Mardi Gras

The original Mardi Gras began her working life not as a cruise ship but as an ocean liner named Empress of Canada, the third Canadian Pacific vessel to carry that name. She was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at their Walker yard on the Tyne near Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Her keel was laid in January 1959, she was launched on 10 May 1960, and she was completed and entered service in March 1961. Constructed for the traditional North Atlantic passenger trade, she was conceived as a dual-purpose liner able to carry travelers and immigrants across the ocean during the busy months and to undertake warm-weather cruises in the off season, a flexibility that would prove prophetic for her second career.

As built she measured about 27,284 gross registered tons and stretched roughly 650 feet, or approximately 198 meters, in length. Her propulsion came from two Pametrada double reduction geared steam turbines, one driving each of her two propellers, giving her a service speed of around 20 knots. This steam turbine machinery, typical of ocean liners of her generation, made her fast and powerful but also thirsty for fuel, a characteristic that would later weigh on her economics as cruising evolved and oil prices climbed. For Canadian Pacific she ran the classic route linking Liverpool with the Canadian ports of Montreal and Saint John, and over roughly a decade of service she completed something on the order of 121 transatlantic crossings along with dozens of cruises.

By the early 1970s the transatlantic liner trade was collapsing under the pressure of jet air travel, and Canadian Pacific withdrew the Empress of Canada from service. In January 1972 she was purchased by a fledgling company called Carnival Cruise Lines, founded by Ted Arison with financial backing from the travel firm American International Travel Service. The ship was the very first vessel in the Carnival fleet, the physical foundation on which the entire company was launched, and she was renamed Mardi Gras on 14 February 1972. With her acquisition, Carnival set out to reinvent ocean travel as an accessible, informal, party-minded vacation rather than the formal and expensive experience associated with the old liners.

Her Carnival debut, however, became one of the most famous mishaps in cruise industry history. On 11 March 1972, on her maiden voyage under the new flag and carrying hundreds of travel agents, journalists, and company executives whose goodwill the young firm badly needed, she ran aground on a sandbar as she made her way out of the Miami area. The stranded vessel, stuck fast with the very people meant to spread word of Carnival's promise aboard, earned the enduring nickname "Mardi Gras on the Rocks." Rather than sinking the company, the embarrassing incident became part of Carnival lore, and the venture survived its rocky start to grow into the largest cruise operator in the world.

Through the remainder of the 1970s and into the 1980s the Mardi Gras served as the cornerstone of what Carnival would famously brand its Fun Ships. She pioneered the concept of affordable, casual, mass-market Caribbean cruising aimed at first-time and budget-conscious vacationers, emphasizing onboard entertainment, casinos, bars, lounges, dining, and a relaxed atmosphere over the stiff formality of traditional liners. Sailing short and accessible itineraries out of Florida, she helped establish the template that made cruising a middle-class holiday rather than a luxury reserved for the wealthy, and her success encouraged Carnival to add further secondhand liners and eventually to build its own purpose-designed ships.

As newer and more efficient tonnage joined the fleet, the aging steam-powered Mardi Gras gradually became surplus to Carnival's needs, and the company divested itself of her in 1993. Her subsequent career saw her pass through a series of owners and names as she moved into the fringes of the cruise and gaming markets. She sailed as the Olympic, then as the Star of Texas operating gambling cruises, briefly under other names, and finally as the Apollon in Greek-linked service. In these later guises she continued to carry passengers on short voyages, but her advancing age, dated machinery, and rising operating costs left her increasingly uncompetitive against modern vessels.

By the early 2000s the veteran ship had reached the end of her usefulness, more than four decades after her launch on the Tyne. She was sold for scrapping in 2003 and arrived at the shipbreaking beaches of Alang, India, on 4 December 2003, where she was dismantled. So ended the long life of a vessel that had begun as a proud Canadian Pacific ocean liner, become the founding ship of Carnival Cruise Lines, and helped transform cruising into a popular form of mass tourism, a legacy later honored when Carnival revived the Mardi Gras name for an entirely separate and far larger ship in 2021.