I’m starting this thread basically to be shamed into getting my lazy currently unemployed ass out of bed tomorrow morning. After a storm-induced delay was made up, the Queen Mary 2 is now scheduled to dock at Pier 88 at its regular time of
8:00 a.m. or so. Pysch!!! The last time I saw an ocean liner (not one of those Houston office parks on a barge called cruise ships) leave NY, it was the Norway, ne France, which steamed down the Hudson for the last time on Sept. 5, 2001, one of the last days you could stroll right up on the piers to look down on it. We raced it down to Chelsea Piers on the subway and watched it go by. I wish we’d gone to Battery Park and I could have got pix by the Twin Towers.
I’m brining the camera and am wondering if maybe I’m better off going to Hoboken rather than stay in NYC. As I recall the deep-ship channel in the Hudson is a lot closer to Jersey than to NY, and hey, I’d have NYC as a backdrop!
Anybody else going? And/or have opinions about NY vs. NJ for pix? I’ll put up the pix on my little yahoo site tomorrow.
Well, from all the replies I can tell there’s tons of ship fans on the SDMB :rolleyes: but I’m going anyway. It’s 5:40 am and I live way the hell up in the Bronx, so I’ve decided to go to Christopher Street or Chelsea Piers. The Queens are both leaving on Sunday evening, so then I’ll go over to Hoboken and photograph them with NYC in the background.
I don’t recommend this; soaking cameras in strong salt solution is nearly always a bad idea and, unlike olives, does not help to preserve them.
Seriously, it should be spectacular; I took my kids down to Southampton to see the maiden embarkation and it was fantastic. I totally misjudged the scale of the thing initially because the windows are quite large - I was looking at them, thinking that I’d see someone’s head and shoulders pop up in a window sooner or later, then the penny dropped and I realised that those little specks that are moving are the people.
Is link provided in the OP is now defunct? I too am lookin’ forward to seeing Mehitabel’s pics.
The coolest thing I heard on the news last night about her arrival: Depending on the tides, the top of of the ship could be as close as 12’ from the bottom of the Varrazano-Narrows Bridge. That, in my opinion would make for a cool aerial snapshot (Especially given the fact it would piss off the Port Authority over on the Gangplank).
I like kayaking out of the Chelsea Piers on the Hudson every once in a while. Dodging the Water Taxis are hard enough. I can’t imagine what it would be like to get out of the way of the QM2.
If you can’t get to the QM2, there is a webcam where you can still see it. Open the link, scroll down, and then click on the ‘Empire State Building’ link. The camera can move and zoom; just use the controls as you would on Mapquest. http://www.cruiseserver.net/travelpage/other/ship_cams.asp
This is a bit of a hijack, but I’ve always wondered…
Is the QEII called that because it is the second in a series of ships named for Queen Elizabeth, or is it called the QEII because it is named for the current Queen of England, Elizabeth II?
Well, the album is finally up! Please let me know if the link works.
Amazing how quiet watching a giant contraption with four huge props is. It was indeed closer to the Jersey side but because of the thick haze and the wind the whole fleet–Queen, tugboats, cutters, pleasure craft, etc. just seemed to waft on by on the misty river. Except for one mighty blast of an airhorn the size of a subway car! Everyone cheered the ship and waved and the people onboard waved at us.
It was a little early–like I wrote before, I was out the door at 5:45 am, grabbed the bus, took the D train the West 4th, went to this quaint little neighborhood coffeehouse that has a cute literary name (hint: the guy was First Mate of the Pequod) and grabbed some java, then went along Grove and Christopher Street to the Hudson to find over 100 people already staring at her; she’d just come into sight up the river, at 7:12 am. Yikes! Ran along the pier to a good viewing spot although I wasn’t about to push into the first row. About half the people had cameras of some sort. There were a bunch of Brits with their flags and a little English cocker spaniel wearing one too, stuck in her collar. The Queen flew the British naval flag with the American at her bow, I believe; again, it was hazy. Thank God I didn’t go down to the Statue of Liberty area, because I believe people who wanted a pic of her passing it might have been severely disappointed.
So, a great morning! Walked along the Hudson, up past Pier 54 where the Carpathia docked with traumatized Titanic survivors, up to Pier 59 which had been built extra-long for the three sisters of which only the Olympic made it to Chelsea Piers, then cut over to my gym on 20th. When I made it home a few hours later all the news shows had pix of the Queen. Mine may not be as professional but I hope they show what it was like to be there. Can’t wait til Sunday night!
My understanding is that the QE2 was the “Queen Elizabeth 2”, without roman numerals, because it’s the second ship named after Elizabeth, the Queen Consort of King George the Sixth (and mother of the current reigning Queen). If it was named after the current reigning Queen, it would be named the “Queen Elizabeth II”.
Similarly, the QM2 is the second ship named after Queen Mary.
