Royal Caribbean International has recently announced that one of its oldest ships, Legend of the Seas, will leave its fleet in the spring of 2017.
Early next year, Miami-based cruise line will say goodbye to Legend of the Seas as it has entered into an agreement with Thomson Cruises, announced officials from parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. The 21-year old Legend will join Thomson Cruises fleet in May 2017 and the ship will be named TUI Discovery 2. Thomson Cruises is a British cruise line operator that offers cruises around Europe with ships from Louis Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean and Holland America.
At 69,100 tons and carrying 1,832 passengers, the Legend of the Seas was one of the larger ships in the world when it debuted in 1995. The vessel was the first of six ships in the successful Vision class series of RCI. Over the years, Legend has been eclipsed by ever-larger and groundbreaking mega vessels. In comparison, Harmony of the Seas with its 226,983 tons is three times larger than Legend.
The last Legend’s Royal Caribbean cruise will start on March 13 and two weeks later, the vessel will officially leave the 25-ship fleet when transferred to Thomson Cruises.
The announcement for the agreement came a few weeks after Splendor of the Seas, another Vision-class vessel, the same size, left the Royal Caribbean fleet, after it was sold to German line TUI Cruises, a Thomson affiliate and it will sail its maiden voyage on June 11 as TUI Discovery.
Legend of the Seas is currently sailing from Tianjin, China. The ship will still operate its scheduled trips to and from Brisbane, Australia, between January 6 and February 8. Sailings scheduled for departures from February 20 will be canceled, said from Royal Caribbean. The canceled cruises will be replaced by three new repositioning itineraries from Brisbane starting February 20, including an 11-night cruise to Singapore, a 10-night sailing from Singapore to Dubai and a 13-night cruise from Dubai to Barcelona.