THE FIRST
CRUISE SHIP
G'day folks,
Welcome to some facts on what is reputed to be the world's first cruise ship.
Launched in 1900, let’s take a cruise through history aboard
the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise, credited with having been the first
purpose-built cruise ship, a German passenger ship of the Hamburg-America Line.
It only spent six years in service before it was
accidentally grounded off the coast of Jamaica (oops), but boy was she a
beauty. Designed to look more like a private yacht than any of her commercial
counterparts, she was pure
luxury. We’re talking first-class cabins only
(120 of them), interior design approved by the German emperor
himself and amenities including a library, a gymnasium, and even a
darkroom for the development of film by amateur photographers.
It was such a beautiful ship that it actually made the
Kaiser jealous that it was slightly better than his royal yacht.
Pushing at a steady 15 knots (28 km/h), she might not have
chugged along quite as quickly as the Titanic (probably for the best), but for
a passenger-only ship, the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise was a totally
revolutionary vessel. She had been purposely built as the world’s cruise ship,
a novel idea that came about following an experiment by German shipping
magnate, Albert Ballin.
In 1988, he noticed that one of his company’s largest
flagship ocean liners, the SS Augusta Victoria was doing a lot of sitting around in port
being quite useless for most of the winter season, simply because
travellers preferred to make the North Atlantic journey in warmer climates.
So against everyone’s advice, he decided to send the
Augusta Victoria on a 58-day “pleasure voyage” from Germany through the
Mediterranean to the Orient. The cruise included well-planned excursions ashore
and ports-of-call along the route. The voyage was a huge success and introduced
the concept of the “floating hotel”.
Here are a few more photographs:
Clancy's comment: Wow, they had such style and grace in those days.
I'm ....
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