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She appears to be making her way to Dubai Drydocklands.
Follow her story here: http://www.chriscunard.com/today-QE2.htm
See the map here.
But dry dock is not necessary to prepare her for her new role of floating hotel and center in Cape Town (and Dubai is an expensive place to refurbish a ship). If some changes have to be done inside of the "hotel", China, Taiwan have a lot a cheap facilities to do it.
That's why I state that China, without the idea of scrapping but "cheap" refurbishment at low cost, was or is an option. The AIS order was not so stupid, I think
Her boot topping was in pretty bad shape the last few months in service from images I saw. While she was in L.A. for the last time, her boot topping looked quite bad IMO.
Pam
But It was only one track to try to explain the strange AIS order for China. This order was reported, typed and is not a rumor. Maybe a bad/false track ..
quote:Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:Did'nt she skip her last scheduled Cunard drydocking and work was carried out dockside?Her boot topping was in pretty bad shape the last few months in service from images I saw. While she was in L.A. for the last time, her boot topping looked quite bad IMO.
You are correct about the last refit. Also, her boot top was touched up in Dubai - see here, and scroll down you'll see pics of her listing, to facilitate the painting of her boot topping while in the water.
If she is to be there for 18 months they will need to consider cold ironing rather than running an engine for the entire time. Currently there is no provision for this in CT.
South African power outlets (and therefore all appliances etc) have 3 round pin sockets/outlets - these will need to be provided throughout.
WIFI, both tourists and certainly South Africans cannot survive without the internet and they are used to having it freely available.
quote:Originally posted by PamM:Possibly a dry dock is a requirement of the insurer for this voyage? Cover has taken effect from 20 July.As to the AIS, it could well have been a prank by one of the skeleton crew aboard... they may even live there and want to go home Who knows? I wouldn't take much notice of it; sometimes one sees very odd things in there. Pam
All these informations are possibilities and are logical, DD is certainly for a requirement of the insurer for this voyage, you are right. Also to keep the ship in good condition for 18 month in static use.
When SS France was docked after 1974, one of the first thing they did was a DD to clean and paint his hull in november 1976. And the dirt was very important. "Le Havre" was not the cleanest place in the 70's, but her hull was really dirty.
Look at:
http://www.revedefrance.com/nouvellepage5.htm
Regards...
If QE 2 is used as a hotel in Cape Town most of the people staying on board will be from outside South Africa and therefore not affected by the type of plug used on board !
It would be like berthing her on the Thames and refusing to serve anything but Arabic food throughout her stay inc breakfast!
The biggest market for her outside the World Cup is the SA domestic market both corporate and leisure. There are simply not enough QE2 "fans" prepared to fly to SA just to spend a couple of nights on board for the rest of the time - lets face it we here are the best market in that regard, how many of you are prepared to fly all the way to SA just to visit QE2 ? Not many and she has what 900 cabins to fill every night.
And CT has plenty of hotel space, were they planning Durban for instance where due to planning delays for several hotels and the new marina we are going to be short of a few thousand hotel beds next year and the year after and where we have a perfect berth for her then I would support the idea as it makes sense. Also Durban has year round trade rather than seasonal as in CT.
Does anyone here have any shots of her in Al Mina?
quote:Originally posted by Chris:Latest rumour is that QE2's funnel is now blue & purple - not sure how much truth there is behind this.
Sometimes I wish she had just gone to the breakers. At least it would save us all the rumors and such.
I dreamt last night that QE2 was still in service and he was in Southampton about to board for a crossing to New York. So QE2 nostalgia has even pervaded my sleep now. And if her funnel is blue and purple - well I just might have nightmares!
I doubt Cunard would want their name all over the place especially if it turned out to be a total service nightmare ! Just because they have plenty cash (or did have) does not mean the service levels and experience in general is going to be a good one.
quote:Originally posted by mike sa:It would make sense if they did change it, surely if they are using her for commercial reasons then the Cunard logos, names and indeed funnel colours would have to be removed.
With QUEEN MARY there is precedent for keeping them and as far as I know Cunard does not "own" its funnel colors - someone else could use them even on an operational ship if it so chose. Indeed while I am not sure if there are any now, in the past Cunard has hardly been the only company to use them.
quote:Originally posted by Chris:Latest rumour is that QE2's funnel is now blue & purple ...
Excuse me as I go puke.
I think that regardless of QE2's funnel colours she will still look splendid as she sails into Cape Town.
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