The ship has six restaurants, 14 bars and clubs, a library, theatre, disco and casino. The first floating planetarium, 'Illuminations', provides a unique opportunity for passengers to view full colour, full motion educational and entertainment programs. Three planetarium shows are run in rotation, including Stars Over the Atlantic, a night-sky identification program, The Secret of the Dragon for children and Infinity Express, from the Smithsonian. The room is also used for lectures, music, 35mm movies, videos, and general assembly programs. This multi-use requirement posed an interesting design challenge for the NED team and Sky-Skan, the planetarium experts NED brought into the project. Equipped with a conventional and automated lighting rig, full sound reinforcement system and video projection to support the other activities in the space, the room must morph from full planetarium mode to multi-use facility. This is done by a cleverly engineered planetarium dome system that splits and raises the lower section up into the upper half of the dome. The full-sized video screen for movies, half-sized screen for speaker support and two side screens disappear into the interior design in planetarium mode. The full-dome projection system, consisting of six Barco SIM6 DLP projectors and control equipment live in harmony with the art deco interior design and the other production equipment.
Also of note are the state-of-the-art conference facilities. These seven rooms are under the auditorium and near the main lounge where Cunard operates an enrichment program in conjunction with lecturers from Oxford University. The three center rooms can be opened into one large room for seating up to 150. All seven are equipped with a full package of support equipment, including electronic white board, broadcast facilities, video, DVD, VCR, audio reinforcement and support lighting. In addition to local controls, all rooms are tied together with a central switching point, which allows all speaker support from a variety of locations.
Bill Havens comments: "This was a real team effort. Every employee at NED contributed to the success of the Queen Mary 2. We feel privileged to have worked on such a prestigious project."
The Queen Mary 2 was built at the Alstom Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in France. She will spend the remainder of the winter in the Caribbean and begin her Atlantic duties with a first visit to Manhattan in late April.
(Lee Baldock)
