At Sea with Doug Newman

Luís Miguel Correia reports on his blog Ships & The Sea that Classic International Cruises has acquired the 15,833 GT, 432-berth Ocean Monarch from Majestic International Cruises. (Recently she has operated for a related company, Monarch Classic Cruises.) The ship will reportedly be renamed Princess Daphne. CIC already owns her sister, Princess Danae. (The sisters were known as Daphne and Danae from the 1970s to 1990s with Carras Cruises and later with Costa.)

Ocean Monarch was originally built in 1955 as the Port Line general cargo ship Port Sydney. Sold to the Greek shipowner J. Carras, she underwent a massive conversion under the name Akrotiri Express beginning in 1972 and in 1975 emerged as the cruise ship Daphne. Later she would be chartered by Costa, who bought her outright in 1984. She remained there until being sold to Swiss interests and renamed Switzerland in 1996. She passed to Majestic in 2002, when she was renamed Ocean Monarch.

For 2008, Ocean Monarch has been chartered to Hansa Kreuzfahrten. Reports indicate that the charter will go ahead.