Voyager

Voyager on her way leaving IJmuiden for the first time at the 8th of july 2013. The ship is slightly rebuilt from her days as a Crown Cruise Line ship, but she is still recognizable from her former years. 

In 1984, the company Crown Cruise Line started operations as a luxury line offering cruises on a small yaught-like ship named Viking Princess. The ship operated short cruises from San Diego to the Mexican westcoast and the Baia California. In 1988, the company added their second ship, the rebuilt 1967-built ferry Las Palmas de Gran Canaria of the Spanish company Trasmediterranea. She emerged as the Crown del Mar after the rebuilding at the wharf that had built the ship, Union Naval de Levante at Valencia, Spain. Because of the anticipated success, Crown Cruise Line also ordered their first newbuilt. Convenient, they ordered this ship also from the same yard and she was launched in 1989 and delivered to the company in 1990.

Of course, she was designed in the exact style that Crown Cruise Line wanted to have, with a small yaught-like style. Designed by GMO Design of Boca Raton, the 15.271 ton ship had 265 staterooms and suites, of which several suites offered even whirlpool tubs. When the 152,5 meter long ship was delivered, the company ended the lease of the Crown del Mar because the ship 'did not fit with the fresh image'.

As Crown Monarch, the new ship started her sailings from Palm Beach to Key West and Jamaica, as well as Haiti, where Crown Cruise Line had the possession of a private beach. Also in 1990, to compliment the new ship, the company had built a terminal in the port of Palm Beach, measuring 45.000 square foot. It all seemed very well for the small company, you could say.

All changed in 1991, when the Gulf War broke out and tourism plummited. Parent company Grundstad Maritime acted by splitting Crown Cruise Line in two companies, as Palm Beach Cruises the Viking Princess kept sailing day-cruises from Palm Beach, while the name of Crown Cruise Line as well as the ship was sold to Commodore Cruise Line, although Grundstad still provided management services for the ship. Under Commodore Cruise Line, two more vessels were ordered from the Union Naval de Levante yards in Valencia, so this tradition was continued. These of course were the Crown Jewel and Crown Dynasty. It proved that Commodore Cruise Line was very confident in the Crown Cruise Line name. But this confidence ended in 1993, when Commodore faced financial hard times and the Crown Cruise Line name, together with the management of the ships, was transferred to Cunard Line. They did operate the ships under a new brand named Cunard Crown Cruises and marketed the ships under their own names, just with a 'Cunard'-prefix. None of the ships were officially renamed in this style, though. During the mid 1990's, the Cunard management ended and the ships started to be scattered around the globe. Crown Monarch was remaned Nautican for Crown Cruise Line, although she didn't see commercial service as such from 1994 onwards. She was sold in 1996 to the Hong Kong based Ki Devellopment Corp. and started casino cruises from Hong Kong. For this, ashe was named Walrus in 1996, Havens Star in 1997 and between 1997 and 2004 she traded under the name Neptune again. Another renaming followed, shen she became the Rembrandt II between 2004 and 2007. In those years, she was frequently in lay-up next to her casino cruises and it seemed her active cruiseservices were over.

In 2007, she did see new cruise service though under the name Jules Verne for Vision Cruises, but this only lasted for one year. It opened the cruisemarket for her, as she was quickly chartered by the German-based Phoenix Reisen as a replacement for their Alexander von Humboldt that had been replaced in the fleet of Swan Hellenic. To make things easy, the ship was also renamed Alexander von Humboldt, although the former ship didn't leave the Phoenix fleet yet. Because of this, she was marketed as Alexander von Humboldt II untill the former one had left.

The former Crown Cruise Lines ship sailed for Phoenix Reisen untill the end of 2012, when she was replacing the Discovery in the fleet of Voyages of Discovery. For this, she recieved another new name, Voyager. After this namechange, she was allowed to be a part of a very exquisite club where only ships that have had ten names or more can be a member of. She has achieved this goal in a life of 23 years.