Most of us had long since written off Orient Lines after NCL announced the sale of its only ship, Marco Polo, in June 2007, with no replacement in sight. When Marco Polo ended her last Orient Lines voyage in April 2008 (she’s now owned by Global Cruise Lines and chartered to Transocean Tours), it seemed the 15-year-old line, founded by legendary industry entrepreneur Gerry Herrod and later bought by NCL, had sailed off into the sunset. So I was surprised to learn last week that former NCL parent Star Cruises, which retained the dormant brand after NCL gained its independence, had sold Orient Lines to an American company called Origin Cruise Group who intended to bring it back to its former glory.

It turns out that Origin Cruise Group is owned by Floridian Wayne Heller, who worked for NCL in the 1980s (long before Orient Lines existed, let alone as part of NCL) and then went on to found Cruises Only, America’s largest seller of cruises. In a release, Orient Lines said that it plans to buy ships similar to Marco Polo, “vessels that are rich in history and character and that can carry 600 to 800 passengers in great comfort and safety to all seven continents”.

Several reliable sources indicate that the company is now negotiating to purchase the 24,220 GT, 630-berth Maxim Gorkiy, whose charter to Phoenix Reisen ends in November 2008, from Sovcomflot. Built in 1969 as Hamburg for the now-defunct Deutsche Atlantik Linie and briefly renamed Hanseatic in 1973 before being sold to the Black Sea Shipping Company (Blasco), part of the Soviet state-owned shipping monopoly Morflot, in 1974 and renamed Maxim Gorkiy. Already established as one of Germany’s best cruise ships, she’s spent most of the remainder of her career on charter to German tour operators; Phoenix Reisen first chartered her in 1988 and has been her sole charterer ever since. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, her ownership passed on to Sovcomflot (unlike many other ships that remained with the less-financially-sound and now-extinct Blasco) and under the management of Sovcomflot and Phoenix she gradually became the grand old ladly of the German cruise scene. But her high running costs as a steam-turbine ship with a high consumption of bunker oil eventually led to Phoenix’s announcement of her retirement in November 2007. Since then, she’s been facing an uncertain future. It remains to be seen whether the problem of running costs and the upcoming SOLAS requirements that will enter into force in 2010 (a deadline that has reportedly been extended to 2013 for Maxim Gorkiy) will be surmountable or whether Orient Lines will resume operating with a more modern, probably less-interesting ship instead, but there is no doubt that Maxim would be an ideal fit for the Orient Lines product, and I’d certainly be delighted to see her flying the Orient Lines flag.

Saga has purchased the 18,591 GT, 500-berth Astoria from Club Cruise, as previously rumored. The ship, on charter to Transocean Tours until April 2009, will be renamed Quest for Adventure and become the second ship in Saga’s Spirit of Adventure brand. She’ll join the 9,570 GT, 352-berth Spirit of Adventure in offering an enrichment-focused product aimed at passengers 21 and over, unlike the company’s Saga Rose and Saga Ruby, which offer a more traditional cruise product for passengers 50 and up. Before entering service for Saga in July 2008, Quest for Adventure will undergo a major refit, which among other upgrades will reduce her capacity to 450 passengers.

Built at Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Hamburg in 1981 as Astor (not to be confused with Transocean Tours’ current, 1987-built Astor, a near-sister to the older ship) for Hamburg-based Hadag, she later briefly operated a liner service between Southampton and Cape Town for South Africa’s Safmarine in 1984 before joining then-East German Deutsche Seereederei as Arkona in 1985. Deutsche Seereederei’s cruise business, by then known as Arkona Touristik and also encompassing AIDA, was sold to P&O Princess Cruises in 1998, and she continued successfully operating for the German market until sold on in 2002 to Russia’s Sovcomflot (owners of one of Germany’s most popular cruise ships, Maxim Gorkiy, and also briefly the current Astor), who chartered her to Transocean Tours as Astoria. Sovcomflot sold her to Club Cruise in 2007, but she was put up for sale after Transocean decided not to renew its charter of the vessel in January 2008. She is the second ship recently sold by Club Cruise; the ferry Da Vinci, formerly Finnjet was sold for scrap last month and was recently beached at Alang.

Carnival Cruise Lines has unveiled details of the 130,000 GT, 3,646-berth Carnival Dream, which will enter service in September 2009. The new information sheds light on the company’s largest-ever ship, an evolution of a design that traces its origins back to Carnival Destiny of 1996 and also encompasses the Triumph-, Conquest- and Splendor-class ships. Carnival’s largest-ever ship will feature an improved layout and new features to set her apart from her predecessors.

Topping the list of new features is Carnival’s first wrap-around promenade deck, which will feature whirlpools cantilevered over the sides of the ship and access to the new Piazza indoor-outdoor café. Other highlights include a new indoor-outdoor dance club and family cabins with two bathrooms. The ship will feature Carnival’s most expansive spa and family facilities yet, and the improved layout adds an indoor promenade alongside the upper level of the main dining room located amidships, which should greatly improve passenger flow.

Currently under construction at Fincantieri’s Monfalcone shipyard, Carnival Dream’s maiden voyage on 21 September 2009 will be the first of three Mediterranean cruises for the ship. They’ll followed by an Atlantic crossing and two cruises to the Bahamas from New York before the ship repositions to her year-round home port of Port Canaveral, from which she’ll operate seven-night cruises to the Caribbean.

Royal Caribbean has announced Boardwalk and Royal Promenade, two more “neighborhoods” on board its new 220,000 GT, 5,400-berth Oasis of the Seas, set to enter service in December 2009, and sister Allure of the Seas, which will debut in 2010. They join the previously announced Central Park and four other as-yet-unannounced neighborhoods, which together will make up the public spaces of these enormous new ships. The company also announced Oasis of the Seas‘ 2009-2010 inaugural season of itineraries from Port Everglades.

Boardwalk will be a family-oriented, open-air space located aft of Central Park, designed to be reminiscent of the seaside piers of England and other classic resort areas like the Coney Island boardwalk. Key features include the first working carousel at sea and AquaTheater, a pool area by day that will transform into an entertainment space at night and also offer SCUBA lessons in the afternoon. It will also feature 28 two-level, loft-style suites with double-height, ocean-view windows, which will be among 37 categories of accommodations on offer aboard the new ships.

Meanwhile, Royal Promenade will be an enhanced version of the same space that has been so popular on the company’s five Voyager-class and three Freedom-class ships. Located beneath Central Park, a focal point will be the previously announced Rising Tide, the first moving bar at sea, which will ascend three decks to Central Park above. Royal Promenade will also be the location of many venues that have become signature spaces for Royal Caribbean over the years, like the Schooner Bar and Champagne Bar, both of which first appeared back in 1988 on Sovereign of the Seas, and the Latin-themed Boleros bar, which is a popular offering on many of the line’s newer and recently-refurbished vessels.

Ever since Royal Caribbean announced that it would be building what was then known as Project Genesis, many cruise enthusiasts have been waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to book a cruise in one of these immense new ships. They’l finally get that opportunity on 3 September 2008, which will undoubtedly be a blockbuster day for bookings at Royal Caribbean. Oasis of the Seas‘ maiden voyage is scheduled for 12 December 2009 and will the first of 19 consecutive seven-night cruises from the ship’s homeport at Port Everglades, Florida to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; and Nassau, Bahamas. Beginning 1 May 2010, these cruises will alternate will seven-night departures from Port Everglades to Labadee, Haiti; the newly-developed port of Falmouth, Jamaica; and Cozumel, Mexico.

Be sure to take a look at Royal Caribbean’s dedicated Oasis of the Seas web site for more information and images of this spectacular new ship. I’m particularly enamored of the new loft apartments — put one on land and I’d more than gladly live in it!

Last week, Holland America Line took delivery of its newest ship, the 86,273 GT, 2,104-berth Eurodam. Beginning today (27 June) the ship is in Southampton for a series of introductory events. On Sunday, 29 June she’ll sail to her home port of Rotterdam where there will be more festivities, culminating on her naming by HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on 1 July.

My friends over at HAL’s fabulous Eurodam News Blog have been blogging away with loads of photos and news about this new ship, so if you haven’t been keeping up, now is the time to go over there and see what you’ve missed out on! And of course, you’ll want to keep reading the blog in the next few days for first-hand accounts of the inagural festivities. Cruise Critic’s intrepid editor-in-chief, Carolyn Spencer Brown, is also on board starting today, so you should also be sure to have a look at her blog for another perspective on HAL’s newest ship.

Eurodam, the first of HAL’s new Signature-class ships (a modified version of the successful Vista-class), will be in New York later this year, and I hope to be able to visit her and give you my own impressions then. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the fun from here with the rest of you!

Clipper Group has acquired the 4,954 GT, 226-berth sister ships Cape Cod Light and Cape May Light from the US Maritime Administration (Marad) for $9 million each. Both ships will be upgraded and offered for charter beginning in the summer of 2009 as Clipper Discoverer and Clipper Voyager respectively. The ships will be managed by Miami-based International Shipping Partners, which manages Clipper Group’s cruise investments and in which it recently acquired a 50% stake.

The pair of ships were originally intended for Delta Queen Coastal Voyages, a subsidiary of US-flag cruise operator American Classic Voyages (AMCV); they have been owned by Marad since AMCV defaulted on loans guaranteed by Marad. The first ship, Cape May Light, entered service in the spring of 2001 but AMCV filed for bankrupcy in October 2001, when Cape Cod Light was still under construction at Atlantic Marine in Jacksonville, Florida. She was later completed in 2004 and both ships have since been laid up near Jacksonville.

…Though I can’t really blame you if you thought I was!

I have been extremely busy with that inconvenient thing called “real life” in the past month or so. I should have posted earlier to say that I’m still here, but you know, “Out of sight, out of mind,” or so they say…!

(Note to self: Stop using so many ellipses.)

Anyway, I’m back now, and hopefully I won’t be disappearing again for extended periods in the near future. Thanks all for hanging in there, assuming, that is, that anyone did!

Swan Hellenic has been forced to cancel its first cruise with its once and future ship, Minerva, due to unexpected generator difficulties. The eight-night Norwegian Fjords cruise was scheduled to depart from Dover on Friday 23 May, returning on Saturday, 31 May and was scheduled to call at Bergen, Flam, Ulvik, Stavanger and Kristiansand. The ship is scheduled to arrive in Hamburg tomorrow, 22 May, concluding her charter to Phoenix Reisen. According to a statement from Swan Hellenic, “[The problem] in no way affects the safety of the passengers on board and the ship will finish its current cruise on schedule this Thursday at Hamburg, where a thorough assessment can be undertaken. Once this is completed a further announcement will be made.”

The 12,331 GT, 350-berth Minerva was originally built in for Swan Hellenic in 1996 off the hull of an unfinished Russian research ship. The ship operated for Swan — then part of P&O, and later its cruise spin-off P&O Princess Cruises plc, which became Carnival plc in a merger with Carnival Corporation in 2003 — until replaced in 2003 by the larger, 30,277 GT, 710-berth Minerva II, built in 2001 as Renaissance Cruises’ R Eight. In 2006, Carnival took the decision to transfer Minerva II to Princess Cruises as Royal Princess in April 2007, and sell the now-dormant Swan Hellenic brand. While many Swan loyalists feared this unique cruise line would disappear, former P&O and P&O Princess chairman Lord Sterling came to the rescue in 2007. He quickly forged a partnership with All Leisure Group plc, parent of Voyages of Discovery, which had already arranged a charter of the former Minerva beginning in 2008. Thus the ship, which had bounced around between Saga Cruises as Saga Pearl, Abercrombie & Kent as Explorer II (with additional sub-charters to Regent Seven Seas Cruises) and Phoenix Reisen as Alexander von Humboldt, would come full circle and re-join the revived Swan Hellenic, rather than Voyages of Discovery as originally planned. Now it appears that her long-awaited re-entry into service will be slightly postponed, but that is unlikely to put much of a damper on the enthusiasm of Swan regulars, many of whom found Minerva II too large and anticipated returning to “their” ship once again.

Swan Hellenic was founded in 1954 when Swan’s Travel Bureau joined with the Hellenic Society of London to offer an educational cruise in Greece. It became the leader in what it called “Discovery Cruising”, a unique, heavily enrichment-focused brand of cruising famous for its distinguished lecturers and equally erudite passengers; a major British newspaper described one of Swan’s vessels as “the most scholarly ship in the world”. Swan chartered a succession of small, mostly elderly vessels, most notably Epirotiki Cruises’ Orpheus, before building the far more modern Minerva.

Rumors are strengthening that Club Cruise’s Astoria, whose charter to Transocean Tours ends in April 2009, has been sold to Saga to become the second ship for its Spirit of Adventure brand. Club Cruise has come on hard times lately recently, having sold the recently-acquired ferry Da Vinci (ex Finnjet) for scrap and been forced to shut down its stillborn British subsidiary Van Gogh Cruise Line, so it’s not surprising that it would consider selling the 18,591 GT, 500-berth Astoria in the apparent absence of a new charterer.

This schedule from the Hong Kong Ocean Terminal lists a ship named Spirit of Adventure II calling in Hong Kong from 19 to 20 January 2010; the ship’s length is listed as 164 meters, the same as Astoria. Copenhagen’s schedule also lists a ship named Spirit of Adventure II calling in Copenhagen on 4 July 2009.

Saga already operates the 9,570 GT, 352-berth Spirit of Adventure as a separate product from its two larger cruise ships, Saga Rose and Saga Ruby. Unlike those ships, the minimum age to travel on Spirit of Adventure is 21 rather than 50. Both Spirit of Adventure and Astoria were built in 1981 at Howaltswerke Deutsche Werft in Germany, and despite the size difference, they share a similar design, making Astoria a good potential candidate for expansion of Saga’s destination-focused brand.

It’s official: after weeks of rumors, Norwegian Cruise Line has announced that its subsidiary NCL America’s Pride of Aloha will return to the main NCL fleet as Norwegian Sky. If this gives you a sense of déja vu, it’s because the 77,104 GT, 2,002-berth ship was first entered service in 1999 as — you guessed it — Norwegian Sky! She was transferred to the US-flag NCL America fleet in 2004 and renamed Pride of Aloha for cruises in the Hawaiian islands, but in February 2008 NCL announced that she’d leave the fleet on 11 May 2008 and move to the Asian-based fleet of NCL’s part owner and former parent Star Cruises. Then — after no further information was forthcoming from Star — came rumors that the ship was for sale, including reports that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. subsidiary Pullmantur Cruises made and then retracted a $310 million bid for the ship. Finally, NCL has put an end to the speculation by announcing that the ship won’t be leaving the fleet but will instead return to the NCL international fleet on 14 July 2008 with a program of three- and four-night cruises from Miami to the Bahamas.

NCL touts Norwegian Sky as the “youngest and highest quality ship sailing three- and four-day cruises from Miami”. Fans of Carnival and Royal Caribbean will dispute the “highest quality” bit, but there’s no doubt that Norwegian Sky will be the newest ship on the three- and four-night Miami-Bahamas run: Carnival’s Carnival Fascination was built in 1994 while Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas is even older, built way back in 1992. Both those ships have recently undergone major refits, but Norwegian Sky boasts modern amenities they simply can’t match, including a large number of balcony cabins (240 to be exact), and a choice of six different dining venues. And of course, NCL’s Freestyle Cruising concept, with no formal dress code or assigned dinner seatings, is bound to be a hit with short-cruise passengers. The ship will receive all of NCL’s Freestyle 2.0 enhancements, a reversal of executive vice president Andy Stuart’s February 2008 statement about Pride of Aloha that, “…[A]s we move forward with Freestyle 2.0 to take our product to the next level across what is already the youngest fleet in the industry, we cannot justify further investment in this ship.”

NCL competed in the three- and four-night Miami-Bahamas market from its foundation Norwegian Caribbean Lines in 1966 until 2003, operating the cruises with its first ship, the original Sunward, followed by Sunward II, Sunward (III), Seaward, Leeward, Norwegian Majesty, Norwegian Sea (ex Seaward) and finally Norwegian Majesty (again). With a much larger, more modern and desirable ship that, unlike many of her predecessors, will be bigger, newer and more up-to-date than her Carnival and Royal Caribbean competitors, NCL obviously felt the time was right to return to its roots in this market.

Norwegian Sky is a ship with an interesting and colorful history. She was originally ordered as one of a pair of ships in December 1993 from the Bremer Vulkan shipyard in Bremen not by NCL but by Costa Cruises, then still an independent Italian cruise line. The first ship entered service uneventfully in July 1996 as Costa Victoria, having left Bremer Vulkan for Lloyd Werft in nearby Bremerhaven, where she was fitted out, in September 1995. A few days after Costa Victoria’s float-out, the keel of the second ship, Costa Olympia, was laid, but financial problems at Bremer Vulkan — then Germany’s biggest shipbuilder — forced work to stop in July 1996. About 35% completed, Costa Olympia was floated out of the drydock in Bremen in October 1996 with an uncertain future.

Costa decided not to buy the unfinished ship, and instead NCL came to the rescue in December 1997, buying Costa Olympia and announcing that the ship would enter service in August 1999 as Norwegian Sky. Tillberg Design, one of the firms involved in the original design of Costa Victoria and Costa Olympia, was hired to redesign the ship to NCL’s specifications. One of the biggest changes was the addition of two decks of balcony cabins — the original Costa design didn’t include a single balcony, acceptable in 1996, but no longer three years later, a sign of the changes in the industry at the time. Other changes, along with completely new decor, included the addition of three more restaurants, a number of new forward-facing balcony suites, and a forward observation lounge and top-of-the-ship spa that necessitated moving the bridge down a deck.

The 1990s were a tough decade for NCL, and Norwegian Sky was NCL’s first new ship since Windward (later Norwegian Wind; now Star Cruises‘ SuperStar Aquarius) — a signal that NCL, which teetered on the brink of oblivion only a few years before, was back in the game. Norwegian Sky, delivered on time in August 1999, “only” five and a half years after she was originally ordered by Costa and just under four after her keel was laid, was enthusiastically received by passengers and the press. It’s also been said that it was she that caught the attention of Star Cruises, who started and won a bidding war with Carnival Corporation to buy NCL in 2000. NCL was pleased enough with the way that Sky was turning out than in 1998, before she was even delivered, it ordered a sister ship — the hull to be built at Aker Yards‘ MTW Werft in Wismar, and the fitting out again handled by Lloyd Werft — which entered service in 2001 as Norwegian Sun, and became the first new NCL ship delivered under Star’s ownership and the first “designed for Freestyle Cruising”, a concept NCL imported from its new Asian parent and one that took the American cruise market by storm.

The ship entered a new chapter in her life in 2003 when NCL announced that she would become Pride of Aloha, the second ship in its new US-flag operation, NCL America, that was scheduled to begin operating in Hawaii in 2004. Norwegian Sky would become the Hawaiian-themed Pride of Aloha in October 2004, following the purpose-built Pride of America, which would enter service in July 2004. But in January 2004, a shipyard accident at Lloyd Werft caused major damage to Pride of America, postponing her entry into service indefinitely. (She eventually entered service nearly a year late in June 2005.) Pride of Aloha would instead be pressed into service, and into the spotlight, as NCL America’s very first ship, receiving a major refit in San Francisco before being renamed by Margaret Inouye, wife of Hawaii Senator and major NCL America supporter Daniel Inouye on 4 July 2004, the day Pride of America was scheduled to leave on her maiden voyage. (Sen. Inouye himself named Pride of Hawaii in 2006.)

Pride of Aloha would spend nearly four years in Hawaii, being joined in 2005 by Pride of Aloha and 2006 by NCL America’s biggest ship yet, Pride of Hawaii. But NCL America found itself unable to fill three ships at profitable fares, and in April 2007 NCL announced that it would temporarily transfer Pride of Hawaii to the main NCL fleet as Norwegian Jade in February 2008. Soon talk of the transfer being temporary faded away, and when Star sold 50% of NCL to Apollo Management in August 2008, Star and Apollo entered into a sub-agreement that would require Star to absorb NCL America’s losses for an unspecified period of time. If NCL America still wasn’t profitable at the end of the agreement, Star would receive Pride of Aloha, while Pride of America would stay with NCL. In February, NCL announced that it had come to a new agreement and that Pride of Aloha would move to Star Cruises in Asia while Pride of America would remain in Hawaii until at least 2010. However, Star apparently didn’t need the extra ship (which would be one of the largest in its fleet), nor could it sell her, hence the ship’s return to NCL.