Three Cruise Ships Bought In The Pandemic Remain Idle In Greece
A Greek ferry operator still has three former cruise ships lying idle at anchorages and quays around the country, the remainder of eight vessels it acquired between 2020 and 2023 when secondhand values collapsed. None of the three has entered service under its new ownership, and each has now spent years without carrying a passenger.
The largest is a 73,941-ton vessel built in 1991, purchased from a major American cruise line in early 2021 and since renamed. It has spent most of the period since anchored in a bay near Athens. The ship is the last surviving member of its class, both sisters having been beached for scrapping in 2020, and was built at a French yard with capacity for 2,354 passengers. Its survival owes more to purchase timing than to any specific plan for its future.
A second vessel, built in 1999 at an Italian yard and last in service with a British operator, is laid up at a port in western Greece. Originally introduced by an American line before transferring within the same group, the 2,000-guest ship was acquired in July 2020 during the deepest part of the market dislocation. The third, a 1,350-passenger ship dating from 1996 and also Italian-built, left a long-established transatlantic operator's fleet the same month and now lies at a port on the Gulf of Corinth.
The buying programme was opportunistic. With cruise operations suspended worldwide and owners facing crushing lay-up costs on ships they could not deploy, tonnage that would ordinarily have commanded substantial prices became available at close to scrap value. The Greek buyer took eight ships on that basis, and has since traded several of them profitably: one was sold in late 2025 to a Chinese operator, two went to Asian scrapyards, and two more were sold to European cruise companies.
What remains is the harder residue of that strategy. Ships approaching or beyond three decades of age face expensive requirements on emissions, safety systems and general refurbishment before they could be certified and marketed for passenger service, while the pool of buyers for older mid-sized cruise tonnage has narrowed considerably as environmental rules tighten. Lay-up itself is not free, requiring insurance, minimal crewing, class maintenance and berth or anchorage fees, so the arithmetic on each hull steadily shifts towards demolition unless a buyer emerges.
