Without having personally experienced a transatlantic passage upon one of the great liners of yesteryear, one cannot be entirely certain that Payne’s creation has surpassed all of those which came before. However, the technological superiority of the ship cannot be doubted, and her on-board facilities, service and overall ambience certainly exceeded my own high expectations. At the time writing, QM2 has completed 215 transatlantic crossings along with several world cruises, and she is greeted by admiring crowds in every port she visits. Cunard confidently state that she is the greatest ocean liner ever built (www.cunard.com, 2012), and I can personally find no reason to disagree.