| IMO | 6602898 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 10,417 GT |
| Length | 135.3 m |
| Beam | 19.2 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 621 |
| Service speed | 18 knots |
| Builder | Unión Naval de Levante |
| Hull number | 93 |
| Launched | 1965 |
| Maiden voyage | 1966 |
| Operator | Majestic International Cruises |
| Status | Active |
| All names | Ocean Majesty; Homeric; Olympic; Kypros Star; Sol Christina; Juan March |
Overview
Ocean Majesty is one of the great survivors of the cruise industry: a Spanish car ferry of 1966, rebuilt in Greece in the early 1990s into a small cruise ship, and still listed as in service in the dataset nearly sixty years after her launch. She began as Juan March, a side-loading ferry of the Albatros class built at Valencia for Trasmediterránea's services between mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands, and spent her first nineteen years as a ferry before a cascade of sales, renamings and charters carried her around the Mediterranean.
Her second life is the remarkable one. Bought by Piraeus-based Majestic International Cruises, she was rebuilt at Perama — over a period variously described as lengthy to four years — from a ferry with a car deck and Pullman-berth accommodation into a one-class cruise ship, emerging under her present name. Small, traditionally styled ships of her age have almost all gone to the breakers; her survival through charter work is the story.
Key specifications
The dataset records IMO 6602898, 10,417 in tonnage, 135.3 m in length, 19.2 m in beam, a maximum capacity of 621, Unión Naval de Levante hull 93, launch and maiden voyage in 1966, and a service speed of 20 knots. As a 1966 ferry her tonnage figure is a gross register tonnage, and it is labelled GRT in the spec box accordingly: Wikipedia gives 10,417 GRT, matching the dataset exactly — the figure dates from her cruise-ship rebuild, her as-built ferry tonnage being lower, at about 9,977 tons in one detailed source.
Three dataset figures conflict with Wikipedia's infobox and are logged in the batch notes. Wikipedia gives a beam of 15.8 m; the detailed Dutch fleet history found in search gives 19.23 m, agreeing with the dataset — the dataset figure is retained, as it matches the more detailed source. Wikipedia gives a speed of 18 knots against the dataset's 20. And Wikipedia dates her launch to 4 December 1965, with delivery on 27 July 1966 — so the dataset's 1966 launch year is her delivery and service year, not her launch. Wikipedia also gives a normal capacity of 535 against the 621 maximum both sources share, and a crew of 257, which the dataset leaves blank.
Her ferry origins show in the original accommodation figures the Dutch source preserves: 124 first-class passengers, 376 in tourist class, 250 in Pullman berths and 325 deck passengers, plus about 100 cars — a cross-section of 1960s Mediterranean ferry travel in a single ship.
Design and construction
Juan March was built by Unión Naval de Levante at Valencia, yard number 93, as the first of two near-identical Albatros-class sisters — the other being Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; one Irish source describes the class as a quartet, counting related hulls. She was a side-loading car ferry, with the raked, traditional profile of her period and a cruiser stern that, unusually, survived her conversion.
The conversion is the design event of her life. At Perama, Majestic International rebuilt her from ferry form into a cruise ship: the car-ferry arrangement and forward cargo hold went, the superstructure was remodelled, twin funnel uptakes were removed, accommodation was rebuilt to a one-class standard for about 613 passengers (621 maximum), and tonnage rose to 10,417 GRT. She was also re-engined, her B&W diesels replaced by Wärtsilä 16V32D units. That she still reads, in profile, as a handsome classic ship rather than a ferry with cabins added is the conversion's achievement; conversion sources put its cost at over $50 million.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was launched at Valencia on 4 December 1965 as Juan March, named for the Spanish financier, for Trasmediterránea of Madrid. Delivered on 27 July 1966 (one source gives 21 July), she began ferry service in August 1966 between the Spanish mainland and the Balearic Islands, and was also used on mainland–Canary Islands services.
Her later names map her wanderings exactly: Sol Christina for Sol Mediterranean from January 1985, Kypros Star for Opale Lines from 1986, Ocean Majesty on her Majestic International rebuild, Olympic and then Homeric during a 1994–1995 charter to Epirotiki, and Ocean Majesty again from 1995 — the name she has kept for three decades. The dataset's names list gives the right names but not in chronological order and omits Juan March, her original and longest-held ferry name; the fate field restores it ("Originally, the Juan March"), and the table below follows Wikipedia's dated chain.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator / owner |
|---|---|---|
| 1966–1985 | Juan March | Trasmediterránea |
| 1985–1986 | Sol Christina | Sol Mediterranean |
| 1986–1988 | Kypros Star | Opale Lines |
| 1988–1994 | Ocean Majesty (from rebuild) | Majestic International Cruises |
| 1994–1995 | Olympic, then Homeric | Epirotiki (charter) |
| 1995–present | Ocean Majesty | Majestic International Cruises (frequently chartered out) |
Details within that chain vary slightly between sources — Wikipedia's article text at one point renders Kypros Star as "Kyros Star", and the Epirotiki names are given in different orders in different accounts; the cruiseshipodyssey account, found in search, has the charter names as Olympic and Homeric within 1994–1995, matching Wikipedia's name chain. In 1989, between her Opale service and the Majestic sale, she was also chartered briefly to Adriatica for a Brindisi–Patras service.
Since 1995 Majestic International has chartered her to many operators, most frequently, per Wikipedia, to the British company Page & Moy, and from 2013 seasonally to the German company Hansa Touristik. That charter ended in August 2023 according to CruiseMapper, after which her employment became uncertain in the sources.
Onboard character
Her character is that of the small classic cruise ship the conversion created: one class, around six hundred passengers, a traditional sweeping hull and cruiser stern, and public rooms on a human scale that the mega-ship era abandoned. She retained, after rebuilding, the profile of a 1960s liner in miniature — long, low and raked — rather than acquiring the stacked-deck look of a purpose-built modern ship.
For her charter operators she offered something the market otherwise lacked: a SOLAS-compliant veteran ship, small enough for minor ports, with a loyal following among passengers who prefer a ship that looks like a ship. Sources note she fulfilled SOLAS 2010 requirements in her converted form — no small achievement for a 1966 hull, and a precondition of her long charter career.
Major refits and incidents
The Perama rebuild of about 1989–1994 dwarfs everything else in her record: ferry-to-cruise-ship conversion, re-engining, superstructure remodelling and a rise in tonnage, spread over several years and described in one account as a four-year job. It is better understood as a second construction than a refit, and it reset her commercial life completely.
No major casualty is recorded in the sources used for this guide — a clean record across nearly sixty years, two industries and at least six names, which is itself part of why she is still here: charterers kept taking her because the ship, however old, kept passing survey and pleasing passengers.
Sister ships and class
Her sister was Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the second Albatros-class ferry from the same Valencia yard, built for the same Spanish island services. The dataset leaves the class field blank. Unlike Ocean Majesty, her sister did not make the transition into a long cruise career, which leaves Ocean Majesty as the class's surviving representative and one of very few 1960s Spanish-built ferries to have had a second life of any length.
Fate and where she is now
The dataset records her status as active and her fate as "Operating. Originally, the Juan March", and against the odds that remains her position in the sources: an in-service listing for a ship launched when cruise shipping barely existed as an industry. The end of her long German charter in 2023 leaves her immediate employment open in the sources used here, and at her age any season may be the last — but she has been written off by chronology for thirty years, and the record so far belongs to the ship.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ocean_Majesty