M/S Queen of Scandinavia

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M/S Queen of Scandinavia, originally M/S Finlandia is a cruiseferry, built in 1981 in Wärtsilä, Turku, for Effoa for Silja Line's Helsinki - Stockholm service. She currently serves on DFDS's Newcastle - IJmuiden route.

1 M/S Finlandia
2 M/S Queen of Scandinavia
3 Specifications
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] M/S Finlandia

Originally to be named M/S Skandia, Finlandia was the first large, modern cruiseferry to be built for Silja Line. At the time she was also the world's largest cruiseferry in terms of passenger capacity, beds and volume. Alongside her sister M/S Silvia Regina (and Viking Line's contemporary M/S Viking Saga and M/S Viking Song) she was instrumental in changing the Helsinki - Stockholm route from a transportation service into a cruise route.

Finlandia and Silvia Regina were originally constructed with very 'fat', curving bows to maximise car-carrying capacity, but these made the ship extremely difficult to handle especially during the winter. As a result the Finlandia was docked in January 1982 (after just eight months of service!) in Turku for reconstruction of her bow to a sleeker form.

During her career for Silja Line the Finlandia enjoyed a special relationship with Mauno Koivisto, who was at the time the prime minister and later president of Finland. Finlandia was named by Koivisto's wife Tellervo Koivisto in 1981 and the pair traveled on Finlandia twice while Koivisto was president, first in 1984 on Wärtsilä's 150 anniversary cruise and again in 1985 when the pair made an official visit to Sweden.

In 1985 Finlandia's interiors were heavily rebuilt at Wärtsilä's Helsinki shipyard.

In 1989, in preparation for Silja Line's new ships for the Helsinki-Stockholm service due in 1990 and 1991, Finlandia was sold to DFDS, to be delivered in May 1990.

[edit] M/S Queen of Scandinavia

On 6th of May 1990 the Finlandia made her last call at Stockholm and left for docking at Cityvarvet, Gothenburg in preparation for her new service. Five days later she received her new name, M/S Queen of Scandinavia. In June 1990 she began service on DFDS's Copenhagen - Helsingborg - Oslo route, initially as the pair of M/S King of Scandinavia, originally M/S Wellamo of Effoa/Silja Line, the ship that Finlandia originally replaced on the Helsinki - Stockholm service.

In January-April 2000 Queen of Scandinavia was rebuilt in Gdynia, Poland, with rear sponsons and, again, a new sleeker bow. The new bow is especially notable due to the fact that it has no gate or visor, hence the ship's cardecks can now only be loaded/unloaded from the rear.

In June 2001 Queen of Scandinavia was replaced on the Copenhagen - Oslo service by M/S Pearl of Scandinavia, and she was moved to the Newcastle - IJmuiden route on which she serves to this day.