If my sources are correct – and my sources are very rarely wrong – then at about lunchtime today, the Queen Mary 2 should be heading into Cape Town for a brief stop. This won’t be her first visit to the Mother City – she was here back in March last year.
Although no longer the world’s largest cruise ship, she remains the world’s largest ocean liner. I wondered if an ocean liner was a bigger version of a pond liner, which is one of those plastic sheets you put down to make an integrated frog haven and drowning hazard in your back garden. But apparently not.
According to Wikipedia:
A cruise ship is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship’s amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way
whereas:
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule.
So now you know. And this particular ocean liner is heading into the seaport of Cape Town after crossing the South Atlantic from the seaport of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the seaport of Montevideo in Uruguay. Tomorrow evening, she will set sail for the seaport of Durban, passing the really tiny village of Port Elizabeth on the way.
From there it’s a completely unhectic schedule of Mauritius, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Phuket, India, Dubai, what’s left of Egypt, Italy, Monaco, Spain and then back to New York via Southampton.
Hellish life, hey?
I’ll be popping down to the Cape Town harbour to get a couple of pictures on my way to the football tomorrow, so look out for them. In the meantime, you can look out for the 15-storey, 151,400 ton, 345 metre long boat next to the Waterfront.
I doubt you’ll miss it.
That will be me waving to you from the balcony of my Queen’s Grill Suite… cheese!
Heather Mills > Wow. Lucky you. I would give an arm and a le… I would love to go on board the Queen Mary 2.