“Well, this has been quite the whirlwind last few months! I can’t quite believe that our beautiful new Queen is named and into her fourth voyage, sailing full of lucky Cunarders.”
Launching a ship has been a whole new experience for me and it has been so fantastic to see the teamwork and expertise that we have across the business and with our partners to achieve this.
During March and April, I visited Queen Anne in Venice on three different occasions, the final visit being to sign for the ship and conduct a handover ceremony with our partners, Fincantieri.
The transformation between that first and third visit was quite unbelievable. Not only in how the ship looked, moving from partially constructed to beautifully finished, but also how our colleagues working on board, transitioned from focusing on construction, to moving us into safe operations, fully ready and trained to welcome our first guests. The sense of pride and excitement was really evident in everyone involved but the crew in particular were so happy to be getting back to doing what they do best, looking after our guests.
Queen Anne’s few days alongside in Southampton were another really good few days where we welcomed the media, influencers and our top travel agents to join us onboard to experience our newest Queen, the purpose of this is always with hope that they will write lovely reviews about what they experience – and we weren’t disappointed; she got a great reception and that showed in the number of articles and posts and new stories that appeared everywhere as result.
I hope some of you managed to watch the sizzle reel that the PR team created about the coverage that we created, it was brilliant success, and we really landed the message around how she is evolving our timeless Cunard experience and offering great choice for guests. It was great to round off that week by joining Captain Inger and the team in welcoming our first guests and seeing their first impressions, which were super positive.
It was really unfortunate that we couldn’t hold the test cruise for you all to fully experience Queen Anne and our White Star Service. The ship needed to stay on in Venice, so we couldn’t rearrange the activities that we had planned and had to maximise the media opportunity and protect the guest experience on the maiden voyage. I know that lots of you have managed to get onboard for a ship tour and we’ll continue to offer the chance to do this. It’s not the same as a night onboard, I know, but it does offer the chance to see the hard work of all your colleagues and I hope those of you who do visit feel really proud of what a great achievement she is.
And so, to round off Queen Anne’s inaugural – to Liverpool. The team explained to me just how much Cunard is loved in Liverpool and I’d visited in advance of the naming ceremony where I got a feel for some of that love, but really nothing could have prepared me for the number of people who joined us for the celebrations.
It really did feel very fitting to make the city the godparent as a dedication to that passion and shared history. Aside from my personal highlight of meeting a Spice Girl (as someone who came of age in the 90s, they really did show me that women could do anything!) My overwhelming feeling was just one of enormous pride in our team to create such an incredible event but also of the Cunard brand to command such a reception and so much interest… it was a real ‘pinch myself’ moment and I’m sure everyone there felt the same way.
Since then, it’s been really good to reset and refocus on business as usual and our strategy. The good news is that we announced record sales in May, so all that media coverage really cut through into bookings, and the whole fleet is benefitting from that. Our sailing as four initiative is going well so far, as new crew settle in across the fleet and over the coming months, you will hear more from me around how we are doing with our plans for Queen Elizabeth’s homeporting in North America, our new approach to advertising to communicate the Cunard difference, and our work to review and promote our Grills experience.
For now, I would just like to thank everyone involved across all of Carnival UK and Carnival Corporation Shipbuilding in getting Queen Anne sailing, all those involved in the events that we held through May and June, and all our onboard teams for welcoming our new crew members and setting them up for success.