Empress of the Seas

The ship now sailing Indian waters as Cordelia Empress began life with a very different mission: to pioneer the mainstream short-cruise market. Ordered from Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire, she was originally intended for Admiral Cruises to run three- and four-day Bahamas and Puerto Rico voyages, but Admiral's 1988 merger into Royal Caribbean folded her into that fleet before completion. Launched in August 1989 and entering service on 25 June 1990 as Nordic Empress, she was billed as the first mainstream cruise ship purpose-designed for the short-cruise trade, a comparatively compact 48,563-GT vessel for around 1,600 guests, carrying Royal Caribbean signatures like the Viking Crown Lounge and Windjammer Cafe.

Her godmother was Cuban-American music superstar Gloria Estefan, an apt choice for a vessel built around sun-soaked short getaways from Florida and San Juan. Nordic Empress spent the 1990s as a workhorse of the quick-escape market. In June 2001 she suffered a serious engine-room fire some 140 miles north of Bermuda, and in 2004 an extensive rebuilding was accompanied by her renaming to Empress of the Seas, bringing her into line with Royal Caribbean's 'of the Seas' nomenclature.

The ship's ownership then began a long series of transfers. In 2008 she was moved to Royal Caribbean's Spanish brand Pullmantur Cruises, reverting to the simple name Empress, and served the Spanish and Latin American markets before being brought back to the parent line. Following a dry-dock refit she returned to Royal Caribbean in 2016 once again as Empress of the Seas, becoming the fleet's smallest and most intimate ship. In that final chapter she carved out a niche running short Caribbean itineraries from Miami, and in 2017 she became one of the first major cruise ships to sail newly opened Cuba routes, calling at Havana until U.S. policy changes suspended them in 2019.

Empress of the Seas docked in Miami for the last time under Royal Caribbean in March 2020 as the pandemic halted global cruising, and in December 2020 she was sold to India's Cordelia Cruises, marketed as India's first premium cruise line. Renamed Cordelia Empress and based chiefly at Mumbai, she now runs two- to seven-night domestic and regional voyages to destinations such as the Maldives, Lakshadweep, and Sri Lanka, with cuisine and entertainment tailored to Indian travelers. A rare survivor from the early-1990s generation, she remains in active operation more than three decades after her debut.