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All text and photographs (unless stated otherwise) ©  Paul Timmerman; photographs on this page made during ship visit in 1981 when she sailed as The Victoria for Chandris Cruises .

One of the oldest cruise ships afloat (67 years of age……), Princesa Victoria has a long and interesting career.  

Built in 1936 as Dunnotar Castle by Harland and Wolff shipyards at Belfast for the famous Union Castle Line, she started life on the round Africa service, completely encircling Africa before returning to London. This lasted for only 3 years until 1939, when she commenced war service.

                                        Theatre, Emerald deck

                                                     El Patio Lounge, Rendez-vous deck

She survived the war intact after having sailed over 250.000 miles and was handed over to Union Castle again.

 Refitted to return to her regular service to Africa she resumed her commercial service in 1949.

A remarkable fact was that her passenger capacity had decreased to 105 passengers in first, and 263 in second class, not much for a ship her size (15.000 tons). She also had considerable cargo space.

                           Casino, Rendez-vous deck                                                    Galleon Bar, Rendes-vous deck

As on all trades world wide, the round Africa service was also overtaken by the jet aircraft, resulting in (too) many empty cabins on the Dunnotar Castle. She was taken out of service in 1958 and offered for sale.

The Incres Line of New York was interested. They wanted to use her for fairly long cruises (two weeks and more to the Caribbean and Europe). The other ship Incres owned was the Nassau, which ran very successful 7-day cruises from New York to Nassau (Bahamas).

                          Roman restaurant, Coral deck

Continued on next page......

                                                   Go to Princesa Victoria page 2

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