| IMO | 6725418 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 70,327 GT |
| Length | 293.5 m |
| Beam | 32.03 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 1900 |
| Service speed | 32.5 knots |
| Builder | John Brown & Company |
| Yard | John Brown & Company |
| Hull number | 736 |
| Launched | 1967 |
| Maiden voyage | 1969 |
| Status | Preserved |
| Preserved at | Dubai, UAE |
Overview
Queen Elizabeth 2 — almost always QE2 — is a retired British ocean liner, built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, Scotland, for the Cunard Line, and operated as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was, for most of that career, the most famous passenger ship in the world: Cunard's flagship from 1969 until Queen Mary 2 succeeded her in 2004, the last ocean liner of the old transatlantic era to remain in regular service, and a ship whose name was recognised far beyond the cruising public.
Her career divides into three acts. The first is the liner career she was designed for — Southampton to New York, supplemented increasingly by cruising, including regular world cruises. The second is her survival: re-engined from steam to diesel-electric power in 1986–87, requisitioned as a troopship in the Falklands War in 1982, and kept in front-line service for nearly forty years. The third, still running, is her retirement in Dubai, where, after a decade of stalled plans, she opened in 2018 as a floating hotel at Mina Rashid — the fate recorded in the dataset: "Preserved as a museum/ hotel ship in Dubai."
Key specifications
The dataset records her at 70,327 GRT, 293.5 m long, 32.03 m in beam, with a maximum capacity of 1,900 passengers and a speed of 32.5 knots, from John Brown & Company as hull number 736. The tonnage needs the label the dataset era demands: it is a gross register tonnage figure, and it is her later-career figure — as built in 1968 she measured 65,863 GRT, rising to 70,327 GRT by 1994 as her internal arrangements changed. Her Wikipedia article gives a capacity of 1,777 passengers, 1,892 in all berths, and a crew of 1,040, and lists a maximum speed of 34 knots with a service speed of 28.5 knots; the dataset's 32.5 knots sits between those published service and maximum figures.
She had 10 decks, a displacement of about 49,708 long tons, and — originally — a steam-turbine plant no later liner would repeat: she was the last oil-fired passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic in scheduled liner service before her 1986–87 re-engining. Speed was not a vanity figure for QE2; it was the point of her.
Design and construction
By the late 1950s Cunard's pre-war Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were expensive relics, and air travel had taken half the transatlantic market. Cunard nevertheless decided to replace them with a new-generation liner, designed in the line's offices in Liverpool and Southampton and ordered in 1964. Unlike her predecessors, she was designed from the outset for two jobs: transatlantic crossings in season, and cruising — including long voyages — out of season. That dual-purpose brief shaped everything about her: a smaller, more economical hull than the old Queens, a high service speed for the Atlantic, and interiors that could be rearranged between class-divided liner work and single-class cruising.
She was built at Clydebank as yard number 736, her keel laid on 5 July 1965, at a cost recorded as £29,091,000. Construction was not smooth: industrial disputes at Clydebank caused delays and quality problems, and Cunard eventually transferred the ship to Southampton, where Vosper Thornycroft completed installation and commissioning work before her sea trials, which began on 26 November 1968 in the Irish Sea. The ship that emerged was nonetheless a technical landmark — fully air-conditioned, fast, and unlike either of the Queens she replaced, designed to earn her living in two different trades.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was launched on 20 September 1967 by Queen Elizabeth II, who cut the ribbon with the same pair of gold scissors her mother and grandmother had used to launch Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary respectively. The name itself carried a deliberate ambiguity that Cunard enjoyed for decades: she is named for the earlier liner Queen Elizabeth — the dataset and her article both record that namesake — making her the second ship of the name rather than a ship named directly for the reigning monarch who launched her, though the coincidence of names was worth a great deal in public affection.
Her maiden voyage, recorded in the dataset as 1969, was the crossing of 2 May 1969 from Southampton to New York. She entered service as Cunard's flagship, a position she would hold, unchallenged within her own line, for thirty-five years.
Career by operator
QE2 kept one name all her life; what changed around her were owners, and, after 2008, her whole purpose:
| Period | Name | Operator / role |
|---|---|---|
| 1969–2008 | Queen Elizabeth 2 | Cunard Line — transatlantic liner and cruise ship |
| 2008–2018 | Queen Elizabeth 2 | Owned in Dubai; laid up / conversion planned, at Dubai Drydocks and Mina Rashid |
| 2018–present | Queen Elizabeth 2 | Floating hotel at Mina Rashid, Dubai — managed by PCFC Hotels, and since 2024 by Accor |
Ownership recorded in her article passed from the Cunard Steamship Company to Trafalgar House in 1971, to Carnival Corporation & plc in 1998, and to Istithmar World of Dubai in 2008. Within the Cunard years fall the landmarks: flagship until 2004; the 1971 rescue of passengers and crew from the burning French liner Antilles; world cruises in almost every year of her later service; and retirement from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008, after a final departure from Southampton on 11 November. The Dubai purchase envisaged a 500-room floating hotel at the Palm Jumeirah, but the 2008 financial crisis stalled conversion, further plans announced in 2012 and 2013 also stalled, and the ship waited at Mina Rashid until the restored QE2 finally opened to visitors on 18 April 2018.
Onboard character
QE2's onboard character changed with her trades, and that adaptability was her defining trait. As built, she still carried the class structure of a liner — her public rooms and restaurants were arranged around first- and tourist-class operation on the Atlantic — yet she was designed so that the ship could open up into a single-class cruise ship, which is progressively what she became. Successive refits rebuilt her interiors in the idioms of each decade she served: she was a 1960s modernist liner, then a 1970s cruise ship, then a 1980s and 1990s luxury vessel, wearing each style on the same Clyde-built hull.
Major refits and incidents
The great refit of her career was the re-engining of 1986–87, when her original steam-turbine plant — three Foster Wheeler boilers and two Brown-Pametrada turbines — was removed and replaced by a diesel-electric plant of nine MAN B&W 9L58/64 engines and two GEC propulsion motors. It transformed her economics, ended the era of the Atlantic steamship, and bought her two further decades in service; without it, she would almost certainly have been withdrawn in the 1980s like every other steam liner.
Her most famous non-commercial episode came earlier: in 1982 she was requisitioned during the Falklands conflict and converted to carry troops to the South Atlantic — the largest and fastest troop transport of the campaign, and a reminder that her speed and size had strategic value as well as commercial value. Of the ships used in that war, she is reported to be the only one still afloat. Earlier, in 1971, she had gone to the rescue of the burning French Line ship Antilles, taking off her passengers and crew. Her long career accumulated the ordinary incidents of a hard-worked liner as well, but these three events — rescue, war service, re-engining — are the ones that define her record.
Sister ships and class
QE2 had no sister ship. She was a one-off, designed alone for a trade her owners expected to run with a single new liner rather than the two-ship weekly service of the pre-war Queens, and she never had a running mate. Her comparisons are therefore generational rather than fraternal: she succeeded Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth as Cunard's Atlantic flagship, she was long described as the last of the transatlantic ocean liners, and she was succeeded in 2004 by Queen Mary 2 — a ship deliberately built, as she had been, for the Atlantic, which took over the flagship role while QE2 continued cruising until 2008. In a directory organised by classes, she stands as a class of one.
Fate and where she is now
QE2 retired from Cunard service on 27 November 2008 and was sold to Dubai. After the stalled conversion years described above, the restored ship opened on 18 April 2018 and operates today as a floating hotel and museum at Mina Rashid (Port Rashid), Dubai, United Arab Emirates — the preserved location recorded in the dataset. She is managed, since 2024, by the French hotel group Accor. Her status in the dataset is "preserved," and uniquely among preserved liners of her generation, preservation for QE2 means continued commercial use: she takes overnight guests in the port where she has now been moored for longer than many ships' whole careers.
Visit her today
Queen Elizabeth 2 lies permanently at Mina Rashid, Dubai, and is open both to overnight guests and to day visitors. The hotel's official site is qe2.com, through which stays and tours are booked. The visitor offer described by the hotel centres on guided Heritage Tours, which present the ship as a floating museum: original artefacts, photographs and navigational instruments, an authentic passenger cabin, the captain's quarters and the flag room are among the highlights reported for the tour, which also tells the story of her launch by Queen Elizabeth II in 1967, her more than 5.6 million nautical miles and 2.5 million passengers, her Falklands service and her steam-to-diesel transformation. Tour formats reported by the hotel include the standard Heritage Tour — listed as running daily, with morning and late-afternoon departures — and versions combined with afternoon tea in the Queen's Grill or with lunch or dinner; check qe2.com for current times and booking, as schedules change.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ocean_liners, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_2, https://www.qe2.com, https://aeworld.com/lifestyle/qe2-launches-tours-exploring-british-royal-and-maritime-history-in-dubai/