Queen Mary, Normandie, Mauretania: These great ocean liners of the Atlantic were the largest and most opulent passenger ships ever built. It was as if the finest hotels and most magnificent estates of the Western World had been put to sea. Tour their elite staterooms and swimming pools, and the below-deck immigrant quarters. Hear the real stories of the people who built and boarded them. Visit their renowned ports of call. Follow the great ships as they are drafted into combat, and witness the haunting tragedies that led the Lusitania, Titanic, and Andrea Doria to their doom.

Since their development in the 1850s, ocean liners have been far more than simply passenger ships - they were also the conduit for enormous technological, social and global cultural change. This four-part series is an international story told from a uniquely Australian point of view about the most romantic ships ever built.