The story began on Nov. 27, 2008, when the Cunard Line officially handed over ownership of the ship to Dubai World. The buyer, a conglomerate owned by Dubai’s government, had forked out £50 million – which back in those distant pre-Brexit times was worth $100 million – for the vessel. There was much talk of new eras, not least by me in my newspaper report of the event (see link below).

The initial plan was to transform the ageing queen of the seas into a super-luxury hotel and park it next to the Palm Jumeirah, a giant palm tree-shaped artificial island that developer Nakheel, a Dubai World subsidiary, had created off the coast of Dubai.

However, the global financial stormclouds that would sweep away numerous ambitious construction projects in Dubai were already gathering – Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy protection just two months earlier. Nakheel and other Dubai developers had borrowed heavily to fund the transformation of the city into a property and tourism hotspot, and were soon having trouble servicing their debts.

Within a year Dubai World and Nakheel were at the centre of a full-blown debt crisis, and in November 2009 London’s Daily Telegraph reported that Dubai might have to sell the QE2 to help pay its liabilities. Instead the QE2 was left languishing for years, first at Mina – or “Port” – Rashid and then in a drydock. It was a sad comedown for what had once been the most glamorous ship on the high seas as it carried the leading celebrities of the day.

QE2 spruced up in dry dock prior to the announcement of yet another plan for the ship

Some of the ship’s devoted fans saw a silver lining in all this. There had been talk that the vessel’s iconic red funnel was to be removed and the hull sliced lengthways so that an extra section could be inserted to provide more space for rooms and restaurants – ie the ship would be completely destroyed.

This came to nothing, and the Palm Jumeirah hotel idea was later dropped. Other plans, such as sending the liner to Cape Town in 2010 to serve as accommodation for World Cup fans, or for her to go to a shipyard in China for refurbishment prior to becoming a floating hotel at an unnamed Asian city, went the same way. There were even fears the great liner would be scrapped.

There was no hint that all this was to come at the handover ceremony on that sunny Dubai day in 2008. The ship, carrying 1,686 passengers and 991 crew, had arrived the previous day, and was greeted by a flotilla of boats as it neared Port Rashid.

Dubai World’s chairman eschewed his own large yacht to greet the QE2 on the decks of Dubai, the even larger superyacht owned by Sheikh Mohammed, Dubai’s ruler. An Emirates A380 superjumbo flew overhead, and fireworks blazed into the night sky after the liner docked.

There really was a passing-of-an-era feel as the sleek Cunarder’s years on the high seas came to an end. Crew members I spoke to seemed a bit sad, yet proud of the ship and the fact that they had served on her.

The captain, his officers and the president of Cunard were kept waiting by the Dubai World delegation, who arrived several minutes late for the ceremony. As the news editor remarked later when I told him this back at the office, what could be more urgent than picking up the keys to the QE2?

Earlier there had been concern among some of the Dubai officials because sewage was being pumped from the vessel’s ballast tanks into two tankers parked on the dockside – it was felt that the chairman would be offended if this was still going on when he arrived. His speech seems rather hollow now in view of what happened in the years that followed – he said: “The QE2 has come to a home that will cherish and protect her.” The Cunard president seemed genuinely emotional as she said a few words.

Still, all’s well that ends well – the QE2 hotel is welcoming guests after opening last year. The ship is following in the wake of another Cunarder, the Queen Mary, which has served as a floating hotel in Long Island, California, since 1972. The Queen Elizabeth tradition lives on in the form of a Cunard cruise ship with that name.

The QE2 was built at Clydebank in Scotland, and as a result many Scots such as I feel a special affinity with her. I remember the thrill I felt as a child watching the spectacular launch on black-and-white TV in September 1967, and was particularly taken with the piles of massive chains the hull dragged behind it to prevent it descending too quickly down the slipway.

Updated February 2020