An ocean liner is different from a cruise ship, said Beverly Beyette in the Los Angeles Times. “Purists sometimes dismiss cruise ships as clusters of floating flats” that quickly return to the same port from which they departed. Liners, on the other hand, cross oceans and may not return to a port of embarkation until much later. The Queen Victoria, the newest Cunard liner, is the latest entry in a grand tradition of gracious ocean-liner elegance that has included the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth, and the QE2. The library on Deck 2 is a showpiece, with a spiral staircase, leather chairs, and a skylight. This deck also contains the red-plush-and-gilt Royal Court Theater, and an assortment of bars and lounges cluster around the triple-decked Grand Lobby “with its make-an-entrance staircase.” “Let the others have their casual dress, free-choice dining, and rock climbing.” I’ll take Victoria’s formality. After all, “a Cunard voyage is special.”
Cunard sells not only elegance but Britishness, and “clings fiercely” to such
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