Ships of Destiny Episode 4: Endless Voyage

The last programme in the series on the history of ocean-going liners. With passenger aeroplanes in the ascendant, liner companies responded to dwindling demand in the sixties by building larger and more extravagant ships. It was an audacious move but a highly successful one and major operators still compete to build the biggest and best liner. Today, cruisers are expanding into fully-fledged entertainment centres.

Endless Voyage tells the captivating story of the of the necessary evolution that took place between the end of the war and present day. The 'jet age' had forced liners into the most dramatic struggle of their long and illustrious history and by the 1960's 95% of Transatlantic crossings were made by jet. The liners reacted in the only way they could, they found a way to embrace the jet age and worked together with the jets to in focusing their attention on the cruise holiday market : the jets would fly the passengers to Miami and the ships would take care of the rest. Cruise holidays were now a global enterprise and new, huge and decadently luxurious liners were being launched. Where speed used to the liners main criteria, it is now size and luxury which ticks the necessary boxes, illustrated perfectly by the mighty QE2 and the "floating city", Carnival Destiny, which has helped to usher in a new era for the liners.