In 1985, when I was 12 years old, I wrote to the president of Cunard (Ralph Bahna at the time) and asked for a tour of the QE2. I told him of my virtual obsession with ocean liners, and apparently he'd had the same affliction starting young and was moved. My mother trekked me from Chicago to New York, where we met my grandmother, and the three of us spent the day on and around the QE2.

The result was many of the photos in this gallery, and some really cool memories.