The Finnish shipping company Kristina Cruises Ltd has bought the cruise vessel The Iris. She will be renamed Kristina Katarina and in August 2010 she replaces the smaller Kristina Regina. During the spring the Kristina Katarina will be rebuilt and is going to have a capacity of 195 passenger cabins with 380 lower beds. The new ship will also provide a remarkable number of new jobs to Finns.

‘The search for the ship has taken several years in order to find the best possible successor to the Kristina Regina. Regarding the ship facilities, passenger capacity and technical particulars such as ice class, there were only a few suitable vessels available in the whole world. The Kristina Katarina meets our requirements quite well and we believe that she is appropriate for the long-term use bearing in mind our clientele as well as cruise programs’, says managing director Mikko Partanen.

The Kristina Katarina was built in 1982 in Poland, the country with an impressive ship building tradition. The ship’s length is 138m and breadth is 22m. The ship has operated for instance in the 1990’s under the name of Konstantin Simonov between Helsinki and St. Petersburg. For the last nine years the ship has been operated for international cruising under the flag of Malta, mostly in Eastern Mediterranean. The vessel has gone through substantial repairs in 2001 and 2004, when the common areas and cabins were renovated. In January 2010 the Kristina Katarina will be transferred to Finland, where the ship will be docked, classified and refitted to meet the requirements of Kristina Cruises passengers. The Kristina Katarina will start operating under the ownership of Kristina Cruises, Finnish-flagged and with all-Finnish crew in August 2010. The autumn cruises can be booked starting from January 2010. The seller and the buyer have agreed that the purchase price of the ship will not be revealed.

‘The time has come to turn a new page and say farewell to the nostalgic cruises of the 1960’s. In October 2010 the new safety regulations will come into force and it will be the time for the Kristina Regina to withdraw from international waters. The Kristina Katarina represents the next generation of ships, offering holiday cruises of better quality with a larger vessel. The standard of the cabins is remarkably higher and there are several new common areas for cruise guests. For example, the swimming pool deck with its three pools is likely to become a popular place onboard. The Kristina Katarina, however, is not too large for calling in ports that are already in our cruise itineraries’, says Mikko Partanen.

The talks regarding the future of the Kristina Regina are being held with different parties.

Currently the clients of Kristina Cruises are mainly Finnish. The cruising areas are the Northern Seas, Western Europe, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.


Further information from Kristina Cruises
Managing Director Mikko Partanen, tel. + 358 50 339 3500

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