Thursday, April 11, 2024

Astoria Cruise: Former Stockholm cruise ship now in Farewell Season with Cruise & Maritime Voyages

astoria cruise ship

For something more mellow, listen to your favorite melodies in ship's Sirenes Bar, try your luck in the Circe's Casino or make up a table for a round of cards in the Card Room. Other Lounges & Bars include Astoria Lounge, Captain’s Club (live music) and Aeolos Bar. Astoria also has a Beauty Salon, Sauna, Fitness Centre, swimming pool, Internet & Library, Auditorium (conference room), Chapel, boutique, and photoshop.

Specifications of Astoria Grande

Her name was reduced to Volker, and by the end of the year she was laid up in Southampton, England. In 1985 the ship was renamed Fridtjof Nansen was later used as a barracks ship in Oslo for asylum seekers in Norway. Years following the collision, Andrea Doria became a popular dive site. In 1959, Stockholm's damaged ship's bell was recovered from the wreck site.

Review of Astoria Grande

Miray Cruises (Turkey) provides services at the Turkish ports that the ship visits. The ship's restaurants are three, including two MDRs/main dining rooms - Calypso (named after a nymph who occupied Ogygia island and detained Odysseus for several years) and Markt (with an open-seating buffet). The extra-tariff/specialty restaurant Rossini is a-la-carte-priced and waiter-served. Basic beverages, including house wines and beer, are free of charge during meals at the buffet restaurants. There are also several beverage packages that may be bought at reduced rates.

Review: First Rocky Point cruise of Sea of Cortez on the Astoria ship - The Arizona Republic

Review: First Rocky Point cruise of Sea of Cortez on the Astoria ship.

Posted: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Astoria Grande Wiki

astoria cruise ship

CMV plans to withdraw her in October 18, 2020,  a 13 night “Norway & Land of the Northern Lights Cruise” would be her final voyage for the company. But this cruise will most likely not take place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. After having sailed the oceans for over 70 years, her future is looking very bleak at the moment as it it not very likely she will find further employment. Stockholm hit the Andrea Doria in her starboard side just behind her bridge, her reinforced bow (making her able to cope with icy conditions often occurring in Scandinavian waters) penetrating deep into her side. Andrea Doria immediately took a 20 degree list making half her lifeboats unusable. It took Andrea Doria several miles to come to a full stop as she had been sailing at top speed.

Photos of CMV Astoria

I’m going to start at the bottom deck and work my way up each deck, taking photos as I go. Astoria’s final CMV journey includes cruises from England in March, April, September and October. “Limited space is available for the last chance to sail with CMV onboard this truly classic liner,” the CMV website notes. In 1970, the ship made the headlines again when a machinist jumped overboard to defect, followed by three medical researchers who wanted to escape Communism. All four were picked up by a small boat, which had come out in rough seas to the Communist ship to meet the machinist.

Astoria started 2020 with three brand-new Sea of Cortez sailings from Puerto Penasco, Mexico, and it will finish the year with trips from England in March, April, September and October. Astoria is the world's oldest active oceangoing passenger ship and was originally built and launched as MS Stockholm in 1948. Her capacity is around 540 passengers making her quite an intimate vessel. Over a life span of more than 70 years, the second-oldest cruise ship still on the seas has gone by many names. It was the Stockholm, the Völkerfreundschaft, the Volker, the Fridtjof Nansen, the Italia Prima, the Athena.

Astoria Grande ship related cruise news

With Astoria Grande was launched the new cruise line brand "Akvilon". Akvilon's partner Miray Cruises (travel company based in İstanbul Turkey) provides booking and management services at the Turkish ports that the ship visits. Mostly unrecognizable, she returned to service in 1994 as a cruise ship operating under various names including Italia Prima, Valtur Prima, and Caribe.

Other Small Cruise Lines cruise ships

Most modern-day cruise ships are designed for a life of 30 years, and they sometimes are retired and scrapped even earlier than that. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of cruise vessels just 20 to 30 years old were permanently removed from service. The Andrea Doria eventually rolled over and sank, and 51 passengers and crew members from both vessels were killed — one of the worst maritime disasters since the sinking of the Titanic. In 2018, AIDAaura became the company's second "world cruise ship" leaving from roundtrip Hamburg (itinerary October 8, 2018, through February 2, 2019). On December 19, 2017, during the world voyage, Cara became AIDA's first-ever ship to dock at Sydney Harbor (White Bay Cruise Terminal, Sydney Australia).

astoria cruise ship

Astoria Grande

In December 2019, CMV homeported the Astoria ship in Puerto Penasco (Sonora Mexico), targeting almost exclusively the Arizona USA market. Shipping operations were scheduled to start on December 7 with 11-day Baja California and Mexican Riviera itinerary ("Treasures of the Seas of Cortez”). In March 2016, after the drydock in Piraeus-Athens (Greece), the liner started a new itinerary program with roundtrips out of Bristol England to Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and also UK ports (British Isles itineraries). CMV Astoria itinerary program was based on cruises departing from UK ports to European destinations, such as the Mediterranean, Iberia (Portugal and Spain), British Isles, Norwegian Fjords, Iceland.

The vessel was built for Swedish America Line as "MS Stockholm" - at the time the largest passenger ship ever built in Sweden. As Stockholm, the ship was best known for the collision with SS Andrea Doria in 1956. The accident resulted in the sinking of the latter - just 5 years after its launch. During its last CMV (2-month 2016) season, the ship operated on roundtrips from Bristol (Avonmouth), following the winter docking in Greece.

In June 2016, CMV announced she would leave their fleet in April 2017, but CMV had second thoughts and she cruised for them until 2018 before she embarked upon another charter period to Rivages du Monde for the summer season. From Janaury 2020 CMV now operated Astoria in  the Sea of Cortez from Rocky Point, Mexico. Because of the Corona pandemic this was cut short and she went into lay up as cruising worldwide had come to a halt in spring 2020.

The world’s longest-serving cruise ship, Astoria, will be scrapped in the coming weeks or months. The sale of the Astoria to a European Union-approved shipbreaking yard, most likely the Aliaga Ship Recycling Facility in Turkey, marks the end of a long and eventful life for this floating piece of history. After three-quarters of a century, the famous and at times infamous story of the Astoria will finally come to a close in the coming months at a scrapyard, shipping news publication TradeWinds reported Tuesday.

The vibration from the ship's engines was noticeable but not intrusive, and helped to mask the noisy neighbours we had on one side. The cabin insulation on Astoria is poor and if we had been in a quieter area, the noise from neighbouring cabins would have been very irritating. We had cruised on her before, in 2012 when she was operated by CIC and named Athena.

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