18 June, 2007

QE2 sold to Dubai

News media is reporting that the liner the QE2 has been bought 'by Dubai' for £50 million and will be a luxury floating hotel. The buyer is Istithma and the liner will be moored off Palm Jumeirah, arriving in 2009.

We had one on the Creek back in the late seventies, so nothing much changes...

CNN report.

I have a photo of the original floating hotel here.
Posted by Seabee at 6:56 pm
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4 comments:

secretdubai said...

Great pic - is that the legendary Bon Voyage?!

19 June, 2007 01:50
nzm said...

Australian news carried a report about this last night.

They interviewed Chris O'Donnell from Nakheel.

19 June, 2007 03:27
Seabee said...

SD, it was so long ago I've forgotten the name, but I think it was Bon Voyage. It was a Greek ex-cruise ship I recall, and had a bar on-board, one of the very few in Dubai in those days.

19 June, 2007 10:02
secretdubai said...

Yeah - that's the one. It had no air conditioning and was used as an overspill hotel for all the businessmen who couldn't get rooms in the very few hotels around at the start of the oil boom.

Apparently it was absolute hell inside. So cramped and hot - bunks with people's noses nearly touching the ceiling - people used to have to go up onto deck in the middle of the night for a breather. And you know how hot and sweaty it is in summer outside, all through the night.

But the guys that endured those days that are the ones that got the mega deals. The bloke I met that stayed on it did anyway - he's a mega squillionaire in a palace villa in Jumeirah.

20 June, 2007 03:58

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