The QM2 is supposedly 236.2 feet high. The original Queen Mary that debuted in 1936 which sits in Long Beach, California is 181 feet tall. QM2 has 17 total decks and 13 passenger decks. The original Queen had 12 decks, at least as far as I can determine. The fad seems to be to make cruise ships taller. Inevitably some decks are going to be farther and farther away from those lifeboats. In the dark without electricity and perhaps with a ship that’s starting to list to one side like the Costa Concordia and the Lusitania, that makes it all the more difficult to reach those lifeboats even with the aid of stairs.

Disclaimer: I don’t mean to imply that any cruise ship approaches the literal height of the Twin Towers. I’m using the Twin Towers as a metaphor and a warning.