Most "world cruise" ships today are resort ships that happen to sail all the way around the planet. Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is different. She was engineered from the keel up as an ocean liner — built to cross open water in all weather, at speed, on a schedule — and she remains the only ship in the world still doing that job. When she set off on her 2026 World Voyage this January, she wasn't just doing a long cruise. She was doing what she was built for, just with more stops along the way.

Queen Mary 2 entered service in 2004 at 149,215 gross tons and 1,132 feet long, carrying roughly 2,695 guests at a cruising speed of up to 30 knots — noticeably faster than a typical cruise ship, a legacy of her liner heritage and reinforced hull. Cunard and much of the trade press describe her as "the world's only true ocean liner" still in active passenger service, a title she inherited outright once the QE2 retired to Dubai. That distinction matters for a world voyage: liners are built to hold a schedule and handle open-ocean crossings — the North Atlantic, the Tasman Sea, the Southern Ocean swells south of Africa — that would have a typical cruise ship slowing down or rerouting.

QM2's 2026 World Voyage left Southampton on January 11 and returned April 30 — 108 nights, 30 ports, sailing westbound through the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, the U.S. West Coast, the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, and Cape Town before heading home via the Canaries. Guests could join at sector points including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Auckland, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Cape Town, with the shortest segments starting at five nights.

The voyage delivered a genuine first for the ship: her maiden transit of the Panama Canal. QM2 was originally built too wide for the historic canal, so for two decades she had to go the long way around South America to reach the Pacific. The canal's 2016 expansion changed that math, and this January, roughly two weeks after leaving Southampton, she finally made the crossing. She also called at Long Beach with an overnight stay — her first Los Angeles-area visit in 17 years — for a reunion alongside the original RMS Queen Mary, permanently docked there, 20 years after their last meeting.

She wasn't sailing alone, either. Cunard sent Queen Anne off from Southampton the same day, eastbound, with fireworks marking the simultaneous send-off of both ships on their own circumnavigations — QM2 westbound through the Americas and Pacific, Queen Anne eastbound through Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia with overnight stays in Cape Town, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Los Angeles.

If you're tracking Cunard's world voyage calendar, don't expect to see Queen Mary 2 on the 2027–2028 list. The ship heads into dry dock at Damen Shiprepair Brest in France on March 31, 2027, for a substantial refurbishment: 31 new staterooms and suites (16 Princess Grill Suites, 15 Britannia-category), refreshed existing Grill Suites, an updated Mareel Wellness & Beauty center, expanded kennel facilities, new retail space, and a digital upgrade to the Illuminations planetarium — all while preserving her Art Deco interiors. She returns to service on May 9, 2027, resuming her signature Transatlantic Crossings alongside voyages to the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean. The new post-refit staterooms went on sale back on May 18, 2026.

That leaves the 2027–2028 circumnavigation duties to her fleetmates: Queen Anne departs Southampton on a 111-night westbound world voyage on January 11, 2028, and Queen Elizabeth follows on a 113-night eastbound circumnavigation on January 6, 2028 — with Queen Mary 2 expected back in the world-voyage rotation in a future season once her refurbishment is complete and her Transatlantic commitments are fulfilled.

For now, the world's only ocean liner has just finished proving, once again, why she's in a category of her own — and world cruise watchers have two other Cunard queens to follow for the next circumnavigation season.

Cunard's fleet, refit schedules, and world voyage windows shift constantly — new sectors go on sale, dry docks move up, itineraries get tweaked. If you want the ship-by-ship, season-by-season picture without digging through press releases yourself, join the World Cruise Radar newsletter for regular dispatches on which ships are circling the globe, when, and what it costs to be aboard.