Tag Archives: Queen Mary 2

Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 hosting ‘The Greatest Showman’ premiere

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Cunard Line will host the first debut of a major motion picture on a cruise ship when 20th Century-Fox presents the world premiere of “The Greatest Showman” on Queen Mary 2 in December.

The movie is a musical that tells the story of P.T. Barnum, the legendary circus impresario. Stars include Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, and Zac Efron. It is scheduled to hit theaters on land on Christmas Day.

Barnum sailed several times on Cunard, including an 1850 voyage from England to New York where 40,000 people were waiting to greet the ship.

Scenes from the movie were shot in the original U.S. headquarters of Cunard at 25 Broadway in lower Manhattan. Other scenes were shot in Brooklyn, Queen Mary 2’s U.S. homeport.

“We are thrilled to host the first major motion picture premiere on a Cunard ship,” said Josh Leibowitz, senior vice president, Cunard North America.

Cunard will sponsor a sweepstake in which a winner and their guest will attend the premiere.

Queen Victoria has updated look but the same grand library

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The Queen Victoria’s two-deck library is unified by a spiral staircase, complete with standing globe at the base. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
 

ABOARD THE QUEEN VICTORIA — One of the splendors of this ship is the wood-paneled two-deck library, among the best at sea.

During a recent month-long renovation in which Cunard Line made a number of changes to the ship, it could have taken the opportunity to cut back the size of the library, add a bar or rebrand it as a learning center.

Cunard did none of those things, leaving intact the 7,000-volume collection for guests to peruse.

There’s something extravagant about a two-story library on a ship. The space is unified by a spiral staircase, complete with a standing globe at the base. Upstairs is devoted to fiction, from Aaronson to Zander, while the lower level is for nonfiction.

“Cunard has a proper library,” said Svetlana Minic, one of two librarians who staff the book vault. The only library bigger than the one on Queen Victoria is the one on the larger Queen Mary 2, which has 10,000 volumes, Minic said.

The marvel of such a library is that there’s something for everybody. Not only does Queen Victoria have a fiction section, but it has a separate case for short stories only. There’s a section for young adult fiction as well as one for science fiction. The Everyman Library of classics spans authors from Jane Austin to Virginia Woolf.

The nonfiction collection is even more impressive and superbly organized. There are labeled shelves for everything from Animals, Gardening, Fitness and Science to Arts & Crafts, Food and Drink, Sport, Dance and Digital Photography.

Besides English, there are volumes in Italian, French, German, Japanese and a small number in Chinese.

Reference books include a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There are five floor-to-ceiling cases of travel books, and two of books on marine themes such as Maritime History, Merchant Shipping, Warships, Yachts and Passenger Shipping.

There are about a dozen books on Cunard Line or its individual ships. Minic said there used to be more but guests have taken them home as souvenirs, even though Queen Victoria has a bookshop stocked with new commemorative Cunard books for sale.

For guests who want to take a book home, Minic operates a paperback exchange. She said the library is very popular on world cruises. There’s often not a seat to spare on either level.

Two or three times a year, the collection is freshened with 400 new books. The next change-out is set for the start of Queen Victoria’s June 8 cruise from Southampton.

Minic said she then picks 400 older volumes to be donated at one of the ship’s ports of call.

Cunard and a compelling story of immigration

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The Three Queen’s in Liverpool.
Cunard Line has put together a new video of Micky Arison talking about how Carnival Corp. came to own the storied brand, and it’s worth seeing if you can get the opportunity. Among other things, it sheds some light on the immigration issue that is prominent in the current political debate.

The video begins with Arison reminiscing about coming to the U.S. on Cunard’s Mauritania. It was 1954. Arison’s father, Ted, who founded Carnival, moved the family from Israel to New York where he thought there would be better business opportunities. Micky, who was 5, recalls going to school in New Jersey and being driven along the West Side Highway past the trans-Atlantic liners at the pier.

Little did he imagine at the time, Arison said, that he would grow up to play an important role in the cruise industry.

Arison said he got the idea for a liner like the Queen Mary 2 after seeing the film “Titanic,” with the nostalgic, romantic gloss it put on the ill-fated ship. The 1997 film was the first film to gross more than $1 billion.

In 1998, Carnival bought 68% of Cunard for $425 million, buying the rest later.

Arison said it is often misunderstood that Carnival conceived of the Queen Mary 2 after deciding to buy Cunard. The reality is (one of Arison’s favorite phrases) that Carnival conceived of the ship first and only bought Cunard because It needed the historic brand to make the concept work.

Ted Arison came to the U.S. via Cunard when immigration was at a low ebb. It had been 30 years since the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 had been passed “to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity,” according to a State Department history. It would be another 10 before the law was liberalized by Congress after President Kennedy’s death.

America was as homogeneous as it would ever be in 1954. Yet it still had room for Ted Arison, born in Tel Aviv when it was part of British Palestine. That’s to America’s credit.

Open immigration is a blunt instrument. Some immigrants may turn out to be criminals. Most are ordinary like the rest of us. But some, perhaps a disproportionate number, are extraordinary, like Ted Arison. Is there any doubt that the U.S. economy is better off with Carnival Corp. headquartered in Miami instead of Tel Aviv?

Josh Leibowitz, senior vice president of Cunard North America, said the Arison video wasn’t created with the idea it would be widely distributed. But if there’s a Cunard sales event in your town, it will probably be shown. If you make time to see it you won’t be sorry.