Where Cruise Ships Are Sent to Die The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Cruise ship graveyards: Where do abandoned ships go to die?
• Coronavirus: How ghost cruise ships became a summer tourist attraction
• Where Are Some of the Most Famous Abandoned Cruise Ships?
• Sea Princess
• Oceana
• Where Cruise Ships Are Sent to Die
• This P&O cruises liner has been moored off the coast of Dorset, southern England, since April.
• Meanwhile three cruise ships, owned by the Fred Olsen Cruise Lines company, are laid up in Rosyth, Scotland.

The captain of one of the cruise ships parked off the Dorset coast has even started to wave back at his tours using what he describes as a six-foot-long hand made of plywood. Although we couldn’t enter the Galaxy cruise ship itself, we’d still found this place super fascinating. Originally built as the ocean liner Aleksandr Pushkin in 1965, the Marco Polo was one of the oldest ocean liners still sailing until 2020. The collapse of British line Cruise & Maritime Voyages also has led to the scrapping of several ships -- specifically Columbus, Magellan, Astor and Marco Polo. Columbus originally sailed as Princess's Star Princess, and Magellan sailed as Carnival's Holiday. Royal Caribbean's oldest ship was increasingly an outlier in the line's fleet, which is increasingly dominated by giant mega-ships that are chock full of amusements.

Cruise ship graveyards: Where do abandoned ships go to die?

This abandoned cruise ship activity is a welcomed change for passenger comfort and onboard safety. Cruising was once considered a fairly posh, traditional and exclusive experience. The most infamous cruise ship, of course, is the Titanic, which was pretty revolutionary for its time. The ocean liner had an impressive design that featured pools, restaurants and onboard activities. Sailing for Royal Caribbean since 1992, Majesty of the Seas was the second-oldest ship in the line's fleet.

Coronavirus: How ghost cruise ships became a summer tourist attraction

Of the survivors, perhaps the greatest and saddest is the SS United States. Built in 1950, the liner was the fastest ever built, capturing the coveted Blue Riband for the swiftest Atlantic crossing in both directions during her maiden voyage in 1952. The same fate met the P&O liner Canberra, which featured in a memorable scene in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, and served with distinction as a troop ship in the 1982 Falklands War, as did the QE2. The Queen Mary was eventually declared a hazard to shipping and broken up where she lay. The Queen Elizabeth, the forerunner of the QE2, also taken out of service in 1967, passed through a series of buyers until ending up in the hands of a Hong Kong businessman, who announced the ship would become a floating university.

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Where Are Some of the Most Famous Abandoned Cruise Ships?

Finally, in 2023, a plan was announced to restore the SS United States by RXR Realty and MCR Hotels. The plan is for the ship to hold 1,000 rooms onboard, along with a restaurant and a range of features that guests can enjoy. The plan also includes the SS United States being permanently moored in New York City. On Royal Caribbean’s ships built throughout the 1990s, these nightclubs each had their own name, such as The Crypt and The Labyrinth. Unsurprisingly, environmental concerns were raised about how long the golf balls stayed in the ocean. Unfortunately, most golf balls were not biodegradable and the ones that were more eco-friendly were quite expensive.

Its new owners, a China-based company, plan to use it to start a new China-based cruise line for domestic cruising. Unveiled in 1995, the 2,000-passenger Sun Princess was the oldest vessel in the Princess fleet and -- at 77,000 tons -- one of the smallest, too. Like Maasdam, Veendam had a lot of fans at Holland America due to its intimate size.

Oceana

Sold to the Norwegian Caribbean Line, the France became the Norway, a cruise liner. Increasingly outdated in term of facilities, the ship was taken out of service for the second time in 2004 and sold for scrapping. It is the cost of maintaining ocean liners after they leave passenger service that usually dooms them. Symbols of national pride, it makes their eventual demise even harder to bear. Travel limits caused by the coronavirus in March saw the cruise industry freeze and clear their calendars for much of the year, leaving many empty liners laid up in ports or anchored out to sea, where they continue to drift listlessly.

Where Cruise Ships Are Sent to Die

It offers cruises that have a program centered on experiential learning and intercultural communication. Like Maasdam, Veendam also was sold to Seajets, the Greek/Cypriot ferry company. Like Carnival Fantasy and Carnival Fascination, it was one of Carnival's eight Fantasy Class ships. Unlike some of the others, it had been retrofitted over the years with extra balcony cabins. But that wasn't enough to keep it from the scrappers during the past year's downturn. Unlike more modern vessels, Carnival Fantasy lacks a large number of balcony cabins -- the type of cabins everyone wants these days.

All the kids ooed and awed at my cool roller-skates that I bought all the way from home. The rink was fairly small and we simply went around and around the track multiple times in circles. While the ocean views were amazing, it was pretty lame compared to other activities onboard. In fact, I brought my own roller-skates on a cruise ship once so I could comfortably partake in the activity. I wasn’t sure if the cruise line provided skates for me to use, so I convinced my parents that I needed to bring my own (along with ice skates to use on the ice skating rink). Because the nightclub space wasn’t utilized during the day, cruise lines now use a lounge or other space onboard each night to serve as a nightclub.

Meanwhile three cruise ships, owned by the Fred Olsen Cruise Lines company, are laid up in Rosyth, Scotland.

At Alang, ships are either towed to the facility, which is located on the Gulf of Khambat, or sail there under their own power. When they arrive, vessels are run aground on the beach when the tide comes in. Shipbreakers -- the workers who dismantle the ships -- then use machinery to drag them further onto the sand and secure them. Many who explored the abandoned ship have described its interior as a time capsule due to its relatively pristine condition. Even glassware and bedding remain as she awaits her final voyage to a scrap yard.

Most decommissioned cruise ships are taken for dismantling at a ship scrapping yard. After the cruise line has removed everything of value, the remaining hull of the ship is auctioned off and eventually sent to a scrap yard that can handle dismantling a vessel of that size. Like every other work of machinery in the world, cruise ships can’t run forever. “In other cases, they’re sold for scrap—meaning the ship will dock at a shipyard and the most valuable parts will be sold piece-by-piece, and the rest of the ship stripped.” Cruise ships have a lot of interesting parts and features. There, five mammoth cruise ships sit crammed into a muddied cove, as hundreds of workers chip away at their hulls and bows, exposing the intricate anatomies of the boats that once carried thousands of people around the world.

In all, the brand has lost four ships over the past year -- nearly a third of the vessels it operated at the start of 2020. Carnival Inspiration carried 2,056 passengers, based on double occupancy, and measured about 70,000 tons. One bright spot in all the downsizing for cruise fans is that not all cruise companies have been shedding ships. Among major lines resisting the trend to downsizing -- at least so far -- are Norwegian Cruise Line, MSC Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Seabourn, Silversea and Celebrity Cruises.

Next are listed some of the Alang-dismantled cruise ships and (converted) classic ocean liners. The largest cruise ship scrap yard is in Alang, India, and it recycles more than 50 percent of the world's abandoned and decommissioned cruise ships. Not only will we explain how these once bustling ships end up getting abandoned, but we will also highlight where some of the world’s most famous abandoned cruise ships and wreckage sites are.