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 pasengers were a bit spoiled….after show performances they didn’t clap, most of them didn’t react at all, a difficult audience. Many years later, when she was sailing as Mona Lisa for Holiday Kreuzfahrten in March 2003, we were onboard for a weekend trip, sailing from Kiel to Hamburg through the Kiel Canal. Tours were organised whilst she was docked in Kiel. We had booked one of the largest suites onboard and we were asked if visitors could have a look inside, which was no problem of course. Everyone was a bit jaleous of us cruising on Mona Lisa in these luxury surroundings…but little did they know that we would have this luxury suite for just two days….

Kungsholm when launched in April 1965 was intended to serve as a dual-purpose ship, dividing her time between crossing between New York and Gdansk/ Copenhagen and cruising, mostly out of New York. Most of her characteristics were showing her primary planned use as a liner like her dining-room being situated down below and her glass enclosed promenades. Kungsholm when taken into service in 1966 was the fourth vessel bearing this name since Swedish American Line started operating in 1914 as Rederieaktiebolaget Sverige-Nordamerika. She was to be SAL’s last newbuilding, measuring 26,700GRT, being 201 metres long and fitted with two Swedish built Götaverken nine cylinder engines with a combined output of 25,200 SHP,. Kungsholm had already been ordered in 1963, but labour problems at the shipyard delayed her delivery. John Brown at Clydebank finally delivered her three years later.

She was a midsize vessel carrying 750 passengers in two classes during liner voyages, this was lowered to 450 in one class when cruising. Her interiors had been designed by a team of Swedish interior architects, Sigvard Bernadotte being one of the best known of these and of course Robert Tillberg who has worked on the interiors of many ferries and cruiseships since. During her first season of transatlantic crossings, she departed on eight voyages to New York, sailing in tandem with her fleetmate Gripsholm. The remainder of the year was spent sailing on one to three month cruises out of New York, mainly with American passengers onboard. Transatlantic service just lasted for 6 years, and in 1972 she switched to fulltime cruising. SAL ended operating passenger ships altogether in 1975 and Kungsholm was sold to Flagship cruises which had just sold their Island Venture and Sea Venture to Princess Cruises (they later became the stars of the TV-series The Love Boat as Island and Pacific Princess).

Flagship hoped Kungsholm with her impeccable reputation would attract a load of passengers. Alas, three years later Flagship went out of business. It is said that the fledgling company had been financially struggling already for some time when in early 1978 Kungsholm ran aground during a Caribbean cruise resulting in unexpected costs. P&O took over Kungsholm to replace their ageing Arcadia of 1954 and planned her to sail in Australian waters together with fleetmates Oriana and Canberra. But first, she was completely refitted which increased her capacity to 840 passengers. Some public spaces, mostly on Veranda Deck were sacrificed to install additional cabins. Furthermore, her forward dummy funnel was removed and the aft one was heightened to prevent soot from descending on her aft sun decks. Unfortunately, this spoiled her attractive profile to a certain degree.

Until 1995 she sailed on cruise after cruise under the name of Sea Princess, but was renamed Victoria when the name Sun Princess was intended for a newbuilding which was delivered in 1998. In 2002 Victoria was sold to a Greek company Leonardo Shipping which specialized in ship management as P&O needed to replace her with more modern tonnage. Leonardo renamed her Mona Lisa and had the famous potrait of Mona Lisa painted on her (now red, later white) funnel.

She was chartered out to German Holiday Kreuzfahrten for the next four years until 2006 when Holiday went bankrupt. Leonardo found some short-duration employment for her, like being an accommodation ship at the Asian Games at Quatar, cruise service for Spanish Pullmantur  and Cyprus-based Louis Cruises which urgently needed a vessel to fill the gap of their Sea Diamond which had sunk off Santorini in April 2017 after running aground and finally she sailed for the American Scholar Ship organization as a floating university on student cruises as Oceanic II.

Then, in 2008, Holiday had reorganized and re-emerged as Lord Nelson Kreuzfahrten and they took her back on charter. During that same year, she ran aground in the Baltic near Riga, but luckily damage was not severe. Apart from a stint in Vancouver from January to March 2010, when she served as a hotel ship during the Olympic Games, Lord Nelson operated her until August 2010. But now, the 2010 SOLAS rules came into sight, forcing ships like Mona Lisa out of active service s it was far too costly to upgrade the old girl in order to have her comply with these new, more strict safety rules. Her much loved acres of wood paneling in her classic interiors were not permitted anymore, being a potential fire hazard… However, since 2006, in the background, Swedish business man Lars Hallgren had started talks with the city of Gothenburg to secure a berth for Mona Lisa, preserving the iconic ship for future use as a hotel and museum.

A few interior pictures of Mona Lisa,

But now, with plans well underway, the city of Gothenburg backed out of the concept agreement when they declared that only a 5-year lease of the berth and adjacent dock could be guaranteed because of other existing development plans for this part of Gothenburg docks. Hallgren’s plans operating Mona Lisa as a 370-room hotel were only viable if a lease period of 20 years could be secured. Next, the city of Stockholm came into view as an alternative location, but again plans did not materialize and Mr. Hallgren was forced to cease his attempts to preserve Mona Lisa. So she sailed from Germany to Piraeus where she stayed in lay up for two months before being sold to DSME Oman.

This company stationed her as a luxury hotel in Duqm port, Oman. In November 2015, after having been in Duqm port for three years as the hotel ship Veronica, she was sold to Indian shipbreakers and was towed to Alang where she was beached and 6 months later this last of the Swedish American Liners was gone.