Float your boat
Queen Elizabeth II is moving to Dubai to live at The Palm.
Or at least her boat version is. The QE2, the world's most famous cruise ship, has been bought from Cunard by Istithmar. She will berth at The Palm Jumeirah in 2009 on a specially built pier and become a luxury floating hotel.
The ship will get a full refurbishment. Presumably this will include removing the pictures of the British royal family and replacing them with more sheikhly portraits. And the casino will have to go - or maybe not, if the vessel counts as "off shore".
Sheikh Mo had a steamboat
It cruised across the main
It anchored at The Palm one day
And never sailed again
Or at least her boat version is. The QE2, the world's most famous cruise ship, has been bought from Cunard by Istithmar. She will berth at The Palm Jumeirah in 2009 on a specially built pier and become a luxury floating hotel.
The ship will get a full refurbishment. Presumably this will include removing the pictures of the British royal family and replacing them with more sheikhly portraits. And the casino will have to go - or maybe not, if the vessel counts as "off shore".
Sheikh Mo had a steamboat
It cruised across the main
It anchored at The Palm one day
And never sailed again
23 Comments:
Sheikh Mo has a boat
and in case The Palm
drowns in the sea
Away he can float
to avoid Salik fee
Sheikh Mo has a boat
so big is she that Aliens see
her from Space
and may wonder about
the vain human race
Ah, this inspires me. I can feel a vision coming up.
I think it is a shame on the Royal British family not to be able to keep such an icon, On the other hand, Shaikh Mohammad is grabbing a great opportunity to attract more tourists.
But beware: they may loose interest if the British Royalty pictures & momentum are removed.
Queen Elisabeth 2 is as great as the name it bares, no more.
Change it, you will get an empty shell.
It would have been cheaper to buy a white elephant from Thailand.
"It would have been cheaper to buy a white elephant from Thailand."
Been there, done that.
Art from bart - are you a bit thick?? The **CRUISE LINER** (that bit is the clue) QE2 has never belonged to the queen, has nothig to do with her except it bears her name.
I think this is the perfect solution for the labor housing problem! Put all laborers in the steamboat.
Problem solved!
I read you blog. Very interesting information I found in it, cool blog!!! :)
All said, I think this is going to be an added tourist attraction - more so if it's going to dock at the Palm, embark/disembark it's passengers.
I am sure there are multiple ways to leverage of this tourist attraction - imagine sailing near the Palm or towards the Marina, and coming back to a luxury cruise liner or dinning in the cruise liner with a view of the Palm and Dubai's coastline, it'd be splendid! I can think of some more positive aspects.
Hmmmmm - and for humour, say if the Palm does sink (I hope/pray it does not) there will be a "life boat" which perhaps can accomodate all/majority of it's residents eh :)
see it's all good people : )
I think its a fantastic idea. It will be a Dubai icon. Its money well spent.
By the way it only costs a fraction of Sheikh Mo's private yacht. And to boot boot the citizens of Dubai will be the ones to foot the bill in its operations, which cost something like 30 million dollars a year as running costs. And the average Dubai citizen will not even get to sniff it.
Atleast in the QE2, we get to be working as human resource managers.
Queen Elizabeth 2 is not now and never has been named after the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. QE2 was named RMS Queen Elizabeth, the ocean liner, launched in late 1930's just before the outbreak of WWII.
Interesting that they're going to restore the interior to her 1970's original appearance; the two areas that wont' need much work, that are almost completely preserved from her debut in 1969 is the Champagne Bar on 1 Deck and the synagogue on 3 Deck.
They'll be keeping the Champagne Bar, right?
I guess that Nakheel liked the idea of a ship anchored at The Palm Jumeirah so much that they'll replace this one with a more upmarket version.
Nick! good work!
SD.. please continue the poem you started :-)
It needs a few more stanzas...
ANON..."I think this is the perfect solution for the labor housing problem! Put all laborers in the steamboat.
Problem solved!"
Actually the labourers are kept in a huge boat just off the palm.. or so it was last month.. go and check it out.
overwall.. me thinks it's money well-spent.. and a bargain actually.. but it'll probably cost twice it's price to restore it... but in dubai money, it's still spare change compared to what it'll bring in,,especially off the shores of the palm.
Interesting predicament. Some representative from the World Magazine of (something) said on CNN that 'the Dubai government will respect the QE2 and it's heritage'. So I'm guessing that means that he believes the new owner won't be making any major changes to the oceanliner.
Now what if that conflicts with his morals and principles? Will he be keeping the synagogue and actually have something Jewish place of worship in a Muslim country? Or will he replace it with something else, and risk being labelled? And what if us Muslims want to go look at the synagogue?
*sigh* Problems ..
I wonder what the room rates will be like on this thing!!
Just wonder how Sheikh Mo is gonna do it.
A ship is made to sail on sea, so the temperatures are nice and cool.
What, if it lays still for months, in temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees?
It becomes an iron oven.
I certainly would never go on deck....
Once again we see Dubai's insidious tentacles trying to garner credibility on the world stage by opening its wallet . . .
This just means the trourism competition is still on or there is a new trend to buy ready-made tourist attractions rather than torturing labors to build one. I like this approach it's much more environment friendly.
All seen so far in UAE is wanking on someone else's stick and this is no different !!
Wonder if this boat's ghosts are coming with it.
not every man who steers a boat is a great sailor........
The casino won't go, that's the whole point of it. The Atlantis has casino's in it's design.
Hi
Thanks for your positive comments about our blog's international recognition.
Secret Dubai was one of the main inspirations for the Broadacsters of Tomorrow blog.
Keep up the good work, hopefully you'll inspire more thoughtful dialogue and user generated content!
Another tourist attraction... wow, what a novel idea (*sneer*). Why? Aren't the Palm, World, Burj Al Arab, Dubai world, and the dozens of other u/c spots on the map not enough? Guess not.
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