| IMO | 9851189 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 111,500 GT |
| Builder | Meyer Turku |
| Hull number | 1404 |
| Launched | 2023 |
| Operator | TUI Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Mein Schiff 7 is the seventh Turku-built ship for TUI Cruises and, on her delivery in June 2024, the closing ship of the line's original Mein Schiff series — the run of Meyer Turku vessels that began with Mein Schiff 3 in 2014. She is a sister to the enlarged-design Mein Schiff 1 and Mein Schiff 2 of 2018–19, completed after a five-year gap in the programme, and she carries one genuine first: she is the first ship in the fleet built ready to run on methanol, and the first methanol-capable vessel built at Meyer Turku. In a fleet history otherwise marked by steady evolution, that fuel readiness is her claim on the record — a bridge between the diesel generation she completes and the LNG generation that followed her. As with her sister's row, the dataset for this hull is minimal, and published figures are flagged as such throughout.
Key specifications
The dataset records only the name, operator, status and a launch year of 2024 — no IMO, tonnage, dimensions or builder. Published sources are consistent in outline and differ in one figure worth flagging. Meyer Turku's delivery release gives: length 316 m, hull width 35.8 m, gross tonnage 111,500, passengers 2,894, crew 1,447, flag Malta. TUI fleet listings elsewhere give her tonnage as 112,982 GT. Her registered particulars, via her Wikimedia Commons category drawing on registry data, give IMO 9851189, yard number 1404 at Meyer Turku's Perno shipyard, a length of 315.7 m and a beam of 42.3 m (the extreme figure, against the builder's 35.8 m hull width). The discrepancy between 111,500 and 112,982 GT is a real one in the sources and is reported, not resolved, here.
Design and construction
The ship's contract dates to 2018 and her keel was laid in December 2019, but her physical construction belongs to the 2020s: steel-cutting — the "symbolic start of production," in Meyer Turku's words — took place on 14 June 2022, she was launched on 1 December 2023, and she was completed and delivered on 10 June 2024, less than two years after steel-cutting. The dataset's "launched 2024" is therefore her delivery year. The design repeats the enlarged Blu Motion template of Mein Schiff 1 and 2 — sixteen decks, the stern Diamond, the covered arena concept — with changes driven by guest feedback, including additional cabin categories and a revised restaurant arrangement. Her engineering is the news: she runs exclusively on low-emission marine diesel (maximum 0.1% sulphur), carries shore-power connection and catalytic converters, and is built to run on methanol, which — in the builder's formulation — with the green methanol of the future will make her propulsion almost CO₂-neutral.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
Unlike her christening-by-celebrities sister of 2018, Mein Schiff 7 was named by one of the fleet's own: her godmother was Fenia Kalachani, the ship's environmental officer. The christening took place on 21 June 2024 during Kiel Week, in the Kiel Fjord, at the climax of a two-day celebration cruise through the Danish South Sea, with a light show and fireworks. The first guests had boarded earlier, on 12 June 2024 at Kiel, two days after delivery — a delivery-to-service interval that shows how completely the design was proven by its two earlier sisters. The name itself is pure sequence: seventh of the numbered Mein Schiff newbuild-generation ships, in a fleet whose numbering deliberately counts the Turku series.
Career by operator
| Name | Operator | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Mein Schiff 7 | TUI Cruises | 2024–present |
Her career is a single-operator story. She entered service five years after the previous Turku delivery, in a fleet that was about to change generations: the Fincantieri-built, LNG-fuelled Mein Schiff Relax followed in 2025 as the first inTUItion-class ship. Mein Schiff 7 thus sits at a hinge in the fleet's history — ordered in the diesel era, delivered into the transition, and equipped (through methanol readiness) to participate in whatever fuel regime comes next. This directory does not track her itineraries; structurally, she works within the same German premium fleet deployment as her sisters.
Onboard character
The ship's character is the mature version of the Mein Schiff idea: a premium, German-language, wellness-led vessel for about 2,894 guests, with twelve restaurants and bistros reported at delivery across sixteen decks, new cabin categories added over her sisters' offering, and the fleet's established design signatures — generous outdoor deck space, the glass stern Diamond, spa and sport facilities sized as headline features rather than afterthoughts. Delivery coverage emphasised that the new elements came from guest feedback on the earlier ships rather than from a new concept: this is a refinement ship, the third iteration of a design its operator had been running since 2018. In the context of 2024, when the industry's headlines belonged to 250,000 GT resort ships and LNG newbuilds, a carefully evolved 111,500 GT diesel ship with methanol readiness was a deliberately conservative statement — continuity for a loyal market, with the fuel flexibility to age well.
Major refits and incidents
The ship entered service in June 2024 and has, unsurprisingly, no refit history and no recorded major incident in the sources consulted for this guide. There is no lengthening, conversion or casualty to report; her drydock record to date is nil beyond delivery preparation. Her first year of service was marked by the line with a commemorative anniversary voyage in June 2025, an operational milestone rather than a physical event. This section is intentionally short: for a ship this young, an empty refit-and-incident record is the accurate record, and this directory does not pad it.
Sister ships and class
Mein Schiff 7 is a sister to Mein Schiff 1 (2018) and Mein Schiff 2 (2019), the enlarged Blu Motion ships, sharing their length, layout philosophy and general arrangement, with methanol readiness as her distinguishing engineering feature. Behind the trio stand the four original Blu Motion ships from Meyer Turku — Mein Schiff 3, 4, 5 and 6 (2014–2017) — making seven Turku-built ships in an unbroken design lineage across a decade, exactly as Meyer Turku noted at her delivery: ten years after the first Blu Motion ship, the seventh closed the series. The inTUItion class that followed, built in Italy rather than Finland and fuelled by LNG, is a different design from a different yard; Mein Schiff 7 is the last of the Turku line.
Fate and where she is now
The dataset records Mein Schiff 7 as active for TUI Cruises, and the builder's and line's published material agree: she is in service, under her original name, with her original operator, at the start of what should be a long career. No sale, renaming or alteration programme has been announced. Her place in the record is already defined by two facts that will not change: she was the first methanol-ready ship from Meyer Turku, and she closed the ten-year, seven-ship Turku series on which the modern TUI Cruises fleet was built. The dataset's sparseness for this hull — no IMO, tonnage or builder — is noted in this guide's reporting as a reconciliation item for the directory, not a reflection of the ship's documentation, which is full and public.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TUI_Cruises, https://www.meyerturku.fi/en/news-publications/news/meyer-turku-shipyard-delivered-cruise-ship-mein-schiff-7/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mein_Schiff_7_(ship,_2024)