Thursday, February 23, 2006 - the historic first meeting of "two of the world's great ocean liners." The recently launched Queen Mary 2, the new giantess, sailed into Long Beach Harbor, up beside the original Queen Mary, permanently docked out here. The old Queen Mary is in financial trouble - its operating company is owned by a business that filed for bankruptcy last March and owes the city millions in back rent. The hotel and museum are still open, for now. The Queen Mary 2 is part of Carnival Cruise Lines, as they bought the Cunard Line, and the Queen Mary name, in 1998. They operate Cunard as a two-ship subsidiary. Times change.

Thousands of people turned out to see these two together - the roads were jammed and the skies filled with news helicopters and there were skydivers and such things. An unusual event, and a good photo-op, of course.

You will find a new photo album of the event here, thirty-five shots, mostly at high shutter speed with the telephoto lens.

The Los Angeles Times write-up of the event is here and there's more background at various places in the Times.  In 1936 the first-class cabin round trip in the Queen Mary from New York to England and back cost $536. The Queen Mary 2 is charging from $7,749 to $79,349, per person, double occupancy, for its thirty-six day South America cruise from Los Angeles.

Note that here you will find the Just Above Sunset page of aerial views of Long Beach and the Queen Mary, photographs taken from the Goodyear Blimp, August 2005.

The Scene

If you use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me.
These were shot with a Nikon D70 - lens AF-5 Nikor 18-70mm 1:35-4.5G ED or AF Nikor 70-300mm telephoto.