Albert Ballin started his career with HAPAG (Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Aktien Gesellschaft) as manager of the passage department and within two years rose to Managing Director. Ballin noted that the company’s flagship Auguste Viktoria spent all winter in lay up, thus not making any money. Of course the reason for this was that passengers avoided the inclement […]

Caronia is one of the first luxury cruises ships of the postwar era. The (British) cruising market was divided mainly between three vessels at the time, for budget cruises the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and later Union Castle Line operated the Reina del Mar, for the middle class there was Royal Mail’s Andes and for long (expensive) cruises Caronia was introduced

The Hurtigruten company, which is the result of a merger between two Norwegian shipping companies, OVDS & TFDS, has been operating ships on expedition cruises in the Polar regions since about the turn of the century, almost twenty years now. The company set out to be the market leader in polar expedition cruising and is

One of the first brochures in my collection dating from 1975 – it is of a Dutch tour-operator specialized in cruising, Zeetours-  some last minute cruise news is included the last page: a Greek shipping Tycoon,  John Carras would introduce two brand new vessels, Danae and Daphne. Both 5 -star de luxe vessels, measuring 10,160 GRT. They would

Around 1970, Scandinavian-designed cruise ships dominated the market. Newbuildings for NCL, Royal Caribbean and Royal Viking Line were examples of this new series of passenger ships. Sea Venture and Island Venture belonged to the same breed of ships, being designed by Tage Wandborg, a naval architect from Denmark for Norwegian owned Flagship Cruises. Measuring 19,903GRT,  they carried 626 passengers