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Inside the World's Only Floating Planetarium

Where: Brooklyn Cruise Terminal [map], Brooklyn, NY, United States
May 4, 2010 at 1:00 PM | by | Comments (0)

Last week, Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 arrived to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal after a transatlantic voyage to from England, bringing with it many ash-trapped travelers who threw their worthless airline tickets out the window in favor of sailing back in style. Before the ship headed back across the pond, Cunard invited us aboard for a quick peek and some canapes with chef Todd English.

Looking at the QM2, she seems every bit a classic ocean liner; there's no multi-deck-high water slides or putting greens on this baby, but then she's got have something special for modern cruisers. And what she has—aside from that classic appeal—is the world's only planetarium at sea.

For the domed screen ceiling of the planetarium to be installed in the Illuminations theatre on board, a huge hole was left in the top of the ship during construction, and the planetarium components were lowered in. As a result, the massive space completely envelops your range of vision in an IMAX-ish story of space, guaranteed to spur future dinner conversations. It was almost too large to fit into a single photo.

Only about 150 of the 500 or so seats in the Illuminations Theatre rest beneath the planetarium's screen, so you can probably imagine what a stampede it must be for cruisers to get to each of the schedule shows in order to score a great spot. When you consider this feature versus other popular cruise ship additions like putting greens, ice skating rinks and even whole mini neighborhoods, The QM2's planetarium is by far the most educational and humbling. If you were scared to sail across the ocean on a big ship, that thought will soon be replaced by the realization—thanks to the planetarium shows—the everything is going to die in like 1.2 billion years anyway.

Related Stories:
· Queen Mary 2 [Cunard]
· Why is Chef Todd English in the Queen Mary 2's Captain's Chair? [Jaunted]
· Cruise Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: Jaunted]

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