Two beautiful old ships

Here’s a couple of postcards that Shiona from Cruise Critic sent me.

Marco Polo
Built in the old communist East Germany in 1965 as the “Alexandr Pushkin”, she was renamed “MS Marco Polo” in 1991 when she was purchased by Orient Lines. At just under 20,000 tonnes, and 176m long, she was capabile of carrying about 650 passengers. Some unusual things about her: Some cabins had six berths. All cabins had an outside view. Bathrooms had 3 taps: Hot, Cold and Seawater. She also had a reinforced hull to allow navigation through ice. She also was built with potential military use in mind. Her larger than usual storage capacity meant a cruising range of over 10,000 nautical miles.

Fair Princess
Originally built in 1955 for Cunard as “RMS Carinthia”, she sailed under a myriad of names: Fairland (1968 – 1970), Fairsea (1970 – 1988), Fair Princess (1988 – 2000), Emerald Fortune (2000 – 2001), China Sea Discovery (2001 – 2005), Sea Discovery (2005 – 2006). Weighing in at almost 22,000 tonnes, she was 185m long and could carry about 1,300 passengers. She was build in the same shipyard as QE2 (John Brown & Co, Clydebank), and was eventually broken up for scrap at Alang in India.