KOTA KINABALU: Cunard's newest luxury liner, the 'Queen Elizabeth', made her maiden port of call here yesterday.
The 294-metre long liner docked at the Sabah Port's harbour at 8am, bringing with her 2,000 guests from 30 countries and 1,000 crew members.
According to the ship's captain, Julian Burgess, their last stop was Australia.
"We were in Melbourne, Sydney and Freemantle before arriving here," he said, adding that they have been at sea for five and a half days before arriving in the state capital.
The 'Queen Elizabeth' was launched in October last year and made its maiden journey in January - a 103-day round-the-world cruise that originated from Southampton, England.
"From Southampton, we went to the US and made four port of calls there. "We proceeded to Curasol, Panama, Mexico, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, before arriving here," said Burgess.
"It is very exciting since every port we call at is always the ship's maiden."
Burgess added that the ship called at Kota Kinabalu so that their guests could see Sabah.
"They will go for excursion today and the captain is taking some time off to play golf," he joked.
He said from Kota Kinabalu, they will make a two-day journey to Hong Kong where they will stop over for two days.
Then they will head for Vietnam, Singapore, India, Oman, Dubai, Jordan, Egypt, Italy, Portugal and several other ports before heading for home to Southampton.
Burgess informed that the liner was nearly 91,000 tonnes in weight. "It has beautiful interior features having 10 restaurants and cafes, a two-storey library as well as two outdoor swimming pools."
"We also have a special theatre where we have loads of big shows and entertainments which are better than some West End shows in New York and London. "We also have on top of the ship a sports area where our guests can play table tennis, lawn balls and croquet. So it is very English."
The 'Queen Elizabeth' left the port at 5pm yesterday.
(Source: The Borneo Post, 08 Mar 2011)
