Recent History
Swan Hellenic was acquired from the Swan family by P&O in 1983. More recently, it became a subsidiary of the world's largest cruise operator, the British-American Carnival Corporation & plc. Under Carnival, the characteristically small 300-passenger ship Minerva, was replaced in 2003 by the 600-passenger Minerva II. This led to criticism that the intimacy of the original cruise concept had been compromised. In April 2007, Carnival ended its operation of Swan Hellenic, and transferred Minerva II to the Princess fleet, with the new name Royal Princess. This was reported at the time as the end of Swan Hellenic. Its demise was apparently compounded when Martin Randall Travel launched a series of cruises to fill the niche Swan Hellenic had left.
However, on 15 March 2007, Lord Sterling, the former chairman of P&O, announced that he was buying the Swan Hellenic brand and intended to relaunch the cruise line as soon as a suitable vessel could be located. Swan Hellenic was subsequently acquired by the All Leisure Holidays Group Plc, who also own Voyages of Discovery who ran the ship Explorer II (previously Minerva_(ship)).
The company website states that Swan Hellenic cruises started up again in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Swan Hellenic
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