When Norwegian shipowners forged a new path into the uncertain waters of full time cruise ships in the late '60s and early '70s....inadvertently spawning an entire new multi million dollar industry, two trios of companies backed new cruise lines to trawl for the yankee dollar. One group, Wilhelmsen, Skaugen and Gotaas Larsen backed what became Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, while Bergen Line - an important Norwegian company operating both freighters and several of the Hurtigrute (mail) boats, Nordenfjelske - also a Hurtigrute operator, and freighter operator Klaveness backed Royal Viking Line. As with the RCCL trio, each company was the official owner of a new cruise ship purpose built for the new line.

The big difference between these two outfits was that from the moment Royal Viking was founded, its San Francisco based operation, under the tutelage of passenger line veteran executive Warren Titus (whom we will meet decades later at Seabourn), claimed to have developed a world class product. In fact, I think we can trace that expression "world class" back to Royal Viking's earliest days....it had never been used before RVL's public relations man came up with it. They had to develop some way to distinguish what is was that an intending RVL passenger would get in these ships, because a) Norway, for quite a few centuries a poor country, had developed no traditions of haute cuisine, nor high standards of a hotel service in the traditions of Paris or Vienna...and b) Royal Viking was looking for newly monied people or people with old money new to vacationing at sea, and RVL wanted people who were in the dark about what first class ocean travel really meant. Because contemporary Norwegian mores did not permit men to clean toilets, Royal Viking announced they would staff cabin blocks with stewardesses only, thereby expunging cabin stewards and cabin boys from the crew list....and saving a few kroner on monthly payrolls. People who knew first class ocean travel did not buy Royal Viking's advertising or concept, and balked at RVL's excruciatingly high prices, considering the per diems asked.... it was too much to bear for 160 square feet of long and narrow cabin with beds in an "L" shape. Others were horrified by the screaming tones of yellow, orange and lime green buffeting the decor of those rooms.

But RVL appealed to a lot of people the world over...people who willingly plunked down thousands and in many cases, tens of thousands of dollars, in a Royal Viking ship. Intending to win the continued business of their group of repeaters, a core group the company hoped would include everyone who ever sailed, RVL specifically attempted to minimize the personality of any single ship, going so far as to name them all Royal Viking "S". The idea was, they didn't want you to say, "Oh, what a great time I had on the -----------". They wanted you to say, "What a great time I had on the Royal Viking". Yet, human nature being what it is, each of the three white sisters developed her own personality....the result of great crew stability....people worked the same ship for several years at a time, and repeat passengers would come to have friends on any one or two, if not all three sisters. As these ships were building in Helsinki's Wartsila yard....to hulls virtually identical with those of RCCL's "Song of Norway" trio, if there was a premium cruise line in the world, and there was, it was Swedish American Line, whose KUNGSHOLM and GRIPSHOLM were extraordinary vessels, both beautiful internally and externally. Anyone trying to top them would have a hard road to hoe....and given the rivalry between Sweden and Norway, an interesting competition was about to develop. Add to this mix Norwegian America Line, a company so conservative and tradition bound that an ordinary crew member risked termination of employment should he or she address either a passenger or officer without having been addressed first....NAL's famous "fjord" ships had been crossing the Atlantic since 1913, and cruising since the '20s.

In the post World War II years, as passenger aircraft took more business away from the liners, NAL's ships spent more and more time cruising, and each succeeding "fjord" liner was built with an eye to spend much time off the liner lanes cruising her way through warm waters. But by its very nature, conservative Norwegian America Line could not and did not stray far from their two class ship concept....and because egalitarian Norway had not yet reaped the benefits of all of that North Sea oil...NAL's OSLOFJORD, BERGENSFJORD and SAGAFJORD were primarily tourist liners, and though built as RVL's ships were entering service, NAL's last ship, VISTAFJORD was so much a development of the SAGAFJORD that she too must be considered a tourist ship...certainly the large number of tiny cabins in her give that away. Somehow, and maybe it was through the attrition of the older established lines who just walked away from the passenger end of the business, and because NAL did operate some very long cruises like an annual world cruise, they began to be recognized as the top cruise line in the world....at least by people new to the sea.

Swedish American Lines' departure from the scene in 1976, the result of recalcitrant Swedish unions' refusal to permit the company to reflag the ship at Bermuda and lower operating costs to try to wipe out tens of millions of dollars of losses the Swedish crews cost, was a godsend for both Norwegian America and Royal Viking Lines. For in a stroke was gone the genuine article...and in its place was a perfect seventies plastic replacement. Lest you think us too harsh, remember, we were there!

At Royal Viking, the departure from the scene of competitor Swedish America Line was met with unrelieved glee. But their joy didn't necessarily mean more money for RVL, whose ships, with a capacity limited to 550 passengers and high crew costs, could not make a profit. In 1981, the ROYAL VIKING STAR cut short her summer cruise season by a couple of weeks, when she arrived in Bremerhaven. Over the next three months, she remained at Lloyd Werft, whose talented work force split her in two...and inserted a 95 foot section between the two halves, and then put her back together. Increasing her tonnage from an original 21,847 to 28,221, the ROYAL VIKING STAR could now carry 758 passengers. Her two sisters followed, the ROYAL VIKING SKY a year later, and the ROYAL VIKING SEA in March, 1983. It's not said that they were better before or after, as that was strictly a matter of personal taste. One of us preferred them before, the other preferred them stretched. It remained to be seen, though, if there was indeed a market to fill these three ships, as well as the SAGAFJORD....along with a couple of tiny newcomers named SEA GODDESS I and II.

By then, the Reagan years were in full swing, and spending was ostentatious and greed was good...so for a while, at least, these ships were all filling up at brochure prices. As time passes, the new becomes old and either you build new ships or others will, and in the case of Royal Viking, both things happened. When the ROYAL VIKING SUN arrived in Miami in December, 1988, no one knew that the three white sisters were coming to the end of their Royal Viking road. First to go was the ROYAL VIKING STAR, the eldest of the trio, and she was transferred to sister company Norwegian Caribbean Lines in the winter of 1991. She was renamed WESTWARD, and with her cabins able to accommodate a total of 829 passengers in her 401 cabins, she began a series of cruises from New York to Bermuda in the summer and Los Angeles to Mexico in the winter. Even at reduced rates, there really wasn't a market for her any longer, and in the spring of 1994, she was again transferred within the Kloster family, this time to Royal Cruise Line....Kloster had wanted to make Royal a top notch premium line, and needed this ship to help him do it. Combining the independent element of her original Royal Viking name with Royal Cruise Lines' familiar "odyssey" name made this ship the STAR ODYSSEY. Over the next two years, she cruised some of the most exotic seaways of the world, ranging as far afield as Kenya, the Seychelles, Sweden and Canada...and when Kloster pulled the plug on Royal Cruise Line in January, 1996, it remained to the STAR ODYSSEY to finish out Royal's life and operate as much of the summer season as possible.