cruise ship

hi has any one been on the cruise ship athana as we are going on it in july 22nd and love to know if the ship is ok we go every year on a cruise as we like them so i would to know if any one has been on this ship as this is our first time on this on thank you pamelabell:)

Could it possibly be Athena, rather than Athana?

World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society's Bill Miller mentions a 600 passenger ship, registered in Portugal, named Athena in his weekly memo. No further info offered, but perhaps WOCLS could assist you.

World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society's Bill Miller mentions a 600 passenger ship, registered in Portugal, named Athena in his weekly memo.

This is the former STOCKHOLM of 1948, currently the oldest large passenger ship in active service.

She of course gained fame for having a rather well-known little brush with ANDREA DORIA which sent that ship to the bottom.

Swedish-America sold her to the East German state in 1960. She was renamed VOLKERFRUENDSCHAFT ("friendship of peoples"). In 1985, the East Germans sold her and after being renamed VOLKER and laid-up for some time, she was renamed FRIDTJOF NANSEN and used at Oslo to house asylum seekers. At this point it appeared that the ship, nearing 40, had reached the end of her life.

And then in 1989 she got her lucky break! The Italian cruise line StarLauro (now MSC Crociere) bought the aged vessel, renaming her ITALIA, and intended to rebuild her into a modern cruise ship. But before this happened, she was sold to a new firm, Nina Cia. di Navigazione (reportedly connected with the Cosulich family of Trieste, one of the oldest and most revered names in the Italian shipping world). In 1994, after more than two years of work, she emerged as ITALIA PRIMA. During the refit, she was completely - and I mean completely rebuilt from the bare hull. New superstructure, new engines, new interior, new everything. So despite her advanced age, she was for all intents and purposes a new ship. She was widely praised for her elegant, very Italian interiors and superb appointments.

Initially she was chartered to the German tour company Neckermann, but the charter ended in 1999 and was not renewed. Her next charterers was picked up by an Italian firm, Club Valtur, who used her on cruises in the Caribbean from Jamaica, but whose main attraction were port calls in Cuba. Unfortunately, after the downturn in travel after 9/11, Valtur too withdrew from chartering the ship and she was laid-up at Havana. She once again found a new charterer in Festival Cruises, who renamed her CARIBE and began using her on Cuba-based itineraries in 2003. (During the Valtur years, she was marketed to Americans - one of the few legal ways for Americans to visit Cuba - but Festival, who used the First European name in the US, elected not to bother with this.) Unfortunately, in early 2004, Festival collapsed and the ship was laid-up yet again after only a few cruises.

The ship's bad luck ended later in 2004 when the Portuguese-based Greek shipping entrepreneur George Potamianos, who operates a small fleet of vintage vessels known as Classic International Cruises. After a significant refit, she enters service this year as ATHENA, flagship of Mr. Potamianos' fleet which has now grown to four ships.

I know only one person who has been on this ship, a good friend of mine who sailed in her during her Valtur days operating from Cuba, and he absolutely adored her. From everything I've seen she is a beautiful vessel, and I hope that as ATHENA she has some lasting success for a change. And there's no reason to believe that she won't; Classic International Cruises has been a very successful operation in recent years. I would very much like to try her (though Classic's other ships appeal too - the classic Danish-designed and -built but always Portuguese-owned FUNCHAL, the adorable little ARION which has some incredibly tantalizing itineraries in Southeast Asia, and PRINCESS DANAE, which was once one of the premier American-market cruise ships as Costa's DANAE in the '70s and '80s) and hope to do so soon. (I'm still annoyed with myself to have missed out on her during her Cuban operation - I think it would have been fascinating to visit Cuba, and the ship would be a bonus.)

There are not many photos of the ship out there on the web, but there is a very nice gallery from a German passenger dating to the Valtur days here. The site is in German; "Innen" will lead you to photos of her public areas and "Aussen" to those of her outer decks. In either of the two galleries, clicking on the photos will enlarge them, and "Weiter" will bring you to the next page of photos (there are four pages of interior photos and two of exteriors).

Hope this helps.

thank you for getting intouch we will look the site over as my husband is dutch and he reads and speaks german so he can read the site thank you once again pamelabell

We are considering a cruise on MV Athena in October. What is she like? We are a bit worried because of her age.

Any replies will be gratefully received.

Thanks

Sweep

We are considering a cruise on MV Athena in October. What is she like? We are a bit worried because of her age.

I wouldn't worry too much about her age; the only thing that has been around since before 1994 is her hull. She was literally stripped down to the bare hull and rebuilt from the steel up complete with new superstructure, new engines, totally new interiors etc.

For all intents and purposes she is a modern ship. The only reason she was built on an existing hull is that the Italian government subsidized most of the conversion as part of a program to build cruise ships off existing hulls at Italian shipyards that did not have the capability to build their own new hulls.

Thanks Doug, that is most reassuring. Do you know anything about the actual cruise line itself - classis international cruises?