This is a celebration of tradition for twenty-first century ocean travel an in-depth look at the Cuard Line's Queen Victoria discussed in the context both of the Line's illustrious 170-year history and the modern-day luxury cruise industry into which this ship was born. ''The Queen Victoria'' is designed to uphold Cunard's rich sense of tradition, itself going back to the Victorian era, and at the same time to also complement the more contemporary approach of the Line's new flagship, Queen Mary 2. In choosing the name Queen Victoria for this ship, Cunard establishes a strong link with the times of Victoria's long reign through a period of great progress and prosperity paralleling a timeline from the Line's own birth to its veritable coming of age at the twentieth century's dawning. Through the twentieth century Cunard progressed to building and operating the first Queens, Mary and Elizabeth as two of the largest and fastest liners ever built for the North Atlantic run, following these with the crisply modern Queen Elizabeth 2, built for the dual purpose role of express Atlantic service and luxury world-wide cruising.Cunard has since opened the third century in which it serves with Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger liner in the world at the time of her 2004 debut. She is now joined by Queen Victoria, a modern ship that is also designed and built as a true Cunarder, conveying through her design a strong impression of the Line's rich sense of tradition. As this book explains, the effect is achieved without recourse to pastiche or period revivalism, but rather as an altogether new work set in a leitmotif that celebrates the times and ships of Cunard and asserts a contemporary impression of a bygone golden era of grand-luxe travel.