Cunard Officially Welcomes Queen Anne with Ceremony at Fincantieri Shipyard

[bluemarble]

Cruise Industry News has posted an article about the handover ceremony for Queen Anne. The article quotes a Cunard press release I can't find yet in either the Cunard News Room or on the Carnival Corporation New Releases page but that's not unusual.

 

https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/04/cunard-officially-welcomes-queen-anne-with-ceremony-at-fincantieri-shipyard/

[Host Hattie]

Exciting times, thanks for posting. 

[D&N]

Interesting to note that the CEO and managing director of Fincantieri doesn't know the difference between a liner and a cruise ship. 🙂

[exlondoner]

23 minutes ago, D&N said:

Interesting to note that the CEO and managing director of Fincantieri doesn't know the difference between a liner and a cruise ship. 🙂

It may all be in the translation. Perhaps there isn’t a difference in Italian?

[Poole Boy]

Still moored at the shipyard, not started her voyage to Southampton

[Millieloulou]

We both said “liner!,” at the same time.

[bluemarble]

27 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

It may all be in the translation. Perhaps there isn’t a difference in Italian?

 

Interesting tidbit. When I ask Google Translate to translate "ocean liner" from English to Italian it comes up with "transatlantico".

[exlondoner]

2 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

 

Interesting tidbit. When I ask Google Translate to translate "ocean liner" from English to Italian it comes up with "transatlantico".

That is lovely. And didn’t the Italians have some gorgeous transatlantici.

[bluemarble]

17 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

That is lovely. And didn’t the Italians have some gorgeous transatlantici.

 

Yes, indeed. The Italian Line has a long history. I'm sure our ocean liner experts can fill in some of the details, but a couple of the most notable pre-World War II Italian ocean liners were Rex and Conte di Savoia. Rex held the Blue Riband briefly. Unfortunately, neither of those ships, along with several others, made it through the war unscathed.

[exlondoner]

2 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

 

Yes, indeed. The Italian Line has a long history. I'm sure our ocean liner experts can fill in some of the details, but a couple of the most notable pre-World War II Italian ocean liners were Rex and Conte di Savoia. Rex held the Blue Riband briefly. Unfortunately, neither of those ships, along with several others, made it through the war unscathed.

And Andrea Doria, the one that sank, was beautiful.

[D&N]

Just to add to that in various Italian articles about ocean liners, particularly Michelangelo and Raffaello, the term supertransatlantico is used.

In reports about cruise ships, such as Costa Concordia, they use Nave da crociera.

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, Poole Boy said:

Still moored at the shipyard, not started her voyage to Southampton

 

I certainly don't want to start any unfounded rumors, but there is a possibility QA's voyage to Southampton will be delayed a few days. Cunard have notified travel agents their previously scheduled "test" cruise on April 29th in Southampton has been canceled. There are also a few unconfirmed posts elsewhere on social media claiming QA won't be leaving Venice until April 22 or 23.

 

No need for any alarm concerning the maiden voyage departing as scheduled on May 3, but her arrival in Southampton on April 27 might be in jeopardy. I'll be glad to be proven wrong about this by seeing QA depart soon. I will add the Southampton VTS Cruise Ship schedule still shows QA arriving on April 27.

[exlondoner]

5 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

 

I certainly don't want to start any unfounded rumors, but there is a possibility QA's voyage to Southampton will be delayed a few days. Cunard have notified travel agents their previously scheduled "test" cruise on April 29th in Southampton has been canceled. There are also a few unconfirmed posts elsewhere on social media claiming QA won't be leaving Venice until April 22 or 23.

 

No need for any alarm concerning the maiden voyage departing as scheduled on May 3, but her arrival in Southampton on April 27 might be in jeopardy. I'll be glad to be proven wrong about this by seeing QA depart soon. I will add the Southampton VTS Cruise Ship schedule still shows QA arriving on April 27.

When I was speaking to a lovely lady at Cunard today, I asked whether she was going to get to see the ship before us. She said she was hoping so, but originally she had been one of a coterie selected to stay overnight on board, so the crew could practice, but to her disappointment that had been cancelled, because they still had a lot to do. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the date of that. She did assure  me everything was fine for the maiden.

[NE John]

1 hour ago, exlondoner said:

That is lovely. And didn’t the Italians have some gorgeous transatlantici.

DW first came over to the US in a transatlantico, and I’m sure, nowhere near any Grills-type area…actually she took a couple transatlantici as a youth. She said she remembers her mother being seasick most of the time!

[ratflinger]

2 hours ago, exlondoner said:

It may all be in the translation. Perhaps there isn’t a difference in Italian?

Cruise Ship - nave da crociera

Ocean Liner - Transatlantico

Yes there is indeed

[Ray66]

The email I received from Cunard this afternoon reads:

 

A Memorable Milestone

 

Today we officially took delivery of our newest ship, Queen Anne, from master shipbuilders Fincantieri. The traditional handover ceremony took place in the Marghera shipyard near Venice. During the ceremony the Cunard flag was proudly raised by Captain Inger Thorhauge, signifying the change in ownership.

We’d like to express our thanks to the very skilled team of engineers, designers, architects and more who have worked tirelessly on Queen Anne during her time at Fincantieri Marghera.

 

Cunard President, Katie McAlister was joined by CEO and Managing Director of Fincantieri, Pierroberto Folgiero; and General Manager of the Fincantieri Merchant Ships Division, Luigi Matarazzo.

Italian Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, was also present to welcome Queen Anne to our fleet.

 

Captain Thorhauge will be at the helm, when she sets sail for her home port of Southampton, ready for what is sure to be a spectacular maiden voyage on Fri‌day 3 M‌ay.

We’ll be posting the latest updates throughout her journey home, as well as sneak peeks of what is in store for guests across our social channels,
so be sure to follow us.

[Antonio82]

Hopefully only a minor change to plans:

 

https://www.cruisetradenews.com/cunard-cancels-queen-annes-test-voyage-ahead-of-launch/

 

 

[bluemarble]

Here's a link to the Cunard press release which has been posted now on the Carnival Corporation New Releases page, in case anyone wants to see the original press release at this point.

 

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/cunard-officially-welcomes-new-ship-queen-anne-ceremony

[cook68]

A couple of photos of the signing over 
Credit: @shipmonk

[cmm398]

If you look at this link, for the port of Venice, it shows Queen Anne due to depart at midday on Wednesday 24 April.

https://venezia.ilogis.it/riepiloghi/pages/riepilogoNavi/layout_riepilogoNavi.zul;jsessionid=FCB3E3FF00197775D05D6AA3DD1B74CB

 

She will clearly need a number of days to get to Southampton, so I assume the will release some of the dock reservations and I assume instead of arriving Saturday I am guessing more like Tuesday? Must be a week at QA's max speed of 21 knots, and likely need to do a few other things on the way too?

[bluemarble]

25 minutes ago, cmm398 said:

If you look at this link, for the port of Venice, it shows Queen Anne due to depart at midday on Wednesday 24 April.

https://venezia.ilogis.it/riepiloghi/pages/riepilogoNavi/layout_riepilogoNavi.zul;jsessionid=FCB3E3FF00197775D05D6AA3DD1B74CB

 

She will clearly need a number of days to get to Southampton, so I assume the will release some of the dock reservations and I assume instead of arriving Saturday I am guessing more like Tuesday? Must be a week at QA's max speed of 21 knots, and likely need to do a few other things on the way too?

 

Thanks, that does help confirm QA is unlikely to be in Southampton on April 27th.

 

Figuring roughly 3200 NM from Venice to Southampton and 20 knots sailing speed, that works out to 6-2/3 days sailing time. If QA does depart Venice at noon on Wednesday, April 24th, then a rough estimate might be the morning of Wednesday, May 1st for her earliest possible arrival at Southampton.

 

Will be standing by for further details as they become available concerning QA's voyage from Venice to Southampton.

[sogne]

Venice   Southampton 2805 nm @ 21kn 5d 12h approx 

[bluemarble]

Just now, sogne said:

Venice   Southampton 2805 nm @ 21kn 5d 12h approx 

 

Thanks. I'm pretty far off using 3200 NM then. I was using the figure quoted by ports.com.

[sogne]

20 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

 

Thanks. I'm pretty far off using 3200 NM then. I was using the figure quoted by ports.com.

I use sea-distances.org + my charts

[Austcruiser84]

13 hours ago, D&N said:

Interesting to note that the CEO and managing director of Fincantieri doesn't know the difference between a liner and a cruise ship. 🙂

Dictionary definition includes cruise ship alongside scheduled passenger service ships as ‘liners’. Plus from a marketing perspective it sounds better. 
 

I believe QA’s forward hull is slightly more robust than your average cruise ship. Therefore slightly more liner in design than cruise ship. 
 

Excited to finally see what she looks like inside (bulky exterior is somewhat uninspired).