A long History. Celebrity to Australia

[campingman]

Celebrity Cruises =Symbols of significance

 

Every cruise line employs an insignia to identify its vessels. The story behind Celebrity Cruises' logo has links with Australia's maritime past.

 

Just before Christmas 1959, a relatively small passenger liner steamed out of Athens' Piraeus harbour bound for Australia. The liner, recently bought from the British Union-Castle Line, displaced 16,259 tons and its hull had been repainted a gleaming white. Her crowning glory was a blue funnel bearing a stylised white X.

 

Considering her ownership, port of origin, name (which translates to "homeland") and the nationality of crew and passengers, it was not a coincidence that the smokestack bore the colours of Greece's national ensign.

 

On a hot January morning in 1960, the ship nosed her bow past Sydney Heads, her arrival establishing a sea-link between Europe and Australia which was to last for 18 years. That ship was Patris, the pioneer of a fleet of liners to fly the ensignia for Chandris Lines on line voyages and cruises in Australian waters until December 1977. The white X logo set upon a blue painted funnel had become the trademark of Chandris even before Patris made that first voyage to Australian shores. The insignia, formed by the Greek alphabet character for 'Ch' (Chandris), was borne by the small freighter fleet of the company founded by John Chandris for Mediterranean trading since 1911.

 

Brothers Dimitrios and Antonios Chandris chose to expand to passenger line services catering to the ex-Greece migration market in the late 1950s. Union-Castle's Bloemfontein Castle was bought to establish the Piraeus/Australia service.

 

So successful was the nascent venture that Patris was joined by a similar sized liner, Brittany, in May 1961. Unfortunately disaster struck in April 1963 when the second ship was lost to fire while undergoing refit.

 

Although a setback, it led to the purchase of four larger and much more prestigious passenger liners from US flag operators. Three Matson liners, Matsonia, Lurline and Monterey (subsequently renamed Queen Frederica, Ellinis and Britanis respectively) were followed by the majestic 34,000-ton former flagship America, renamed Australis.

 

Through the 1960s and '70s the Chandris liners plied their way to Australia with new settlers from Europe and Great Britain. They returned with a new generation of Europe-bound travellers happy to pay fares significantly less than that offered by the long-established British competition.

 

Increasingly Chandris operated cruises to the Pacific islands from Sydney during the southern summer season to compensate for lesser line voyage loadings to a wintry Europe.

 

By the late 1970s, time had begun to take its toll on the ageing Chandris liners. As well, inroads by airlines saw fewer passengers electing to travel by sea to Europe. One by one Chandris's familiar fleet disappeared from the Australian waterfront. In December 1977, the final ship to go, Australis, bid Sydney a last hurrah. The pioneering Patris had given sterling service as an emergency hostel ship at Darwin in 1975 in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy, but by 1977 she had made her final departure too.

 

Undeterred and always flexible in the face of adversity (long a hallmark of Greek merchant mariners), Chandris Lines turned its interests to the then growing European and Caribbean cruise market. Additional former liners, including Amerikanis (formerly Kenya Castle), Regina Magna (formerly Bremen) and notably, as the future would witness, the chartered Galileo, joined the fleet.

 

By 1989 the Chandris organisation consisted of two divisions: Chandris Fantasy Cruises, catering to an economical fare market with Galileo, Britanis and Amerikanis in the Caribbean; and Chandris Cruises (Europe) for a similar market with the ageing Romanza, Regina Prima and Victoria.

 

Within a year all that would change. So would the name of Chandris fade from the cruise industry. A new direction for the company, the premium luxury market, was to be embraced and a new image was required.

 

In February 1990, the rebranded Celebrity Cruises' first ship, the 30,400-ton Meridian, set out from New York to commence voyages to Bermuda and the Caribbean. Although virtually unrecognisable both externally and within, she was not (adhering to Chandris past practice) a totally new vessel; she was the former Galileo Galilei, previously on charter from her Italian owners. As Meridian she had been radically rebuilt to accommodate 1106 guests in a style of luxury unknown under the Chandris flag.

 

Despite her elegance and luxuries, Meridian was a stopgap. The first two real Celebrity Cruises ships and the first ships ever built specially for Chandris were the dramatically styled Horizon and Zenith. With their arrival the first stage of Celebrity Cruises' entry to the premium-luxury cruise trade was accomplished.

 

The next step was to be even more spectacular. In 1995 the Chandris family's interests were sold outright to Royal Caribbean International, a leading contender within the medium-fare cruise market with its fleet of megaships.

 

The purchase of Celebrity Cruises was prompted by rival Carnival's acquisition of Holland America Line in order to offer an aspirational premium product to its vast customer base. And aspirational indeed were the first signs of the expansion of Celebrity Cruises' fleet to cater to this market.

 

First off was the building of Century, a US$320-million 70,000-ton ship of size and style to overshadow not only her earlier twin consorts but most of her rivals. She was followed into service in short order from the ship building yards at Papenburg, Germany, by Galaxy (1996) and Mercury (1998), each larger in turn, culminating at over 73,000 tons, with guest capacity at over 2000.

 

Still Celebrity Cruises expanded its fleet. Meridian was sold to Singaporean owners, her contribution at an end due to the entry of yet another generation of even larger vessels. This time they were titled, aptly enough, the Millennium class, taking its name from Millennium, the first of a quartet of mammoth 92,000 tonners delivered in November 2000.

 

Three sisters, Infinity, Summit and Constellation, followed from Papenburg from 2001 to 2003, bringing the Celebrity Cruises fleet to a modern state-of-the-art, world-class cruise fleet of nine. Yet there was still more to come!

 

The intimate/expedition cruise market was deemed to have been overlooked. This was solved by the advent in 2004 of Celebrity Xpedition, a deluxe, 92-guest vessel (sister to locally-based Orion).

 

The hallmark of Celebrity Cruises' fleet is one of modern, conservative, five-star-oriented luxury, with a unique flair for the heritage of seafaring, which is of fascination to travellers and historians.

 

Millennium's Olympic Restaurant is clad in fine wooden panel work, which once adorned White Star's Olympic (sister of Titanic). Infinity boasts décor artefacts from Blue Riband holder United States and Summit carries a priceless collection of Art Deco items rescued from the grandest ship built in the 1930s, France's Normandie.

 

The recently announced sale of Horizon (predicted to be accompanied by Zenith) to a new American-based operator indicates that another phase in the expansion of Celebrity Cruises is near, with ships of even greater size and luxury on their way.

 

It would have been difficult to have imagined today's Millennium-class vessels on that day 46 years ago when Patris made her inaugural bow. Without Patris and the fleet of aged granddames for which Chandris Lines was regarded, there would most likely be no Celebrity Cruises today. That is perhaps why Celebrity Cruises retains the Chandris blue funnel and white X house-flag insignia, as a mark of respect to its founders and to an era when the luxury we demand today as the cruising norm was unimaginable

[Texed]

Thank you for posting this. Very nice!:)

[reklawr]

Thanks campingman.

That was a very interesting history of our favorite cruise line.