The Cruise Line

This week Queen Elizabeth 2, the most famous ship afloat, begins a series of farewell voyages before she leaves Britain for the last time on 11 November for a new life in Dubai.

On 30 September she departs Southampton for her final Round Britain voyage, during which she will call for the last time at six ports in the British Isles.

On 2 October she will visit Cork, in the Irish Republic, which for many years was the embarkation port for Irish emigrants seeking a new life in the United States and Canada - most of whom crossed the Atlantic with Cunard on QE2's predecessors. She will be there from 0900 hours to 1800 hours.

The following day at 1230 hours she returns for the ninth and final time to Liverpool, home to Cunard Line for 167 years - and the city where QE2 was conceived and designed. That evening, she is planned to leave from her berth close to the Pier Head's Cunard Building - the company's famous former Head office - at 2200 hours and the night sky will light up with a magnificent firework display.

On 4 October the ship visits Belfast, for the very first time, home to many of the Atlantic liners that were built by Harland & Wolff. She is planned to be there from 1230 hours to 2300 hours and there is planned to be a fly past by the Red Arrows.

Then it's on to the Clyde, birthplace of QE2, where she is planned to arrive in Greenock at 1200 noon and depart at 2200 hours to another crescendo of fireworks.

In Edinburgh on 7 October, QE2 will anchor midriver by the iconic Forth Railway Bridge. She is planned to arrive at 0800 hours and will be saluted by a flypast from RAF Leuchars at 1700 hours just before her departure.

Her final call, on 8 October, will be the Tyne - birthplace of such famous Cunard ships as the four-funnelled Mauretania and the little Carpathia, which rescued all the survivors of Titanic. She is planned to arrive at 1030 hours and depart at 2200 hours with a firework display between the twin piers at the mouth of the Tyne.

After her return to Southampton on 10 October, QE2 sets off on her final westbound crossing of the Atlantic to New York. This was the route for which she was principally built, and she followed in the footsteps of her famous transatlantic predecessors, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. She will sail in tandem with Cunard's current flagship Queen Mary 2 and QE2 will make her 710th call to New York on 16 October.

Both ships will leave New York together, passing by the Statue of Liberty, before QE2 sets off on her 806th - and last ever - transatlantic crossing to Southampton.

QE2's final departure from Britain will be on 11 November when she leaves Southampton for the last time. Then she will receive her last Royal visitor, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, whose visit for lunch on board will be his seventh. Her Majesty The Queen bade farewell to QE2 on 2 June this year.

QE2 is planned to leave her berth at 1915 hours, after darkness has fallen, and will move slowly upriver to a point opposite the city's Mayflower Park where she will bid farewell to the City if her home port and then a magnificent firework display will mark her final - and 726th - departure from her home port of 39 years.

Commenting on QE2's farewells, Cunard's President and Managing Director, Carol Marlow, said:

  "We hope these Farewell Celebration voyages will be wonderful time for people to come out and say goodbye to this iconic ship. She is, quite simply, the best loved ship in the world and just as there could never be another Mauretania, or another Queen Mary, so there will never be another QE2. She will be remembered for decades yet to come. But her mantle as flagship of the British merchant fleet has already fallen upon her young sister, Queen Mary 2, a ship recognised as the grandest ocean liner ever built and similarly destined for Cunard greatness".


For more information on cruises with Cunard, please call 0800 008 6677 where one of our Cruise Specialists would be delighted to speak to you.