In the mid-thirties, The Netherland Line (Stoomvaart Matschappij Nederland in Dutch) being in need of additional tonnage for their lucrative service to the Dutch West Indies alongside their much loved Johan van Oldebarnevelt (1929), ordered a newbuilding from the Netherlands Shipbuilding Cy. in Amsterdam. Construction started on July 2, 1937 with the keel laying ceremony. She was […]

With many thanks to Mario Bounas VP marketing of Swan Hellenic for providing photographs of SH Minerva for use in this article! During the 1950s, a British travel agency Swan’s Tours started organising cruise holidays to historical sites in Greece. With archeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler (a famous British archaeologist noted for his discoveries in Great Britain

Safmarine, a South African shipping line had started operating passenger ships in liner service between the UK and South Africa as early as 1965, operating former Union Castle vessels Transvaal and Pretoria Castle as S.A. Vaal and S.A. Oranje respectively until the mid 1970’s when liner service was discontinued due to the competition of the

Many thanks to Chelsea Stromfeld of Carnival Cruise Line for supplying photographs! More photographs of Mardi Gras call at Rotterdam port here Carnival Cruises has come a long way since their first Mardi Gras, the former Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Canada entered service in 1972.  At the time the company struggled to make ends meet, but today it not only

Costa Victoria interior photographs page https://www.cruiseshipodyssey.com/cruiseships/costa-victoria/ After Costa Classica (1991) and Costa Romantica (1993) had been taken into service, Costa Cruises decided to expand further by ordering a second pair of newbuildings in 1993. September 2 1995, the first of these vessels, Costa Victoria was launched. With these new ships, Costa aimed to increase their capacity in the Mediterranean -their most important

Many thanks to Maddie Taylor of Tradewind Voyages UK for supplying photographs. Originally ordered by Star Clipper as the Flying Clipper, she was launched on June 10, 2017 and planned delivery was for the end of that year. This was later postponed to the first quarter of 2018, then again to the fall of 2019 and

Greg Mortimer is the first in a series of six Infinity-class (Ulstein CX103 design) expedition vessels. Sisterships will be  Ocean Explorer  (February 2021), Ocean Victory (2021-March),  Sylvia Earle (October 2021), Ocean Odyssey (March 2022), Ocean Discoverer (September 2022) and Ocean Albatros (October 2022t) Four more vessels will follow. Their owner SunStone Ships Inc. charters these vessels out to different companies. During construction the charterer can have the design