Two cruise ships due later this week are Albatros, on its first visit under this name, and Regatta, on its maiden call. They are two of the vessels calling here in what has turned out to be a record cruise-ship season.
But the season as we now know it was very much different in its infancy when Albatros, the oldest of this season's cruise ships, called here under two of its former names.
The last of three sister ships to be built at the Wartsila yard at Helsinki for the Royal Viking Line of Oslo, it was laid down on June 1, 1972. Launched as Royal Viking Sea on January 1, 1973, it was delivered to its owner on November 1, 1973.
As new, Royal Viking Sea was a vessel of 21,897gt with 538 passenger berths. These figures increased to 28,018gt and 812 berths after the ship was lengthened from 177.76m to 205.46m during a stay at Bremerhaven from March 11-June 5, 1983.
The first visit to Port Chalmers on January 16, 1990, was followed by a further three up to March 13. The following year it returned on three occasions from January 25 to March 14.
Interestingly, it was the only cruise ship here in 1990, and of the six visits by three cruise ships in 1991, it accounted for three of them.
Later that year the Nassau-registered vessel passed to the Kloster Cruise Line and was renamed Royal Odyssey. As such it made a further five local appearances from March 17, 1992, to February 16, 1995.
And in windy conditions on the first of those, it broke its moorings at the container berth, drifted across the basin and made contact with the log ship Menina C, the first Myanmar-registered visitor to this harbour.
Royal Odyssey operated under that name until 1997. New owners renamed it Norwegian Star, later changed to Norwegian Star 1 in 2001, then from 2002 it carried the name Crown prior to becoming Albatros in 2004.
The now 28,518gt, 1100-berth veteran is owned by Albatros Shipping Ltd and managed by V Ships Leisure SAM of Monte Carlo. It is on charter to Phoenix Seereisen GmbH of Bonn.
Two other vessels with earlier local connections are also operated by these interests. One, the 28,856gt,1991-built Amadea, here on February 13, 2009, also made five calls as NYK's Asuka between February 5, 1995, and February 11, 2005.
Dating from 1984, the other vessel, the 44,348gt Artania, visited Port Chalmers as P&O's Artemis on December 3, 2005.
Back on February 6, 2001, another Albatros from the V Ships fleet made its only visit here. Coincidentally, it was also the oldest of that season's cruise ships.
This 24,803gt vessel was completed in June, 1957, by John Brown's renowned Clydebank shipyard as Sylvania, the last of four steam turbine passenger-cargo ships built for Cunard's Liverpool-Quebec-Montreal service.
The ship was renamed Fairwind in 1968, then Sitmar Fairwind in 1988. But from later that year the ship served as Dawn Princess until it became Albatros in 1993 when it was also chartered by Phoenix Seereisen.
This charter came to an end in November, 2003, when the ship suffered serious machinery problems that would have been too costly to repair. It was then sold to Indian shipbreakers and under the name Genoa arrived at Alang on January 1, 2004, for beaching and demolition.
