TUI Cruises

In april of 2008, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, the second largest cruisecompany in the world, joined forced with TUI AG, the largest European travelcompany with its base in Germany. The company settled in Hamburg, Germany's largest port city and took delivery of one of the ships that originally sailed for Celebrity Cruises, Celebrity Galaxy. For TUI Cruises, she was re-named Mein Schiff, that translates in English to My Ship, and she started sailing for the new venture in may of 2009. For Royal Caribbean it was a possibility to tap into the largest European cruisemarket, that is Germany. And of course, it also was a reaction to the immense growth of Carnival's German stronghold AIDA Cruises. 

The TUI funnel, this one is from the companies first ship, Mein Schiff 1

Although TUI Cruises is partially the answer of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines to AIDA Cruises of Carnival's portfolio, the company aims at a totally different clientele. TUI Cruises is a company that is in the higher end of the market, with 4-star+ cruiseliners. AIDA of course is in the lower segment and sailing with clubships.

In may of 2011, TUI Cruises took delivery of its second ship, the former Celebrity Mercury. Sadly, they continued the lack of originality in naming ships, as this new one recieved the name Mein Schiff 2 and the earlier Mein Schiff was re-named Mein Schiff 1. At the same time, TUI Cruises ordered their first series of newbuilds dubbed the Blue Motion-class, starting with Mein Schiff 3 that entered service in 2014. In 2015, Mein Schiff 4 was introduced and Mein Schiff 5 (2016) and Mein Schiff 6 (2017) followed. Those newbuilds are not small, measuring some 99.500 tons.

As said, TUI AG is a very large company and they also own the British-based Thomson Holidays and its cruise-division Thomson Cruises. For this line, mostly sailing cruises in the Mediterranean and western Europe, in 2015 TUI bought the Splendour Of The Seas from Royal Caribbean and she was planned to enter service for Thomson Cruises in 2016 under the name Thomson Discovery. Just before entering service, the ship was named TUI Discovery to 'reflect the difference between the older Thomson Cruises ships and the new generation.' Fact is that TUI is going to phase out the Thomson name in a few years so probably this is the first move to fully intergate the brands. With all new My Ships coming into service over the next years, TUI is planning to enlarge and modernise the Thomson fleet even more with also replacing the Mein Schiff 1 in its fleet. In may of 2018, the first redesigned, larger Mein Schiff came into service as the new Mein Schiff 1.

A ship that has sailed for TUI Cruises before is now placed elsewhere

Mein Schiff (2009-2010) became Mein Schiff 1

Mein Schiff 1 (2010-2018) is now placed under Marella Cruises as Marella Explorer

For booking information, visit TUI Cruises.