Back in December, Viking River Cruises surprised the industry when they announced that they will build 2 new 888pax ocean going ships in STX France yards. This will be the lines first attempt in blue water cruising. Around a week ago, there was some talk that the deal was off and Viking was trying to [...]
Buzz on the floor today is after leaders from major European shipyards heavily criticized the Mitsubishi deal with AIDA. They claimed that that the pricing model of the AIDA ship is “unstable”. Corrado Antonini, Fincantieri chairman Mitsubishi has come up with a price per lower berth that no other builder could match. [Mitsubishi is]10 years [...]
Back in December I reported that the Libyan Government ordered the 139,000grt ship, m/v Phoenicia. It was shocking at the time but given how much $$$$ the Libyan government had from its oil exports {the state run shipping line sails only tankers}, the venture into passenger ships didn’t seem that far stretched. Hapag-Lloyd and MSC [...]
Cruise Industry News is reporting that sources have told them that Royal Caribbean International “is set to go with Meyer Werft for a two-ship order.” This is surprising in not only THAT they will be ordering more, but WHERE they are ordering more. RCI has always enjoyed a relationship with Kvaerner/Aker/STX in Finland. Its where [...]
Update: She has a name: m/v Phoenicia The General National Maritime Transport Company (Libya) and STX France celebrated the steel cutting ceremony for the state-run comapny’s first cruise ship. The ship ordered back in June has celebrated the first milestone of construction: The steel cutting. On hand from GNMTC were Captain Ali M. Belhag, Chairman [...]
STX Finland just got a very important order for a ferry for Viking Lines. I normally don’t cover ferry travel but this is important news. No one is building ships anymore. Its just the way things are now. After Allure leaves Turku, there will only be a handful of ferries left in the 3 yards [...]
The Allure of the Seas was delivered from STX Finland yards. The only ship with a Starbucks at sea and an GUESS store at sea sailed from the cold Finnish city of Turku. Just like her sister Oasis last year, Royal Caribbean execs. were on hand to sign the contracts to take delivery of the [...]
Even more photos can be found on the Norwegian Epic tab here in CruiseInd.
UPDATE 11:47am EST: All further updates from her voyage around Europe and over to the States will be covered on the Norwegian Epic Live Blog! ________________________________________________________________________ Currently, the Epic is in the English Channel between Southampton, England and Cherbourg, France. Make sure you are tracking her live here. Having been officially handed over from STX [...]
