Queen Elizabeth 2 Museum

“Did the Queen Elizabeth 2 always call Dubai home?” a curious voice pipes up from our group. An excellent question. The Queen Elizabeth 2, or QE2 as she’s affectionately known, now rests proudly in Dubai. But her story begins far from these shores. This grand ocean liner, once the flagship of the Cunard Line, sailed the world from 1969 to 2008. She was built for the transatlantic route. The route went between her home port of Southampton and the bustling city of New York. The Queen Elizabeth 2 was named after another Cunard liner, the RMS Queen Elizabeth. For many years, she was the queen of the seas. She served as Cunard’s flagship until the RMS Queen Mary 2 took over in 2004. The QE2 was designed in Liverpool and Southampton, and built in Clydebank, Scotland. She is often considered one of the last great transatlantic ocean liners. This era ended when the Queen Mary 2 began service. The Queen Elizabeth 2 held another distinction. She was the last oil-fired passenger steamship to make regular transatlantic crossings. That was until she got a diesel powerplant refit in 1986/1987. During her four decades of service, the QE2 sailed on world cruises. Later, she primarily served as a cruise ship departing from Southampton. Interestingly, the QE2 never had a running mate and didn’t offer a year-round weekly transatlantic service to New York. However, she did uphold the Cunard tradition with regular scheduled transatlantic crossings every year. She was never a Royal Mail Ship. So her official documents used the prefixes SS, MV, or MS. After her retirement in 2008, Dubai World acquired her with plans to transform her into a floating hotel at the Palm Jumeirah. But the financial crisis put those plans on hold. Now, the Queen Elizabeth 2 has found her final home in Dubai. She functions as a hotel and museum. It offers a fascinating glimpse into her glorious past.