A look inside the £479m Queen Anne, Cunard’s first new cruise ship in 14 years

The sun rises on Cunard’s new ship, Queen Anne, on they day she was officially handed over to the owners from the Fincantieri shipyard in northern Italy – Christopher Ison

It all looks very familiar. Especially, perhaps, at first glance. For one thing, that fabled colour scheme is present and correct; that grey-black hue of the hull, the flawless white of the cabin decks, the tell-tale red, striped with black, where the funnel pushes up into the sky. Even the name has a melodic ring of flashback – so much so that, standing at the Hampshire dockside, I have to reach for my phone; check that it has not been used before.

It has not. At least, not by Cunard.

‘Queen Anne clings to the quiet elegance that has long been a Cunard hallmark,’ says Chris Leadbeater

But my sense of déjà vu is forgivable. The British cruise line’s newest baby, Queen Anne, is the latest in a long line of regally named vessels. On Tuesday, she entered British waters for the first time, slipping into Southampton, which will be the base port for many of her voyages. As she came in, she was practically sailing in her ancestors’ wakes.

Ancestors? Well, there are a few. Three of them are core components of the current Cunard fleet – Queen Mary 2 (launched in 2003); Queen Victoria (2007); Queen Elizabeth (2010). Two of them are grande dames of yesteryear, now retired as floating hotels – Queen Elizabeth 2 (moored in Dubai as of 2018), the Queen Mary (a static fixture on the waterfront in Long Beach, California, since 1967). And one of them is sadly gone – the original Queen Elizabeth, consigned to the bottom of Hong Kong harbour by fire in 1972. But it all adds up to a fine heritage. The new girl has a little of all of them about her.

The Queen Anne during her sea trials

True, she is a 21st-century creation. So much was clear this week, on Wednesday, during a day of preview tours and getting-to-know-yous. Queen Anne is both the 249th ship in the company’s history, and the first Cunard launch in 14 years. She has come alive in Venice over the last two, via the Italian ship-builders Fincantieri, at a reported cost of US$600 million (£479 million). And she is no shrinking violet. At 323m (1,058ft) in length, and with a gross tonnage of 113,300, she is longer and larger than two of her siblings (Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth) – though shorter and smaller than her flagship, Queen Mary 2. She can hold 2,996 passengers, and 1,225 crew members. She has 14 restaurants, 12 bars and lounges, a theatre, an art gallery, a casino and a library. She is not a slender yacht for shallow tides.

Tramonto restaurant offers dishes inspired by fresh Mediterranean flavours, with a sprinkling of African and Arabic influences

The Aji Wa restaurant, meanwhile, celebrates the signature tastes of Japan – Christopher Ison

But for all her various bells and whistles, Queen Anne clings to the quiet elegance that has long been a Cunard hallmark; if not quite since 1839, when British-Canadian shipping magnate Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, then certainly since 1879, when his business was reorganised as the Cunard Steamship Company Ltd, in the face of competition from the likes of White Star Line – and the golden age of oceanic passenger ships began in earnest. Queen Anne’s softly carpeted interior has echoes. There is polished wood. There are Art Deco flourishes. That the opening production in its Royal Court Theatre is a pleasingly breezy rendition of Noël Coward’s 1945 film (via his 1936 play) Brief Encounter feels appropriate.

Fast forward (back) to 2024, and it is easy to make a comparison to one of this year’s other major launches – Icon Of The Seas; the Royal Caribbean behemoth that, with space for 7,600 passengers, is now the biggest cruise ship on the planet. While the two vessels are aimed at different markets, and deliver different styles of travel, the contrast between the somewhat gaudy Icon – with her unmistakable upper-deck spaghetti-pile of brightly coloured water slides – and Queen Anne’s understated sophistication is striking.

The interior of the Grand Lobby is indicative of the quietly elegant approach of the Queen Anne’s designers – Christopher Ison

This, of course, is the idea. During a panel discussion on Wednesday afternoon, Lewis Taylor of London-based David Collins Studio – one of the design companies behind the Queen Anne blueprint – spoke of fact-gathering missions to the Cunard Archive in the company’s spiritual home of Liverpool. “It’s an incredible resource to have,” he said. “There is so much on record, from menu cards to colour combinations, and period details that we were able to interpret in a contemporary way.

“It’s important that this new ship has all this DNA. You have to be inspired by those archive references. But you have to reinterpret them. We didn’t want Queen Anne to be a pastiche. This is a ship for the future.”

Queen Anne sails from the Fincantieri shipyard near Venice in northern Italy en route to Southampton – Christopher Ison

On-board attempts to add contemporary scratches to that classic gleam are not hard to find. For every exercise in haute cuisine – double-Michelin-starred French chef Michel Roux has crafted an evening menu for the Queens Grill restaurant – there is an edgier take on modern culture. While – as with the three other Cunard ships currently in service – The Gallery is a showroom for London-based specialists Clarendon Fine Art, and everything on the walls is for sale, a brief visit to its well-lit space on Deck 2 will allow you to gaze at works by (at time of writing) Banksy, Los Angeles street artist Mr Brainwash (Thierry Guetta), and Salvador Dalí. The Pavilion – the two-deck space which acts as the heart of the ship – will offer evening screenings of engaging short films, via a partnership with the British Film Institute.

The Pavilion Pool, complete with screen showing films drawn from Cunard’s association with the British Film Institute – Christopher Ison

A rendering of the spa

As for the future of the “ship for the future”, it is already here. Tomorrow (May 3), Queen Anne will set off for Lisbon on her inaugural voyage. A two-week jaunt to, and around, the Canary Islands, will follow (May 10-24).

Queen Anne passes the Isle of Wight as arrives at her home port of Southampton for the first time – Christopher Ison

The schedule is busy. A third cruise – the 14-night “British Isles Festival Voyage” – is in the diary for May 24-June 7, and will include a stop in Liverpool, for the official naming ceremony, on June 3. And if any of this has whetted your appetite, a 16-night “Western Mediterranean” odyssey – calling on five ports in Spain (Vigo, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, La Coruña) and two in Italy (Civitavecchia, Alghero) – is planned for June 7-23 (cabins are still available from £4,189 per person, similar voyages later in the year start at £1,749 a head; 0344 338 8641; cunard.com).

Classically elegant she may be, but this sailing queen will not have much chance to rest.

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