On Saturday, April 15, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg to welcome Captain Bernard Warner and the passengers and crew of the Queen Mary 2 to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, the city’s new state-of-the-art cruise facility on Pier 12 in Red Hook.

“The new cruise terminal creates jobs for Red Hook and Brooklyn residents, new opportunities for Brooklyn businesses, and boosts tourism by encouraging passengers to visit Brooklyn,” said Borough President Markowitz. “The Queen Mary 2 has arrived, and Red Hook and Brooklyn’s ship has come in. All aboard!”

The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is expected to berth approximately 40 ships in its first year of operation. The terminal adds 290 new, permanent jobs to the Brooklyn waterfront.

Brooklyn was the QM2’s final port on a 38-day cruise around South America. It departed later in the day for Southampton, England, with new passengers. The ship, the largest passenger vessel ever built, will cross the Atlantic from April through November, and is the only ship to make regularly scheduled transatlantic crossings between New York and England. The QM2 returns to Brooklyn on April 29.