Carnivale

The ship that Carnival Cruise Line operated as Carnivale was built at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company yard at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland, constructed as yard number 731 for Canadian Pacific Steamships. Launched on 22 June 1955 and christened by the young Queen Elizabeth II, she was named Empress of Britain, the third Canadian Pacific vessel to carry that title. She entered service on 20 April 1956, departing Liverpool on her maiden crossing to Montreal. As a purpose-built ocean liner of the transatlantic era, she was designed to carry passengers in two classes, roughly 160 in first class and close to 900 in tourist class, across the North Atlantic between Britain and Canada, threading the St. Lawrence Seaway during the navigable months.

For the better part of a decade the Empress of Britain worked the Liverpool and Greenock to Montreal run, completing well over one hundred crossings under the Canadian Pacific house flag. By the early 1960s, however, the growth of jet air travel was eroding the passenger liner trade, and Canadian Pacific began shedding tonnage. In November 1964 the ship was sold to the Greek Line and renamed Queen Anna Maria in honour of the Greek queen. Under Greek ownership she was refitted for warm-weather cruising and mixed liner service, sailing Mediterranean and Atlantic routes and carrying an enlarged passenger complement as the emphasis shifted away from scheduled crossings and toward leisure voyages.

The Greek Line ran into financial trouble in the early 1970s, and the laid-up Queen Anna Maria was acquired by the fledgling Carnival Cruise Line, then building its fleet under founder Ted Arison. Carnival purchased her around 1975 and put her through a substantial refit to convert the former liner into a full-time Caribbean cruise ship. Renamed Carnivale, she joined the line as its second vessel, following the pioneering Mardi Gras, the ex-Empress of Canada that had launched the company in 1972. Carnivale entered Carnival service in the mid-1970s, giving the young operator a two-ship fleet with which to expand its budget-friendly, party-oriented Fun Ship concept.

In her Carnival configuration the ship measured in the neighborhood of 31,500 gross tons following her conversion, with an overall length of roughly 195 meters, or about 640 feet, and a beam of some 26 meters. She retained the twin-screw geared steam turbine machinery installed for her original transatlantic duties, which drove her at a service speed of around 20 knots, a robust and reliable plant well suited to her liner heritage even as it grew costly to operate in later years. Her sturdy, deep-hulled construction, built to withstand North Atlantic weather, made her a solid and seaworthy platform for cruising once her interiors had been reworked.

As a product of Carnival's early years, Carnivale offered the accessible, high-energy shipboard experience that would come to define the brand. Her public rooms included dining saloons, several bars and lounges, a nightclub and showroom for cabaret entertainment, a casino, swimming pools and open lido decks for sun-seeking passengers. The onboard atmosphere emphasized affordable fun, informal dress, discos and around-the-clock activity rather than the formal traditions of her ocean-liner past. Sailing predominantly from Florida, she carried thousands of vacationers on short and week-long circuits through the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s Carnivale served as a dependable workhorse of Carnival's rapid ascent, running high-volume Caribbean itineraries while the line poured its earnings into a growing fleet of purpose-built newbuildings. As larger, more modern and more fuel-efficient ships joined the company, the aging steam-turbine veteran gradually became a second-tier asset. Around 1993 Carnival withdrew her from its main fleet, and she was transferred to a short-lived Carnival-backed venture aimed at the Hispanic market, sailing as FiestaMarina, a project that lasted only briefly before it was abandoned.

Her subsequent career carried her through several more owners and identities. In 1994 she passed to Greek interests and became Olympic, and from 1997 she sailed as Topaz, spending years with the British operator Thomson and later serving the Japan-based Peace Boat organization on global voyages of education and activism. By this stage she was among the last operating steam-turbine passenger liners of her generation, valued for her spacious traditional layout even as her running costs and age told against her.

The Peace Boat retired the ship in April 2008, bringing her long working life to a close after more than half a century afloat. Later that year she made her final voyage under her own power to the shipbreaking beaches of Alang, India, where she was run ashore and dismantled. Her scrapping ended a remarkable fifty-two-year journey that had begun with a royal launch on the Clyde and carried her from the fading age of the North Atlantic liner through the birth and explosive growth of the modern Caribbean cruise industry.