14 March 2011

The Queen Elizabeth arrived in the Sabah capital after a visit to Perth in Australia.

The passengers and crew were welcomed by a Sabah Tourism Bureau welcoming squad adorned with garlands. Most of the cruise passengers and crew members took day trips to explore Kinabalu and the surrounding area. The ship left for Hong Kong again at 5.30 in the afternoon.

The Queen Elizabeth has an actual guest capacity of 2 068. Add the crew capacity of 996 and the ship can carry a total of more than 3 000 people. It measures just under a 1000 feet with a width of 106 feet. The draft is 25.9 feet. The ship’s top speed is 23.7 knots.

It took less than two years to build at the Italian shipping yard of Manfalco. The total cost was a staggering $634 million. No surprise then that cruise holidays on the Queen Elizabeth does not come cheap. An extended cruise on this ocean liner can cost up to £119,311.

Because of its size, the Queen Elizabeth has often been compared to the ill-fated cruise ship of yesteryear, the Titanic. It bears to note, however, that the Titanic weighed a paltry 46 328 tonnes and it was nearly a 100 feet shorter than the grand Queen of today.

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