QE II Ocean Liner heads to Asia to become floating hotel
Drydocks World chairman addresses speculation over ship’s future
The QEII will be converted into a 500 room floating hotel in Asia.
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The Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner will be converted into a 500-room floating hotel in Asia, after five years of uncertainty about its final destination, the chairman of Dubai’s Drydocks World has announced.
Addressing recent speculation that the ship was to be sent to China and sold as scrap, Khamis Juma Buamim said it was “not going to be scrapped, period.”
The ship will undergo technical and operational checks before leaving Dubai for renovation in Asia, but a precise final destination has yet to be determined. “By January 2014 we will have the the first moored hotel called the QEII” Buamim said.
Istithmar World, the private equity unit of Dubai World , paid $100m for the 43-year-old ship during Dubai’s property boom in 2007. Drydocks, another Dubai World subsidiary, is now handling the ship.
They said a “large consortium” would convert the QEII into a hotel, and would “lavish many millions of dollars on this magnificent ship.” The joint venture had “a lot of financial resources,” Mr. Buamim said.’
The 294m QEII was built in the late 1960s and was operated by Cunard prior to its sale to Istithmar.
