Classic International Cruises is a British-Australian owned shipping company operating five luxury cruise ships, most notably their flagship, the rebuilt ocean liner

Ocean liner

An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...

 MS Athena

MS Athena

MS Athena is a cruise ship owned and operated by Classic International Cruises. She was built in 1948 as the MS Stockholm by Götaverken in Gothenburg for the Swedish America Line...

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History

Classic International Cruises was seemingly founded in 1985, with the purchase of the MV Funchal

MV Funchal

MV Funchal is a Portuguese-registered passenger and cruise liner.Funchal has been successfully serving the British cruise market over the past 20 years carrying thousands of passengers and was the first vessel to join the Classic International Cruises fleet in 1984...

 as the Arcalia Shipping Company Ltd, which eventually became Classic International. They operated the one ship until 1994, when they bought the Princess Danae. The Princess Danae entered service with an all white hull and a sailing ship logo on her funnel. Funchal was given a yellow and blue striped funnel and a white hull, but by 2000 her livery was changed to what now all Classic International ships have. Since 2000 they have purchased 3 ships, Arion, Athena and Princess Daphne, the near-identical sister of Princess Danae. With their main headquarters in Neutral Bay, Australia, the company also has several branches based in Paris, France

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Piraeus, Greece

Piraeus

Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....

, Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Sollentuna, Sweden, and London, England

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

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Ships

Ship	Built	In service	Tonnage	Status as of 2010
	1961	1985-Present		Formerly a Portuguese Portugal Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...  passenger liner and presidential yacht.
	1955	1994-Present		Rebuilt 1972, identical to Princess Daphne.
	1965	1999-Present		Originally Yugoslavian Yugoslavia Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....  passenger ship MS Istra.
Athena MS Athena MS Athena is a cruise ship owned and operated by Classic International Cruises. She was built in 1948 as the MS Stockholm by Götaverken in Gothenburg for the Swedish America Line...	1948	2005-Present		Originally Swedish Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....  ocean liner, rebuilt 1994.
Ocean Monarch Princess Daphne	1955	2008-Present		Rebuilt 1972, renamed Princess Daphne 2009.