Cunard
Line’s Queen
Victoria celebrates
her fifth anniversary today, as five years ago she departed on her
Maiden Voyage from her homeport of Southampton – a day after being
named by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall with HRH The Prince of Wales in
attendance. Since then she has sailed over half a million nautical
miles, called at 196 ports in 63 countries and carried almost 250,000
guests, many of whom enjoyed the experience so much that they have
travelled many times with the ship already. In all, 20,300 bottles of
champagne – enough to fill six Olympic-size swimming pools – have
been drunk and 9,125,000 cups of tea and 1,460,000 scones have been
served since 11 December 2007!
To
mark this special birthday, HRH The Duchess of Cornwall will make a
return visit (her third in five years) to her ship on 13 December in
Southampton and spend time meeting crew before unveiling a
specially-commissioned portrait of herself and cutting a special
birthday cake.
“We
are very proud of Queen Victoria, her crew and her achievements since
she entered service. To have a visit from Her Royal Highness will be
a very special moment for the ship’s company. Queen Victoria is
known as a happy ship and is certainly extremely popular with
Cunard’s discerning guests.”
Queen
Victoria is
one of the most celebrated ships to be introduced in recent years and
she quickly established herself as a popular member of the Cunard
fleet continuing in style the line’s traditions established 172
years ago.
Now
the third largest Cunard ship ever built (she was the second largest
when she entered service but her sister Queen
Elizabeth assumed
that position when she joined the fleet in 2010)Queen
Victoria has
never been about size superlatives – she is about style. When the
designers of Queen
Victoria began
to consider the ship’s interior public spaces, they drew on the
well-recorded and rich history of previous Cunard ocean liners to set
the tone.
From
the ship’s double and triple-height spaces – a design feature of
grand liners of the past – to rooms imbued with an elegant yet
understated British charm, the overall effect is both contemporary
and classically historic with some exciting innovations. These
include the first traditional West End-style private viewing boxes at
sea in the Royal Court Theatre, the first Cunardia exhibit display at
sea, housing Cunard artefacts and memorabilia and the first
two-storey library at sea featuring an elegant spiral staircase.
Queen
Victoria made
Cunard history when in December 2010 the company’s first-ever
female Captain, Inger Olsen, took command.
