From derelict to fully-booked! Belfast's Titanic Hotel finally opens after birthplace of tragic cruise liner is transformed with £28 million make-over
Brand new hotel occupies the former Harland & Wolff headquarters, where the ill-fated liner was designed
Boasting 120 rooms over four floors, it has been billed as the world’s most authentic Titanic-themed inn
Officially opened on Sunday, the building is adjacent to the slipways where ship was built and launched
It has been more than two years in the making.
But visitors to Northern Ireland's capital city can finally enjoy Belfast's stunning new Titanic Hotel, which officially opened for business over the weekend.
The dazzling development, which cost a staggering £28 million, welcomed its first-ever customers on Sunday after a ribbon-cutting ceremony capped 24 months of dramatic renovations to the former Harland & Wolff headquarters, where the historic vessel was conceived and executed in the early 1900s.
Chairman of Harcourt Developments, Mr Pat Doherty - who managed the project - welcomed family, friends, tourists and locals into the brand new site, which sat empty for thirty years.
The dilapidated property, which is located on Belfast’s Queen’s Road, has been revived thanks in part to a £5 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Inside the new Titanic, however, guests will be housed in 120 rooms over four storeys, each with a classic, maritime-chic design.
Thankfully, however, many of the original architectural features have been retained.
The famous Drawing Rooms, where draftsmen sketched their designs for the ill-fated liner, have been sympathetically transformed into a function room and a bar. One even features the same tiles that lined the Titanic's swimming pool.
Stunning parquet floors, which the naval industries' biggest names would've walked across, have also been brought back to life.
The stunning result comes 105 years after the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
More than 1,500 people died when the ship, which was carrying 2,224 passengers and crew, sank under the command of Captain Edward Smith.
Some of the wealthiest people in the world were on board, including property tycoon John Jacob Astor IV, great grandson of John Jacob Astor, founder of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim, heir to his family's mining business, also perished, along with Isidor Straus, the German-born co-owner of Macy's department store.
The ship was the largest afloat at the time and was designed in such a way that it was meant to be 'unsinkable'. It had an on-board gym, libraries, swimming pool and several restaurants and luxury first class cabins.
There were not enough lifeboats on board for all the passengers due to out-of-date maritime safety regulations.
After leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland before heading to New York.
On April 14, 1912, four days into the crossing, she hit an iceberg at 11:40pm ship's time.
James Moody was on night watch when the collision happened and took the call from the watchman, asking him 'What do you see?' The man responded: 'Iceberg, dead ahead.'
By 2.20am, with hundreds of people still on board, the ship plunged beneath the waves, taking many, including Moody, with it.
Despite repeated distress calls being sent out and flares launched from the decks, the first rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, arrived nearly two hours later, pulling more than 700 people from the water.
It was not until 1985 that the wreck of the ship was discovered in two pieces on the ocean floor.