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{ { Infobox ship career
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|Ship flag=
| 2|Ship owner=* 1969–1971: Cunard Steamship Company Ltd
1971–1998: Trafalgar House
1998–2008: Carnival Corporation & plc
Since 2008: Istithmar World, Dubai
|Ship operator= *1969–2008: Cunard Line
2018–2022: PCFC Hotels
2022: Accor
|Ship registry=* 1969–2008: Southampton, United Kingdom
2008–2018: Port Vila, Vanuatu
Since 2018: Dubai, UAE
|Ship route=North Atlantic and cruising during Cunard service
|Ship ordered=1964
|Ship builder=John Brown and Company (Upper Clyde Shipbuilders), Clydebank, Scotland |Ship original cost = £29,091,000 |Ship yard number=736 |Ship hull id= |Ship laid down=5 July 1965 |Ship launched=20 September 1967 by Queen Elizabeth II |Ship completed=26 November 1968 (Sea trials commenced) |Ship acquired= |Ship maiden voyage=2 May 1969 |Ship in service= 1969–2008 |Ship out of service=27 November 2008 |Ship status= Floating hotel & museum at Mina Rashid, Dubai |Ship identification=* 1968–2009: Callsign: GBTT, British ON 336703 2009–present: Callsign: YJVW6, }}
|}Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) is a retired British ocean liner converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was then laid up until converted and since 18 April 2018 has been operating as a floating hotel in Dubai.Queen Elizabeth 2 was designed for the transatlantic service from her home port of Southampton, UK, to New York, United States. She served as the flagship of the line from 1969 until succeeded by in 2004. Queen Elizabeth 2 was designed in Cunard's offices in Liverpool and Southampton and built in Clydebank, Scotland. She was considered the last of the transatlantic ocean liners until "Project Genesis" was announced by Cunard Line in 1995 after the business purchase of Cunard by Mickey Arison; chairman of Carnival and Carnival UK. Project Genesis was intended to create new life in the ocean liner saga, and in 1998, Cunard revealed the name: Queen Mary 2.Queen Elizabeth 2 was refitted with a modern diesel powerplant in 1986–87. She undertook regular world cruises during almost 40 years of service, and later operated predominantly as a cruise ship, sailing out of Southampton, England. Queen Elizabeth 2 had no running mate and never ran a year-round weekly transatlantic express service to New York. She did, however, continue the Cunard tradition of regular scheduled transatlantic crossings every year of her service life.Queen Elizabeth 2 retired from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She had been acquired by the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. The 2008 financial crisis intervened, however, and the ship was laid up at Dubai Drydocks and later Mina Rashid. Subsequent conversion plans were announced in 2012 and then again by the Oceanic Group in 2013, but both plans stalled. In November 2015, Cruise Arabia & Africa quoted DP World chairman Ahmed Sultan Bin Sulayem as saying that QE2 would not be scrapped and a Dubai-based construction company announced in March 2017 that it had been contracted to refurbish the ship. The restored QE2 opened to visitors on 18 April 2018, with a soft opening.
Development
By 1957, transatlantic travel was becoming dominated by air travel due to its speed and low cost relative to sea routes, with passenger numbers split 50:50 between sea and air transport. The increase in market share by air showed no signs of slowing down, especially once the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC8 entered service in 1958. Conversely, and Queen Elizabeth were becoming increasingly expensive to operate, and both internally and externally were relics of the pre-war years and needed to be retired by the mid-1960s.
Despite falling passenger revenues, Cunard did not want to give up its traditional role as a provider of a North Atlantic passenger service, and so decided to replace the existing ageing Queens with a new ocean liner designated "Q3", as it would be the third Cunard Queen.
The Q3 was projected to measure 75,000 gross register tons, have berths for 2,270 passengers, and cost about £30 million.
Work had proceeded as far as the preparation of submissions from six shipyards and applying for government financial assistance with the construction when misgivings among some executives and directors, coupled with a shareholder revolt, led to the benefits of the project being reappraised and ultimately cancelled on 19 October 1961.Cross.