Inside Queen Mary 2 - Mighty Ships 01202018

RMS Queen Mary 2 (also referred to as the QM2) is a transatlantic ocean liner. She is the largest and only major ocean liner built for the British Cunard Line since Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969, the vessel she succeeded as flagship of the Cunard Line.

The new ship was named Queen Mary 2 by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 after the first 1936 namesake ship RMS Queen Mary. Queen Mary was in turn named after Mary of Teck, consort of King George V. With the retirement of Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2008, Queen Mary 2 is the only transatlantic ocean liner in line service between Southampton, England and New York City, New York, operating for a part of each year. The ship is also used for cruising, including an annual world cruise.

She was designed in 2003 by a team of British naval architects led by Stephen Payne, and was constructed in France by Chantiers de l'Atlantique. At the time of her construction, Queen Mary 2 held the distinctions of being the longest, at 1,131.99 ft (345.03 m), and largest, with a gross tonnage of 148,528 GT, passenger ship ever built. She no longer holds this distinction after the construction of Royal Caribbean International's 154,407 GT Freedom of the Seas in April 2006, but remains the largest ocean liner ever built.