Ocean Liner/Cruise Liner vs. Cruise Ship

[NightOne]

I was watching the special on the Queen Mary 2 last night on Discovery Channel and they kept talking about how this was different than a cruise ship and that was different than a cruise ship.

I asked my wife what the difference between and cruise ship and a cruise liner or ocean liner is and she seems to think size of the ship.

But, while the QM2 is 151,400 tons that is only a little bigger than something like RCCL's Voyager class at 138,000 tons and Princess' Caribbean Princess at 116,000 tons.

Now they did mention something about the steel being thicker so that it could handle waves up to 100 feet (yes!!!) in the North Atlantic, but is there more to it than that.

Thoughts?

**

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[This message was edited by NightOne on 05-17-04 at 10:34 PM.]

[srphnx]

An Ocean liner is a ship meant to cover distance, has to be long and relatively low. QM2 is able to do nearly 29 knots, which is FAST. It goes on a "line" from here to there and does so quickly, it comes from the days when people sailed to cross the ocean rather than fly.

A cruise ship is a slower - 21 knots, more port oriented ship, for Island hopping and such, a cruise ship would handle like a chubby SUV in a corner in really rough seas compared to a liner which would handle like a high end sports sedan.

Size isn't the issue there are smaller liners and bigger cruise ships, smaller cruise ships and bigger liners.

The steel used in QM2 was because of where she sailed as much as her task, if a Cruise ship were to spend full time in the North Atlantic, it would be wise to use similar materials.

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[spongerob]

A cruise ship will avoid bad weather and rough seas as much as possible - this allows it to be built larger and lighter. A liner has to take what nature throws at it, within reason, and therefore is built much more heavily so it can resist the pounding its likely to take over its 30-year service life.

It's like comparing an old Chevy C-10 to a modern pickup. The old one could take a beating; the newer one probably wouldn't fare quite as well if treated the same way.

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[relevart]

There are very few ocean liners these days. It used to be that was all there was. They were what got you across the pond before the jet airplanes came into being. The usually had 3 classes of passengers which could not comingle except at Sunday Mass. Ocean liners were the only method of transportation across the pond. Today they exist for people that like a touch of the way things used to be, sort of like taking the train across the United States. When traveling across the Atlantic it is considered a 'crossing' rather than a 'cruise'.

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[Pam in CA]

It's my understanding that an ocean liner was designed to go from point A to point B as fast as possible without "sightseeing" stops. They were designed to do the same thing planes do today.

The original Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were ocean liners. Perhaps that's why they're using the term today but they're really cruise ships 'cause they're making interim stops between embarkation and disembarkation.

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[dougnewmanatsea]

Oy... This is a tough question, one that is almost as hotly debated amongst ship freaks like myself as "ship v. boat".

My take on it, which I will warn you is just my humble opinion and has been questioned by many people who know what they're talking about (but can't seem to agree with each other either):

An ocean liner, by definition, is a large passenger ship designed to transport people (and possibly cargo) from point A to point B over a large distance on the open sea, as a mode of transport, and not to be used for cruises.

A cruise ship is a ship that is designed to be used not as transportation, but simply for cruising "for the heck of it" if you will.

QM2 is a hybrid ocean liner and cruise ship. She was designed to fulfill one purpose part of the time, and the other the rest of the time. QE2 is also a hybrid, as she was also designed to fulfill both purposes.

The last large Atlantic liners, PURE liners, that is designed with no intention of every cruising, where Italia's MICHELANGELO and RAFFAELLO of 1965. By the 1950s most new liners being built were also designed for part-time cruising, and so they are hybrids. In the past 30 years, except for QM2, all large passenger ships built except ferries have been pure cruise ships. The last hybrid built before QM2 was NAL's VISTAFJORD (now Cunard's CARONIA, soon to be Saga's SAGA RUBY) in 1973, and before her, Deutsche-Atlantik's HAMBURG (now Sovocomflot's MAXIM GORKIY) and QE2 in 1969. So nowadays any form of ocean liner, even a hybrid one, is quite rare.

"Cruise liner", incidentally, is just another word for a cruise ship. "Liner" simply means that the ship adheres to a published schedule; most container ships are liners too; those that are not are "tramps".

Also, the assertion that an ocean liner does not make intermediate stops is incorrect. In their day almost all ocean liners made intermediate stops. A service might look something like Naples-Genoa-Cannes-Gibraltar-New York - lots of intermediate stops. Some container liners today stop in literally dozens of ports on a given voyage. This is just as an airline flight may be routed, say, New York-Chicago-San Francisco, or a train makes many stops along its way. It's the same idea, and has nothing to do with being an ocean liner or not.

Right now Cunard claims that QM2 is an ocean liner because of the way she is built. In some sense this is true, the more sturdy construction she has is necessary for a North Atlantic liner in particular, however ocean liners for different services in different parts of the world were built to different standards. There is no single design feature that makes a ship an ocean liner or a cruise ship, it is all in the type of service that it was intended to be used on when it was designed.

As I said, there is no clear consensus on this, even at the highest levels, but that's the way I personally see it.

Doug Newman
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e-mail: shiploverny AT yahoo DOT com

[Druke I]

I believe the Host is correct in many of his points.

Liners usually have thicker steel, to take the pounding received at high-speed transits.

Hull shape is often different, with a more noticeable keel, not as flat bottomed as cruise ships, and also usually "finer" length to beam ratio. Cruise ships hulls are somewhat stubbier.(Above all gross generalizations)

Michael