New build's name

According to another couple boards, the new Vista Class for Cunard will be named the Queen Victoria...

[jon]

Victoria is the name I am waiting for them to announce. Unless they go for QE3 (I hope they do not do this), it has to be Victoria or possibly Britannia.

Cunard might surprise us of course.

Jon

Done deal - it IS the new name - Queen Victoria - I kinda like it:

"By Peter Woodman, Travel Correspondent, PA News

Shipping company Cunard announced today that its new 85,000-ton cruise liner which will enter service in 2005 will be named Queen Victoria.
Built for the UK cruise market, the Southampton-based vessel will be the second largest Cunarder ever built.
The 1,968-passenger ship will enter service a year after Cunard’s new flagship, the 150,000-ton Queen Mary 2 (QM2), which is nearing completion.
The Queen Victoria will operate cruises from Southampton to the Mediterranean, the Canaries, northern Europe and the Caribbean, joining the QE2 and the Caronia.
Queen Victoria will feature a covered wraparound promenade deck, a forward-facing observation lounge and a large lido pool.
Ten of the 12 passenger decks will be served by exterior glass-walled lifts.
Like QE2 and QM2, the liner will have a Queen’s Grill, offering single-seating gourmet dining. Two-thirds of the cabins will have balconies
The on-board menus, entertainment and lecture programme will be geared to British tastes and the currency will be sterling.
Queen Victoria will fly the red ensign, she will have the name of her home port, Southampton, on her stern and she will have a British captain and officers.
In design terms, she will have a British feel, with two British design teams being responsible for her interiors.
Pamela Conover, Cunard’s president and chief operating officer, said today: “Cunard Line was founded just after Queen Victoria came to the throne, and her reign saw the company develop hugely in every sense.
“Throughout her reign, Cunard built more and even better ships, we embraced radical new technology and we carried more passengers in greater comfort.”
She went on: “Today, with more capacity than we have had for 40 years, Cunard is entering a new phase of expansion commensurate with that experienced under Queen Victoria, so it seems entirely appropriate for the new ship to bear the name. It is also fitting that the second largest Cunarder ever should also bear a Queen name.”
Queen Victoria will be built at Italy’s Fincantieri shipyard near Venice, with her keel scheduled to be laid in July this year."

[jon]

This carries on the Cunard tradition of naming ships ending with "-ia" and it suits the new ship well.

The story goes that the Queen Mary was to have been called the Queen Victoria, many years ago (I'll give someone else a chance to tell the full story).


Jon

[ErnieMCC]

Jon... so I did in another thread! No one knows if it is apocryphal or not... but it is a nice story! We could do with a QV1!

[Marc Thompson]

On the 12/17/02 QE2 crossing, our host at the table (a member of the crew) said that the new ship would be named the Queen Victoria.