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Queen Elizabeth 2 - 2007
Mediterranean Splendour & The 40th Anniversary Cruise

This is the story of two consecutive but very different cruises. We had initially booked the 8 day cruise round Great Britain to celebrate the Queen Elizabeth 2's 40th anniversary, the date of which coincides with Pauline's Birthday. Eight days seemed very short so we later added the previous cruise which was a fortnight round the Mediterranean.

'Mediterranean Splendour' was very much a typical cruise on the QE2 from Southampton to Southampton and took us to both familiar and new places.

The 40th Anniversary Cruise was by far the most memorable of our journeys on the QE2, it was not only a journey round Great Britain but a nostalgic and often emotional trip in time commemorating the 40th anniversary of the World's Greatest Liner, the triumphant climax of an outstanding tradition for safety and elegance built up by Cunard. It was a lap of honour visiting not only her birthplace but the roots from which the Cunard tradition grew over 168 years.

Using the same style as previous journeys, the write-up is in several parts with navigation bars at top and bottom of each page allowing you to move from page to page.

Firstly there is a comprehensive introduction to cruising on the QE2 written by Peter - this may be skipped if you have read about our previous experiences. It has however been updated to include details and cameos of life on board from this journey. That is where you will find information and pictures of everything from Gala dinners to ice carving, and tug of wars to crossing the line. This is common to several years cruising so use the links at top and bottom to return to this cruise.

Secondly there are a number of sections based round the ports, listed in the order in which they were visited. They make comprehensive use of the photographs we took - a picture is worth a thousand words.

All the pictures on the pages provide details of where they were taken if you hover a cursor over them and they can all be clicked to open a larger version in an Overlay (Lightbox) or Popup Window. The image display options can be set on the settings links at the bottom right corner of every page which includes pictures.

We hope you will enjoy the write up and our pictures as much as we enjoyed the journey


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Content revised: 24th July, 2020