The issue
features the ‘Queen Victoria’ (90,000 gross tons); the ‘Grand Princess’
(109,000 gross tons), the ‘Century’ (71,145 gross tons) and the ‘Costa
Mediterranea’ (86,000 gross tons) all of which are callers to the Rock
of Gibraltar during the year. It is truly a fantastic sight to view
these magnificent ships coming in through the Strait of Gibraltar,
early in the morning, with the sun rising off its back and the
mountains of Africa in the background on a sharp, clear day.
The Queen
Victoria is of the same basic design as other Vista class passenger
vessels, though slightly longer and more in keeping with Cunard’s
interior style. At 90,000 tons, she is the second largest Cunard ship
ever built, after the RMS Queen Mary 2. Interestingly, she will not
carry mail and thus will not receive Royal Mail Ship (RMS) status.
The Grand
Princess is a large cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises. Built by
Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani in Monfalcone, Italy, at a cost of
approximately US$450 million, she was the largest and most expensive
ship ever built at the time, a distinction now carried by Royal
Caribbean International’s Freedom of the Seas. Grand Princess primarily
operates in Europe during the summer to early autumn, and then operates
in the Caribbean during winter to late spring.
The Century
is the lead ship of the Century Class of cruise ships for Celebrity
Cruises, and the co-flagship of the Celebrity fleet, along with
Millennium class ship Constellation. Century was launched in 1995 and
went into a 5 week dry-dock in April 2006 whilst undergoing complete
refurbishment. Designed to incorporate a variety of Celebrity’s most
popular Millennium-class attributes, the revitalization of Century is
the line’s most extensive refurbishment to-date, and the largest cruise
ship modification completed by Fincantieri’s Palermo, Italy, shipyard.
The Costa
Mediterranea is a Spirit class cruise ship operated by Costa Cruises.
She was constructed at the Kvaerner Masa-Yards (currently Aker
Finnyards) in Helsinki, Finland at a cost of over 400 million euros.
Her design, like sister ship Costa Atlantica’s, was derived from
Carnival Cruise Lines’ Spirit Class ships (Carnival Spirit, Carnival
Pride, Carnival Legend and Carnival Miracle). On June 16 2003 she
departed on her maiden voyage from Genoa to Spain and Portugal.
Technical details :
- Illustrations: Simon Williams
- Design: Stephen Perera
- Printer: Lowe-Martin Security Printers, Canada
- Process: Offset Lithography
- Stamps: 40.5 x 30mm
- Miniature Sheet: 168 x 67mm
- Values: 42p, 44p, 51p, 73p
- Issue date: 15/09/2008
(gibraltar_stamps.com)