It’s going to be another busy week of Blogging! Cheers for now, Alastair

Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 241 days

There are very few harbors in the world that can welcome Cunard Liners quite like Sydney. In fact for me it is up there with New York and Venice for sheer breathtaking views. I have sailed in to Sydney quite a few times and despite having to get up at 5.30am, to watch the sun rise over iconic structures like the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, it’s always worth it. But before I get in to this last week on Queen Victoria’s World Cruise, here’s “This week in Cunard’s History” for the week of the 27^th February to the 5^th March

February 27 2001

Pamela Conover becomes the first woman at the helm of Cunard when she is appointed President and Chief Operating Officer.

February 29 2008

Queen Victoria makes maiden call at Port Douglas.

March 2 1950

Caronia transits the Suez Canal for the first time.

March 5 1975

QE2 makes her maiden call at Kobe, Japan.

So back to our arrival in Sydney; I would have been up on deck early anyway but this time I had to call in to a local radio station to describe the sail in which of course was very easy with so much to see. As it turned out however, they were more interested in Queen Victoria. There is no question that there is something special about Cunard and our ships, that when they arrive in ports around the world, there’s always a tremendous amount of interest. It was also great to see so many of our guests on deck listening to a commentary from the bridge (ours I might add – not the harbor Bridge!) I managed to get on deck as dawn was breaking to take this picture of two of the most famous landmarks in the world with the Cunard house flag in the foreground fluttering in the gentle daybreak breeze.

We are too tall to fit under the Harbor Bridge, so we docked at Circular Quay, which is a perfect place to start discovering Sydney with all the ferries coming and going from there, as well as trains and busses etc. Yet again we were so lucky with the weather with Sydney enjoying its best day of weather for a week or so. This picture shows not only what a stunning place this is to be berthed, but also puts Queen Victoria’s size in to perspective against such an incredible backdrop.

There is so much to do in Sydney and our guests were lucky to have two days to do as much sightseeing as possible, with a few trying the now famous Harbor Bridge Climb which I can thoroughly recommend. There’s a ferry to take you to the beautiful beaches at Manley or a bus to the famous Bondi beach which definitely has a strong English seaside town flavour to it – just a little warmer! There’s a lot to discover and much of it is within a short walk of the ship, such as the historic Rocks district where amoungst all the carefully restored old buildings on George Street, I discovered what claimed to be Sydney’s oldest pub – The Fortune of War.

Convicted of theft, Samuel Terry arrived in Sydney in 1816 and his fortunes definitely changed as he established the pub twelve years later. As he built his property empire he gained the name of the “Rothschild of Botany Bay”! However it burned down and what we see today is a building built in 1922 which means according to the staff at The Lord Nelson up the road on Argyle Street, that they are in fact the oldest hotel in continual use as the same building!

It was built in 1842 and gave me an excuse to have one of their beers brewed on the premises! Then it was time for a bit of shopping and yes I did buy a didgeridoo. I know what you are going to say but – well, I didn’t have one and it seemed a great idea at the time and at least I am not flying home! Little did I know how hard it is to play or even get a sound out of it. However that night back on board Queen Victoria, we had invited a local show featuring Aborigine music and dance, to perform for our guests. I met the leader of the group called Gambala (though for some reason he said I could call him Paul!),

He showed me the technique of how to play this incredible instrument, which is thought to be one of the oldest in the world. He showed me how to play it, but I still couldn’t despite his best demonstration. It takes incredible mouth and diaphragm control as well as loads of practice. Like all things it looked a lot easier than it was – still it’ll look very nice somewhere in a corner at home! The show with the dancers was wonderful as they illustrated how the Aborigine culture can communicate through dance.

They looked fantastic and it turned out to be very much a family affair. With a great deal of pride they showed us how they pass on their traditions through the generations.

All too soon it was time to leave this amazing city, but yet again the crowds gathered to see us off for another year. As we waved our farewells we all had another chance to add to our photo collections – I mean it doesn’t get much better than this does it!

We had two days at sea sailing along Australia’s eastern coast to get to Queensland and the port of Yorkey’s Knob (and before you ask – it’s named after the man who apparently came here at the beginning of the 20^th century and saw a hill that resembled a door knob). It is a small port that serves as a gateway to the City of Cairns, which is a popular destination for tourists. It is also one of the best access points for the Great Barrier Reef which unlike the Great Wall of China, can actually be seen from space. It’s a beautiful part of the world and we just got everyone on board that evening before it started to rain. Wow we have been lucky with the weather – again!

The next day turned out to be Shrove Tuesday which meant another World Cruise tradition was going to take place. It was time for interdepartmental rivalry as 17 teams of the ship’s crew gathered to see who was going to take the crown from the Musicians who won last year. I’ll avoid the obvious jokes about pancake tossing, but I can tell you, so fierce was the competition, that the Britannia Restaurant waiters were divided in to two teams (upper and lower level). After a stewards enquiry as to whether the pancakes had been flipped sufficiently (oh yes it was very competitive!), in the end it was the Britannia Tigers who won the crown. Here are the victorious team pictured with Captain Wright.

Well that’s it for another week but I’ll get you some more news soon as we progress north. Alas as we approach the Equator again on the 27^th our summer will be over again but we will have ports such as Nagasaki, Hong Kong and Shanghai to look forward to. Until then all it leaves me to say is thanks again for reading and for all your comments – keep them coming! Cheers for now, Alastair