With their new Costa Smeralda it seems that Costa has returned to their Italian roots again, which has always been their trademark of course. But with their former flagship Costa Diadema (2014) and several vessels before with their Joe Farcus influenced and Carnivalized interiors, colorful and glitzy, they got off track a bit. But now, five years after Costa Diadema came […]

After the somewhat negative comments on the Norwegian Epic regarding her profile as well as some new features in her staterooms, Norwegian Cruise Line obviously decided to create a completely different ship with some interesting novelties: Norwegian Breakaway. Her name was chosen via a public contest, won by Kimberley Powell.  Built by Meyer Werft from Papenburg, Germany, she

On July 15th 1952 Barclay, Curle & Co from Glasgow delivered ss Uganda to British India Steam Navigation Company. She joined fleetmate Nevasa which had been taken into service a year earlier and was the first troopship taken into service after WWII. Both ships could be identified easily as Uganda’s funnel was taller. She was intended for the UK –

I have some fond memories of Kungsholm. In 1978 I was on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords on the Calypso of Ulysses Line and we met the Kungsholm in the Geiranger fjord. Ashore we met the cruise director of Kungsholm, a lady called Oceana as she was born at sea. She told us that many of her

In 1957 Orient Line (short for Orient Steam Navigation Company) ordered a new flagship, their largest yet. Like more passenger ships built at the time, she was designed with both liner service and cruising in mind. Her building price was 14 million pounds. During the design phase, her intended name was Orbustus. Her superstructure was built

Outside the box thinking when designing its ships, targeting a younger clientele who have never cruised before and adding so many facilities onboard new to the cruise industry. For sure, this refreshing approach of Sir Richard Branson’s newest venture, Virgin Cruises wil shake up today’s cruise world which is Virgin’s goal exactly. Four ships have

Nieuw Statendam is the newest ship of the Pinnacle class, following her sister Koningsdam. Nieuw Statendam  is the sixth in a long line of Statendam ships, starting in 1898 with the first vessel to bear this name. In 1910 and 1929 Statendam II and III followed. Statendam IV sailed for Holland America form 1957 onwards for a quarter of a century.

During the 1960’s NCL started operating their first vessel on the so-called milk-run, from Florida to the Caribbean. The company started out as Norwegian Caribbean Line and was led by Knut Kloster. In the beginning Kloster had teamed up with Ted Arison, an Israeli business man who would later build  a huge cruise ship empire

Originally built as a dual purpose ocean liner/ cruise ship for transatlantic service between Hamburg and New York and the remainder of the year as a cruise ship, the Hamburg only sailed in cruise service. Hamburg Atlantic Line had ordered her in November 1966 from the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg. During construction of the Hamburg the yard merged with

Before the second world war, the two largest German passenger shipping companies, Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg Amerika Line both had ships running from the main land to the small isle of Helgoland. Helgoland is situated in the German Bight, in the southeastern corner of the North Sea, 69 km sailing distance from Cuxhaven. It has