Golden Odyssey (ship, 1974)
.jpg) The Golden Odyssey in Key West, January 1980
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The Golden Odyssey is a former cruise ship of the Greek Royal Cruise Line that entered service in 1974. In its more than forty years of service, the ship was resold and renamed several times. Since 2013 it has been operating as a casino ship in Hong Kong under the name Rex Fortune .
history
Royal Cruise Line
The Golden Odyssey was built under hull number 404 on Helsingør Skibsværft in Helsingør and launched on February 7, 1974. On September 5, 1974, the ship was put into service.
The Royal Cruise Line entered the cruise business with the Golden Odyssey . The shipping company received a high reputation for using this ship and won several awards. The total capacity was 509 passengers, but no more than 468 passengers were booked on board. After delivery, the ship went to South America after a few Mediterranean cruises . There, east coast cruises between Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires with stopovers were carried out. In the following years the Golden Odyssey was used in the Mediterranean region in summer and in the tropics in winter . The US business was very lucrative for the shipping company and many contracts were signed with the American travel industry. Ideally, the number of passengers that a Boeing 747 could transport at the time corresponded to the number of possible cruise passengers on board. From the 1984/1985 season, the Golden Odyssey cruised between Singapore and Hong Kong as well as Indonesia and the Philippines . In the summer of 1986 and 1987 the ship sailed from Vancouver to Alaska . In 1987 the ship underwent a general refurbishment at the Sembawang shipyard in Singapore.
Monastery cruise line
On November 17, 1989, the Royal Cruise Line was taken over by the Kloster Cruise Line, Nassau , Bahamas . The name Golden Odyssey is retained, only the registration of the home port is changed to the Bahamas. For the 1992 Olympics , the Golden Odyssey was used as a hotel ship . During a cruise in October 1993 between New York and Canada , problems with the drive shaft occurred, which forced the ship to lay berth with subsequent repairs.
Astra II shipping
On November 30, 1994, the ship was bought by Astra II shipping, Deutsche Seetouristik, Nassau, for US $ 18 million and renamed Astra II . After being modernized at a shipyard in Ukraine , it was chartered by Caravelle Shipping Comp., Moscow . These in turn chartered the ship to Neckermann , who carried out the first cruise on May 5, 1995.
On November 21, 1997, the ship was decommissioned , as advised cruises with "Caravelle Charter" were canceled. From January 26th to the beginning of April 1998 the Astra II was modernized in a shipyard in Rijeka , Croatia . On April 4, 1998, Hapag-Lloyd chartered the ship for three years.
Liberty Investment Worldwide
In November 2000 it was bought by Astra II Shipping Ltd. sold to Liberty Investment Worldwide Management Ltd., Bahamas, and renamed Omar II . In June 2003 the ship was renamed from Omar II to Omar 2 . In January 2004 it was renamed again to Omar II .
Use as a casino ship
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On February 16, 2004, the Omar II was sold to Capture Success, Nassau, Bahamas, and renamed Macau Success . From then on it was used for casino and cruises around Hong Kong. In April 2012, the ship was put up for sale for US $ 11 million. In June 2012 it was taken over by the shipping company Island Shipmanegement Hong Kong, which from then on used it again as a casino and cruise ship on the same route.
In 2013 the Macau Success changed hands again and was renamed Rex Fortune . However, the renaming and change of ownership did not change anything in the area of operation of the ship.
The Rex Fortune has a split on two areas, 580-square-foot casino with 28 slot machines and a total of 26 gaming tables. The interior of the ship also includes a night club, two restaurants and a souvenir shop.
Incidents
On March 27, 1977, most of the booked passengers were tragically killed in the worst plane crash in Tenerife's history . A KLM Boeing 747 collided with a Pan Am Boeing 747 in the thick fog . The planned cruise was carried out anyway, the flags on board waved at half-mast.
On September 24, 2010, a 49-year-old Chinese pushed his 43-year-old wife overboard in an argument, who could only be recovered dead a little later.
literature
- Brook Hill Snow: Royal Cruise Lines Golden Odyssey . In: Cruise Travel . Volume 2, No. 6 . Lakeside Publishing Company, Evanston June 1981, pp. 34 to 40 .
Web links
- Official website of the ship of the ship ( Memento of March 31, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- Deck plan of the ship ( Memento from March 31, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- the ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
- REX FORTUNE auction details
Individual evidence
- ^ REX Fortune Master Data and Floor Plan. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 10, 2016 ; accessed on May 16, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Jim Walker: Sea Burial or Cruise Murder? November 6, 2011, accessed May 16, 2016 .
