Queen Elizabeth - Philip Dawson

Joining her sister Queen Victoria delivered three years ago, Cunard's newest cruise liner Queen Elizabeth is the latest addition to the fleet and second largest to the Line's flagship transatlantic liner Queen Mary 2. As this great shipping company enters its third century of service, there are for the first time now three Queen-class Cunarders, each with her own unique identity and personality, and together making up one of the youngest fleets in the world. Yet with its origins, and indeed still with a respectful sense of tradition, imparted by over 170 years of continuous service today's Cunarders are products of the second Elizabethan era into whose great prosperity, technological advancements, more informal social institutions and lifestyle expectations they are born and baptised. Like her sisters, the Queen Elizabeth is also the product of multi-national and globalised enterprise, built in Italy as a product of the Corporate Shipbuilding entity of Cunard's parent, the international, Miami-based Carnival Group. Yet she is a ship that nonetheless retains a distinctively Cunard identity and British character while meeting the highest standards of the world-class luxury cruise market. In these pages you explore this remarkable new ship, her design and building, entry into service and the on-board atmosphere that bring her to life for those who cruise aboard her.