Did you know?

[Rod]

Rod, not sure that I really want to know the answer, but : what are "bulk eggs"?

I believe that a similar man (probably several) was employed to do nothing but squeeze oranges for a major part of the morning.

Instead of buying eggs by the dozen you buy them by the 5 gallon bucket.

Even when I was there OJ came from a machine unless you were PG or QG!

[Barrie Evans]

The Q E 2 had 20 life boats,and fifty-four liferafts. Their total capacity was for 3,821 persons.

[Stowaway2k]

Did you know...

QE2 did 806 transatlantic crossings?

Carried over 2.5 million passengers?

Circumnavigated the globe 25 times?

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

Even when I was there orange juice came from a machine unless you were PG or QG!

Believe me, those passengers alone were probably sufficient to keep someone occupied squeezing oranges for a long time each day...

[Louis De Sousa]

............that the QE2 left New York on her 1000th voyage on June the 14th 1995?

[cunardqueen]

   Believe me, those passengers alone were probably sufficient to keep someone occupied squeezing oranges for a long time each day... 

Where l work we used to have a large automatic machine for squeezing oranges,You just had to watch in case it jammed. An orange would drop down, an arm would split it in two and then two rubber things would squash each half and eject it into the bin and so it went on,and on, l hated doing this job as it took forever and the end results never seemed to be worth the effort, a box of oranges would only provide a few jugs.l usually took a small bottle home, mercifully the machine broke and we went onto the carton stuff.

But wasnt the orange juice onboard provided in tins....

Rod you must agree America serves the proper orange juice, not like the rubbish that served over here

[cunardqueen]

The laws of copyright and all that. But in the 1986 World cruise book there is a superb feature of what happens on turnaround day in New York, from the minor things like the films being loaded, the pianos being tuned, even for the seasoned traveller it makes for interesting reading, right upto the command being given "we are ready to receive" 
Quite a long feature, but none the less very informative..

As for the eggs on the Masterchef programme it shows the poached eggs being cooked and put into cold water for use later....

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

SS Rotterdam on Facebook has taken up the idea and is now also doing a "Did you know?" :

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=394600370602267&set=a.330912193637752.82208.330905383638433&type=1&theater

[Twynkle]

...that QE2 was the only passenger liner to make transatlantic crossings in partnership with Concorde?
https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,376.msg45432.html#msg45432

[Rod]

That Cunard was the single biggest user of Concorde?
And that Cunard probably extended the life of Concorde by at least 2 years?

[Rob Lightbody]

That Cunard was the single biggest user of Concorde?
And that Cunard probably extended the life of Concorde by at least 2 years?

Hi Rod, good one, thanks!  What's the background for the 2 years thing?

[cunardqueen]

I seem to remember being told by people l met on my first trip in 1986 who were flying back on The Concorde that it was cheaper to sail out on QE2, spend 3 nights at the Waldorf and fly back on the Cunard chartered Concorde rather than pay the scheduled Concorde fare.....

[Peter Mugridge]

That makes sense because BA would charter it out at cost plus a percentage and the charterer carries the risk of not filling it up.

For a scheduled flight, BA have to assume a certain number of empty seats and price the remainder accordingly to cover the costs plus the margin.

A one off Bay of Biscay charter in 1996 was roughly £100,000 but the main charter operators had bulk buy deals and were selling the seats for something like £900 at the time, which suggests they were paying about £80,000 for the charter which in turn implies the operating costs were in the region of £70,000.  Not sure what an Atlantic charter would have been, but I think you get the idea?

[Twynkle]

Did you know that in 1982, QE2 became the world's largest hospital ship, transporting injured service men from the Falkland Islands to Southampton?
 https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,127.msg46316.html#msg46316

[Rod]

Hi Rod, good one, thanks!  What's the background for the 2 years thing?

I read it somewhere Rob, sorry cant remember where. But it was decided to keep Concorde going because of Cunards use. T/A on the sst were not making any money and were usually less than half full. But because of the contract...BA had to keep it going for a while...If we have anybody from the London office they will bear this out I think.