Queen Mary 2 & Queen Elizabeth 2 in Sydney

Photo gallery: Queen Mary 2

Sydney Harbour had never seen anything quite like it - the world's largest ocean liner Queen Mary 2 and her sister ship Queen Elizabeth 2 close behind! These two grand dames caused chaos in the city:

• there were crowds of people coming to have a look during the whole day,
• others in cars on all the main roads (in all lanes!) were stopping to watch QM2 so there was a critical traffic jam for the whole day,
• buses, trains and ferries had major delays,
  
• many commuters watching crafts in the evening spent up to 2 hours more on the way home than usual and some of them couldn't get home at all (they couldn't fit into regular means of transport,
• several helicopters were flying among the tall buildings in the city

QM2 and QE2 stayed in the city for almost one day. There was a spectacular firework as a celebration that many people considered to be even much better than the NEY's one!

There are some amazing facts about Queen Mary 2:

• Length: 345 metres
• Beam: 40.5 metres
• Height (Keel to Funnel): 71 metres
• Guest Capacity: 2592 lower berths, 3056 maximum capacity
• Crew: 1253

There are some comparisons of Queen Mary 2:

• QM2 is 147 feet longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall,
• QM2 is more than 3 times as long as Westminster Tower (Big Ben) is high,
• QM2 is only 117 feet shorter than the Empire State Building is tall,
• QM2 is as long as 41 double-decker London buses,
• QM2's whistle is audible for 16 kilometres.