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Nordic Prince


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Yes...it was my first cruise with RCCL and I remember the Captain was Leif Otto Bang...how could you forget a name like that...apparently at the time he was know as being their top captain and somewhat of a celebrity with RCCL cruisers. Sailed on her from NYC to Bermuda...had a great time.

 

I loved that old ship even with all of her shortcomings and lack of creature comforts...like no television! I remember it was a hassle to visit the Viking Crown Lounge since you had to climb an outside (exposed to elements) stairway at the stern of the ship....was not fun in rain or wind.

 

The quality of design and building of that ship is why she is still sailing today with passengers while many other ships end up "beached" at Alang with a bunch of Indians with blowtorches roaming the decks!

 

Long Live Nordic Prince!

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This was our first cruise also...........NYC to Bermuda..........we thought it was a great ship........RC only had 3 ships in those early days. I believe the Nordic Prince is now in Europe sailing under the name of Aquamarine or something like that. Do a google search and you'll see some great pictures.

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A July 4th, 1984 cruise on Nordic Prince has been my only Royal Caribbean cruise experience. I remember it as being a very pleasant cruise. Food was very good, table mates were very nice people, one of whom I still keep in touch, and very small cabins. One could sit on one's bed and touch knees with the person sitting on their bed.

 

Memorable was our sailaway on July 4th from St. Thomas: the Captain, a Captain Peterson, I think, came on the PA and warned us--in case anyone had any--not to fire off any fireworks during the night. Fireworks at sea, he said, is a sign of a vessel in distress.

 

The only negative that I recall is from the night the comment cards were received. Our dining room waiter begged for an excellent rating. After all these years, I still remember this: his begging was so unnecessary. The service that he and the assistant waiter had given had been excellent--and we so indicated that on the comment card. But, his begging left a slightly sour taste towards my Royal Caribbean experience.

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  • 3 weeks later...

We honeymooned on the NP in 1982--2 weeks roaming through the Caribbean. It was our first cruise & we were hooked, but 10 long years passed before we could do another. Despite the teensy cabins & the windy trek to the Crown, we had a blast. Glad to know she's still out there!

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I believe the Nordic Prince is now in Europe sailing under the name of Aquamarine or something like that.

She was in fact called AQUAMARINE for a year or so by her present owners, Louis Cruise Lines but now she is chartered to Transocean Tours

as ARIELLE. You can see some great photos here including a lot of great art that RCCL must have left on board when they sold the ship.

 

There was an old RCCL brochure photo with a nice-looking young couple sitting across from each other in their beds in one of these cabins, legs interlocked :) .

 

This is something of a "trademark" with Royal Caribbean - still done, and now on Celebrity too :( .

 

On RCCL, anyone who does not get enough "excellent" ratings will be fired. In essence, if you get called "good" too many times, you are going to find yourself sitting on the pier holding a suitcase.

 

This basically forces the crew members in question (and sometimes the cruise director as well) to desperately explain to anyone who will listen that "excellent" really means "acceptable", and "good", "fair" and "poor" all mean "unacceptable". RCCL's excuse for this is that they will accept nothing less than excellence. In reality it is totally illogical and in my opinion very detrimental to the relationship between the passengers and crew (not to mention putting a huge amount of undue stress on the crew members) but this is how they have always done it and I do not expect them to stop any time soon...

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I had the pleasure of cruising her when she was known as MS Carousel and sailed for Sun Cruises. We did the southern Caribbean and our fellow passengers were mostly from the Uk. I wonder why, unlike the former Song of America, her Viking Crown Lounge did not survive.

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I believe with Nordic Prince her Viking Crown Lounge was an "add-on" for lack of a better term and therefore was a lounge tacked onto the smoke stack...remember my earlier posting that you had to use an outside stairway to access the lounge. Song of America as far as I know had the lounge integrated into her design and as actual part of the ship had interior stairs and elevator access....it would have been too expensive and time-consuming to remove.:cool:

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This raises an interesting point. I may be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that, at the time of the conversion of NP to Carousel, SunTours were obliged to remove the Crown Lounge because it was an exclusive trademark of RCCL. I don't know about SunTours, but I know Sitmar were delighted to have the lounge removed, since they were the ones who'd have to deal with it, and they called it 'a royal pain'.

 

The point now is, it being impossible to remove the lounge, how did the purchasers of the SoA deal with the trademark issue?

 

I believe with Nordic Prince her Viking Crown Lounge was an "add-on" for lack of a better term and therefore was a lounge tacked onto the smoke stack...remember my earlier posting that you had to use an outside stairway to access the lounge. Song of America as far as I know had the lounge integrated into her design and as actual part of the ship had interior stairs and elevator access....it would have been too expensive and time-consuming to remove.:cool:
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This raises an interesting point. I may be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that, at the time of the conversion of NP to Carousel, SunTours were obliged to remove the Crown Lounge because it was an exclusive trademark of RCCL.

RCCL actually removed it themselves, I believe, before handing over the ship. It was "not included in the sale".

 

They did the same when they sold SONG OF NORWAY to Airtours/Sun Cruises a few years later. They did not do the same when they sold SUN VIKING to Star Cruises though, so presumably by that time (1998) they did not care any longer.

 

I have never found out what happened to the Viking Crown lounges of the first two ships after they were removed.

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Like I said, having sailed on both Nordic Prince and Song of America, I believe that Nordic's lounge was added onto the smoke stake and Song of America had the loundge as an integrated part of the ship as did all RCCL ships that followed her. Anything more than that would have to come from our expert Host Doug.

 

By the way Doug, why doesn't RCCL recycle any of the names like HAL or Princess? I would love to see a new Nordic Prince or Song of America...after all, these are two ships that made RCCL what it is today!:cool:

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Like I said, having sailed on both Nordic Prince and Song of America, I believe that Nordic's lounge was added onto the smoke stake

Yes but so was SUN VIKING's and they left that one on.

 

I do agree it would have been much more difficult to remove SONG OF AMERICA's.

 

By the way Doug, why doesn't RCCL recycle any of the names like HAL or Princess?

Today all of their names end with "OF THE SEAS". So far they have not retired an "OF THE SEAS" ship so they have not had the opportunity to recycle one of those names. However, they did come out with SERENADE OF THE SEAS not long after VIKING SERENADE was retired.

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Yes but so was SUN VIKING's and they left that one on.

 

I do agree it would have been much more difficult to remove SONG OF AMERICA's.

 

 

Today all of their names end with "OF THE SEAS". So far they have not retired an "OF THE SEAS" ship so they have not had the opportunity to recycle one of those names. However, they did come out with SERENADE OF THE SEAS not long after VIKING SERENADE was retired.

 

So we could have "Prince of the Seas"

Then we could call Genisis "King of the Seas"

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Did anyone ever sail on the Nordic Prince. That was my very first cruise back in 1982, and I remember it for having exceptional food in the main dining room.

 

Yes, I was on the NP twice - 12/80 and 12/88 - In fact, my first cruise was aboard the Song of Norway in 1972. How cruising has changed especially with the older ships (if there are still some sailing) looking like yachts compared to the big boats!

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Cruiselover

 

FYI...I believe that all former RCCL cruise ships are still alive and well and sailing the seas in other parts of the world for other cruise lines. A positive thing for the design, building and maintenance of all RCCL cruise ships! This appears to be one of the things that RCCL continues to do well and not cut costs on....thankfully!

 

I guess you saw the sad news that we will be losing another classic RCCL ship when Nordic Empress (aka Empress of the Seas) leaves the fleet in the near future to go to Europe and sail for Pullmantours.

 

:cool:

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We sailed Nordic Prince twice. Once for two weeks in 1982, our first 14 day cruise. Then again in 1986 on the NYC to Bermuda run. We eventually sailed all the old RCCL ships, Nordic Prince's sister Song of Norway, her unstretched sister Sun Viking, and Song of America. They all had their design idiosyncrasies, especially after those that were stretched. I liked Sun Viking the best of the lot with it's canopied outside dinning by the stern.

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Guest scraperry

I had the pleasure of sailing the Nordic Prince in both 1973 and '74 on 7 day Caribbean vacations. Took 12 years to coax the husband to cruise on the "Big Red Boat"! Did a Disney cruise last year and will be back on RCCL this year, with a European canel cruise in '08. How times, ships and food has changed. Our captain was Osten Andreassen. Aww the memories ... :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Nordic Prince was my first cruise back in Aug. 1977. There were 3 of us single gals in an inside cabin #585 on a 2 week cruise. Wow, that was small, but we were much smaller ourselves, back then.:D I just did my 20th cruise and my 9th on RCCL. I still remember all of the wonderful ports of calls and have gone back to visit many of them again. I love cruising.:p

Our captain was Capt.Bjorsted (sp?)

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The Nordic Prince was my first cruise back in Aug. 1977. There were 3 of us single gals in an inside cabin #585 on a 2 week cruise. Wow, that was small, but we were much smaller ourselves, back then.:D I just did my 20th cruise and my 9th on RCCL. I still remember all of the wonderful ports of calls and have gone back to visit many of them again. I love cruising.:p

Our captain was Capt.Bjorsted (sp?)

 

I remember Captain Eric Bjorsted from 4 consecutive cruises on the Nordic Prince in the early 80's. He and his officers would come to the Carousel Lounge on some evenings to dance with the ladies. One evening the ship's doctor, whos table we were seated at, asked me to waltz with him, as we both loved that dance. He went to the band and asked them to play a Vienna Waltz. As the good doctor returned to our table, a lady came running up to him on the dance floor and engaged him to dance. The problem was that she only knew the slow waltz. When Dr. Gunnar Tronstad returned to our table, apologizing for the interruption, he said to me "let's waltz now". The problem was that the band wasn't playing a Vienna Waltz, so Dr. Tronstad sang the "Blue Danube" waltz into my ear, while the two of us were waltzing and everyone else was keeping the proper rhythm

We had such a great time on these 14 day Caribbean cruises.

They only had a few slot machines on the way to the dining room in those days, no casino yet until later on, when they converted the small rcard room to a casino.

The cabins were tiny, the food excellent and the service by the European staff was superb. We had to make our own entertainment for the most part in those days, We loved the Nordic Prince!!

We are now Diamond Plus members, having sailed over 30 times on Royal Caribbean. We enjoy their newer ships very much, but we still have a soft spot in our heart for the good old Nordic Prince and the Sun Viking as well.

It was wonderful to reminisce a bit.

Ginnie

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When I sailed on Nordic Prince it had been stretched and did have a full working casino. The Captain is still with RCCL and is one of the most famous on their staff Leif Otto Bang.

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For those who are curious, Capt. Erik Bjurstedt later became very popular at Orient Lines on MARCO POLO and CROWN ODYSSEY, then went to Discovery World Cruises aboard their DISCOVERY and is now with Orion Expedition Cruises aboard ORION. Last year Orion released this press release announcing his joining the company.

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Even after Nordic Prince was initially stretched she didn't have a full casino, just a few slots. The casino came later. I remember our 14 day cruise on Nordic Prince in 1981. One evening we were in port and there was no scheduled entertainment by the professional entertainers, but an "activity" was scheduled for one of the lounges...blackjack. No casino dealers, that was passed around between players at the table with the dealer usually cleaning up. We played with dimes instead of chips. It was great fun.

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The first time that we sailed on the Nordic Prince was in January of 1980. It was her last cruise before she was stretched.

We sailed her again in January 1981, 1982 and 1983, and many of the passengers repeated the same 2 weeks annual.

We definitely made our own fun onboard, and I remember being a dealer for one of the games on "Casino Night".

 

Host Doug, thank you for posting the article about Captain Bjurstedt. We were under the impression that he had retired a few years ago.

Ginnie

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