What happens to old cruise ships?

It is always sad to see some of the older cruise ships be pushed aside in favour of newer models as I personally think many of them are worth saving.

Once cruise ships reach a certain age they are sold on to other companies and languish moored in foreign countries before eventually ending up in the breakers yard in Alang, India or Aliaga, Turkey.

This is a tale of where three ships ended.

SS United States

#ssunitedstates in Philadelphia. #tv_transport #maritimeengineering #oceanliner #kings_transports #splendid_transport

A photo posted by Bill Kloss (@nkp_776) on Sep 17, 2015 at 3:50am PDT

SS United States was built in 1952 and was designed to be the fastest ocean going liner across the Atlantic. She is the largest ocean liner ever to be built entirely in the United States at a cost of $79.4 million ($724 million in today’s money).

Whilst in service she made more than 800 transatlantic crossings and broke the “Blue Riband” speed record for crossing the Atlantic in just 3 days 10 hours and 42 minutes. No ship has ever broken this record since.

With the advent of passenger flights the ship was withdrawn from service in 1969 and was sent to Norfolk, Virginia, where she passed through several hands before being bought by Norwegian Cruise Lines in 2003. She was bought with the intention of refitting for the Hawaiian marke, as due to the Passenger Service Act, a ship sailing in US waters has to be built and flagged in the US and crewed by predominantly US citizens.

This never materialized and in 2009 NCL put her up for sale however in 2011 she was finally bought by a group called The SS United States Conservancy whose sole aim is to restore this grand old lady to her former glory. She is currently moored in Philadelphia whilst her owners attempt to raise the money to restore her.

QE2

Ask anyoneto name a cruise ship and although Titanic may come out top a close second will be the QE2. She was named by Her Majesty The Queen in 1967 although officially she was supposed to be just Queen Elizabeth but HRH also added the second and Cunard would have been left red faced if they had disagreed with The Queen so the ship was known as QE2 from then on.

She was built as an ocean going liner and crossed the Atlantic many times in her service. She was an icon of luxury and amongst some of her famous passengers were Elizabeth Taylor, Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, Buzz Aldrin, Nelson Mandela and George Bush.

In 2008 Cunard retired her from active service much to the furore of her loyal passengers and there was not a dry eye in the house as passengers disembarked from her as she arrived in Dubai.

She was bought by Istithmar, the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. In 2008 the financial crisis hit hard and these plans were stalled and in July 2012, Istithmar announced new conversion plans to enhance tourism in Dubai but these never came to fruition. In 2013 Oceanic Group announced that the ship would sail in October of that year to Asia for conversion into a luxury hotel. This project also stalled and as of January 2016 the ship remains laid up in Dubai.

Pacific Princess

This to me is the saddest story as it is personal to me. Pacific Princess began her sea life as Sea Ventura in 1971 and was owned by a German company. Between 1975 and 2002 she sailed for Princess Cruises as Pacific Princess, becoming famous for appearing in the romantic comedy TV series The Love Boat and this is where my personal love affair began with her and the cruise industry.

In 1999 at the age of 21 I flew to Vancouver to join the Pacific Princess as a Bar Stewardess. The Pacific Princess became my home for the next 7 months and I have to be honest that no other ship has lived up to this beautiful old lady.

In 2008 she was sold to Quail Cruises but was retired from service when renovation proved too costly.

She was towed to Aliaga, Turkey in 2013 where en route she began taking on water and before she was dismantled, on 10 August 2013, there was a fatal accident in which there was a flood in the compartment below the engines. Two men were killed and nine injured from toxic exhaust gas.

I have to say when I saw the images of her being broken up it made me cry.