BOLETTE and BOREALIS FRED. OLSEN CRUISE NEWCOMERS QUICKLY MAKE AN IMPRESSION

Long before Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines was established in 1986, the company’s ferry arm was well known for offering winter trips to the Canary Islands from England and the Netherlands. It was one of the vessels used for these seasonal excursions, the 1966-built Black Prince, which became the company’s first full-time cruiser after being put through a major internal rebuilding programme by the Wärtsilä yard in Turku, Finland, which boosted gross tonnage to 9,499gt.

For many returning to North Sea summer traffic from Newcastle to the Norwegian ports of Stavanger and Bergen as while sistership had the summer identity of . quickly became highly popular as a full-time cruise ship from 1987, taking up to 527 passengers, until she was sold for further trading in 2009.