The luxurious Viking Venus has finally been officially named after several delays and setbacks endured by the entire cruising industry due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
In a rather emotional ceremony on May 17, Godmother; British journalist and broadcaster, Anne Diamond offered a blessing of good fortune and safe sailing for the ship before cutting the ceremonial ribbon with a historic Viking broad ax, causing the bottle of Norwegian aquavit to break against the ship’s hull. This is a long running sea-going tradition, dating back thousands of years in some form or other.
Viking’s chairman, Torstein Hagen then announced, “Today is one of the proudest days in Viking’s nearly 24-year history. When we became the first cruise line to suspend operations in March 2020, we certainly did not know it would be 14 months before guests would be welcomed back onboard.”
And welcomed back, they are.
In just a few days, on May 22, 2021, guests will be setting sail on the brand new Viking Venus, leaving from Portsmouth in the UK. Her maiden voyage will be a celebration at sea in the English Channel as the ship sets roundtrip sails for the England’s Scenic Shores. Diamond will join the inaugural cruise, serving as a guest lecturer.
The Viking Venus will soon set sail to Malta, her more permanent homeport, to sail the Mediterranean in summer and fall 2021.
Viking has a smaller, boutique ocean going fleet, with ships at max capacity hosting 930 guests. The Viking Venus is the newest vessel to join her fleet of identical Ocean cruising sister ships, the Viking Star, Viking Sea, Viking Sky, Viking Orion and Viking Jupiter.
The almost completed Viking Neptune and Viking Mars are set to debut in 2022 with another 7 more, yet to be named ships on order from Viking at the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy!
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