SOUTHAMPTON'S Queen Mary 2, the biggest passenger liner in the world, is due to begin her maiden transatlantic crossing to New York tomorrow.

The six-day voyage was sold out long before the 151,400-ton megaliner even entered service in January this year.

Passengers who managed to snap up a place on the prestigious passage have paid anything from £1,259 each for a berth in an inside cabin right up to £19,309 per person for one of the gigantic liner's most sumptuous suites.

QM2 is expected back in port early tomorrow following a four-night cruise to the Channel Island of Guernsey and Cherbourg in France before setting sail again at 6pm for America.

This will be the first time that the liner - the longest, highest, widest and most expensive passenger ship ever built - has undertaken Cunard's traditional role of providing a scheduled service between Southampton and New York.

For the past 35 years Queen Elizabeth 2 has been Cunard's transatlantic flagship but now she is officially leaving the route to become a full-time cruise ship based in Southampton.

As QM2 sails into New York next Thursday she is expected to receive a tumultuous welcome as she makes her way up the Hudson River and into the city past the dramatic Manhattan skyline.

Three days later Queen Elizabeth 2 will join her in New York, the first time that two Cunard Queens have been together in the Big Apple since March 1940.

On Sunday, April 25 the two liners will depart together and as they pass the Statue of Liberty the Cunarders will be lit up by a huge firework display.

During the crossing back to Southampton both vessels will remain within sight of each other, another event not witnessed since September 1967.

The two ships will return to Southampton docks on Saturday, May 1, the first time both QM2 and QE2 have ever been seen together in the city's port.

Thousands of people are expected to line the waterfront on May Day to see the two liners sail up Southampton Water about dawn and then, later in the day at 3pm, salute each other as QE2 leaves the port on her way to a refit in Germany and passes QM2 berthed in the Eastern Docks.

published 15th April 2004