Thomson Spirit Cruise Ship

This article look at views of the Thomson (later Marella) Spirit cruise ship. She was the sister ship to Thomson Celebration and was almost but not quite identical.

Here she is in Corfu. We boarded her for the first time in 2011 for a cruise named Adriatic Explorer.

This cruise started from Corfu, which is both an island in the Ionian Sea, part of Greece but stretching off the coasts of both Greece and Albania and a town facing the Greek mainland. From the shore the Spirit and Celebration look just about identical. Onboard some of the public areas are slightly different, sometimes by name and sometimes by colour scheme and in a couple of rare instances by dimensions or purpose.

The cruise took us up the Adriatic Sea and called at several countries we hadn't visited before, namely Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. This shows the Spirit docked in Kotor in Montenegro which was reached via a long fjord - the most southerly fjord in Europe. That's Europe the continent - Montenegro isn't in the EU.

The Spirit at Gruž - the port for visiting Dubrovnik in Croatia.

In 2013 we found ourselves onboard again and this time we were going up a few more fjords, this time in Norway. Moored in Stavanger on a rather wet day a local launch passes the stern of the Spirit.

We had a wander around the Old Town, then the shopping streets, then came by a roundabout way back to the Spirit.

There were a few wet days on that Norway cruise but the dryer days made up for them. We had been on a full-day excurion from one fjord to another and from the top of a mountain had a wonderful viewpoint of Thomson Spirit at anchor in Geirangerfjord.

To get back onboard we had to use the ship's tender boats.

Yay! Sunshine! Getting off the ship in Bergen in Norway for an unaccompanied wander about this fabulous and very historic town.

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Adriatic Explorer Cruise, 2011
Fjordland Wonders Cruise, 2013

Thomson Majesty, Cruise Ship

This article looks at the Thomson Majesty cruise ship with photographs taken of the ship from dry land. Another article will look onboard and inside the ship.

We took two cruises on the Majesty. The first, in 2014, was called Italian Flavours. Our embarkation point was Corfu in Greece, where she is seen here and then concentrated on the west coast of Italy after calling in at Valetta in Malta. The second cruise was the following year with our good friends David and Jeannie and also embarked in Corfu. This one was called Hellenic Classics and concentrated on visiting various ports around Greece and its islands.

She dates from 1992, when she was built for the Birka Line, but due to rising costs they refused delivery and she entered service as Royal Majesty with Majesty Cruise Lines. At the time she was 32,396 tonnes. She was built with the highest grade of ice-breaking capabilities. Her official naming ceremony was carried out in New York in July 1992 with Lisa Minnelli doing the honours.

In 1997 she was sold to Norwegian Cruise Line and renamed Norwegian Majesty. She underwent a refit in 1999 resulting in an increase of weight to 40,876 tonnes. She was sold upwards to NCL's parent company, Star Cruises, in 2004 but remained in NCL service until 2009 when it was sold to Louis Cruise Lines being renamed Louis Majesty. Not long afterwards in March 2010 she was hit broadside on by three successive rogue waves, 8 metres (26ft) or higher which smashed the main saloon windows, killing two passengers and injuring more. The vast amount of water that swamped into the saloon area drained to lower deck and caused much damage.

In 2012 she was chartered to Louis Cruises subordinate company, Thomson, becoming Thomson Majesty. The following year some members of the crew were killed and others injured during a routine safety exercise to launch and recover a lifeboat when one of the cables parted, leaving the lifeboat to fall bow first. An inquiry found that the inner strands of the cable which were not due to be replaced for another 17 months had corroded, whilst the visible outer strands had hidden this from inspections.

After our time on her, she was sold to Celestyal Cruises in 2017, being named simply Majesty, quite a rare achievement to keep the significantly relevant part of her name throughout all this time.

Thomson Majesty in the Bay of Naples off Sorrento. Here occurred one of my favourite and oft-remembered incidents from our cruising days when, standing at the ship's rail before breakfast, the chap next to me at last turned a penetrating gaze away from Mount Vesuvius and said to me, "You know... that looks a bit like a volcano doesn't it?" Nine years after this happened if Miss Franny and I see a photo of Vesuvius we immediately turn to each other and repeat that immortal line...

Towards the end of 2018 she was sold to the Isreali firm Mano Maritime and for the first time lost her Majesty name as she was renamed Crown Iris. She had a total refit in 2019 and rebuild, emerging with a new total length of 216 metres. She remains in service and as I write today in November 2023 she is currently moored in Chalcis, Greece.

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