page_title: MS Formosa Queen
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: MS Formosa Queen / History
caption_attribution_description: Sundream (ex Song of Norway) at Tallinn Harbour 2001
context_page_description: MS Song of Norway was one of the first ships purpose-built as a cruise ship. She was the first ship of Royal Caribbean International when she entered operation in 1970. She was sold for scrap in 2013 and broken up in 2014, after serving her last years as a gambling ship.
context_section_description: The vessel was constructed in Helsinki, Finland in 1970. Named Song of Norway, she was the first ship built for cruise line Royal Caribbean International. The vessel was lengthened in 1978, due to the high demand for cruising, and sailed on seven- and fourteen-day cruises out of Miami. As Song of Norway she was the first vessel to service the Royal Caribbean proprietary resort of Labadee, Haiti.
  In 1996, surpassed by the significantly larger ships in the Royal Caribbean International fleet, the ship was sold to
  Sun Cruises part of the Airtours/MyTravel (which has now merged with Thomas Cook AG), who operated the vessel under the name Sundream. Before the ship entered service for her new owners, the sky lounge around her funnel was removed.
  In October 2004 she was sold, refitted and became MS Dream Princess for Caspi Cruises (Israel) and operated the 2005 season from Haifa.
  In November 2007 the ship was sold to Pearl Owner Ltd., a company in the Bahamas-based Clipper Group of Denmark, which put the management of the ship in the hands the Miami, Florida based company International Shipping Partners, Inc. (ISP). After refitting in Turkey and Malta, the ship was chartered to the Peace Boat organization and renamed the Clipper Pacific. The ship was in service touring the world, from Japan to Japan, as part of Peace Boat's mission. After numerous repeated problems with the ship, however, the world tour was broken off in Piraeus, Greece. Afterwards, the ship was sold to ISP and renamed to Festival. She came into service again as a cruise ship, first in 2009 for Caspi Cruises and as of 2010 for Quail Travel's Happy Cruises. Quail Travel has renewed the charter for the 2011 season. The charter ended when Happy Cruises ceased operations.
  In 2009 she was used on Mediterranean voyages, under the name Festival, as a stand in by the Israeli company Caspi Cruises, whose own advertised voyages on smaller vessels had booked to overcapacity. For the 2010 and 2011 seasons, under the name M/V Ocean Pearl, the ship has been chartered by Quail Travel's Happy Cruises. The Ocean Pearl was  on a cruise but had to terminate it in Málaga, Spain due to Happy Cruises ceasing operations on September 24, 2011.
caption: Sundream in Tallinn Harbour, 2001.
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "38", "Image Orientation": "0"}