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Viking Line is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Viking Line is operated from the Åland Islands. Viking Line offer the world's largest archipelago between Finland and Sweden with the luxurious and spacious Viking Line cruise ships between Helsinki and Stockholm.
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Onboard you will find that there are a variety of quality cabins to choose from, ranging from a single conference cabin to four berth family cabins, or from a De Luxe cabin to a spacious suite. All cabins have a toilet, shower, radio and air conditioning. In the evening you can enjoy live entertainment and a delicious meal. Whatever your taste, Viking Line has plenty to offer from gourmet to buffet, from happy hour to a late night drink. On board there's always something for everyone.
Viking Line's history can be traced back to 1959, when a group of sea- and businessmen from the Åland Islands province in Finland formed Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen, purchased a steam-powered car-ferry SS Dinard from the UK, renamed her SS Viking and began service on the route Korpo (Finland) — Mariehamn (Åland) — Gräddö (Sweden). In the same year the Gotland-based Rederi AB Slite began a service between Simpnäs (Sweden) and Mariehamn.
In 1962, a disagreement caused a group of people to leave Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and form a new company, Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, who began a service linking Gräddö and Mariehamn the following year.
Soon the three companies, all competing for passengers between Åland Islands and Sweden, realised that they in the long run all stood to lose from mutual competition. In 1965 Vikinglinjen and Slite began collaborating, and in the end of July 1966 Viking Line was established as a marketing company for all three companies. At this time Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen changed their name to Rederi Ab Solstad, in order to avoid confusion with the marketing company. The red hull livery was adopted from Slite's Ålandspilen service (to which it had been taken from the colour of the chairman's wife's lipstick!). In 1967 Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan changed its name to SF Line and in 1977 Rederi Ab Solstad was merged into its mother company Rederi Ab Sally.
The new Viking XPRS offers you the best qualities of conventional car ferries and catamarans, combining comfort, on-board service and reliability with short crossing times in all weather conditions. It is a modern ship that has been customised to the last detail for the Helsinki–Tallinn route. Fast, fun and friendly.
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Viking Line Routes
Most of Viking Line's luxury ships sail every day from Helsinki and Turku to Stockholm or v.v.
The Åland Islands (Finland) are accessible from both Turku and Helsinki on the Finnish mainland and Stockholm or Kapellskär, Sweden. Viking Line has managed to create an exclusive way of sailing the Baltic.
Helsinki-Mariehamn
Helsinki-Stockholm
Helsinki-Tallinn
Kapellskar-Langnas
Kapellskar-Mariehamn
Kapellskar-Turku
Langnas-Stockholm
Langnas-Turku
Mariehamn-Stockholm
Mariehamn-Turku
Stockholm to Turku |
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Viking Line Ferry Fleet
Viking Line MS Viking XPRS
MS Viking XPRS is a fast cruiseferry owned by the Finland-based Viking Line and operated on their service between Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia. Her keel was laid on April 16, 2007 and launching took place on September 19 2007. Viking XPRS entered service on 28 April 2008. Viking XPRS is Viking Line's first new building for the Helsinki—Tallinn route. She is the first newbuilding delivered to the company since MS Kalypso in 1990 and also Viking Line's first fast cruiseferry, with a building contract worth approximately 120-130 million euro. The Viking XPRS makes the crossing between the two capitals in about two and a half hours, with two daily departures from each port. The ship is designed with separate cardecks for freight and for passengers cars, and with a limited passenger cabin capacity as she only does daytime crossings. The interiors of the Viking XPRS is designed by Tillberg Design, like those of several of the company's earlier newbuildings.
Viking Line MS Amorella
The Amorella was ordered in 1986 by SF Line, one of the partners in Viking Line consortium. Although Brodogradiliste Split outbid other shipyards, the Finnish State offered to subsidise construction of the ship if she was built at a Finnish shipyard. This was a common practice in the 1980s to bring more jobs to Finland, but this time SF Line declined and had the ship built in Croatia. The original planned delivery date for the Amorella was in March 1988, but due to delays in construction she was not completed until September, which meant SF Line was forced to operate the lucrative summer season with old tonnage.
Except for short periods of time in 1997, 1998 and 2002, the Amorella has always served on the Turku—Mariehamn/Långnäs—Stockholm route, making her the longest-lasting ship on that route. Originally she only called in Mariehamn during day crossing, but in July 1999 she had to start calling at the Åland Islands in both directions to maintain tax free sales onboard, and as a result a call at Långnäs was added to the night crossing.
Viking Line MS Gabriella
MS Gabriella is a cruiseferry sailing on a route connecting Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden for Viking Line. She was built in 1992 in Brodogradiliste Split, Croatia as MS Frans Suell for service with Euroway. Between 1994 and 1997 she sailed as MS Silja Scandinavia for Silja Line.
Viking Line MS Isabella
MS Isabella is a cruiseferry, built in 1989 by Brodogradiliste Split in Yugoslavia. She currently serves on the Turku—Mariehamn/Långnäs—Stockholm route of Viking Line. In September 2007 the ship was docked at Naantali. Her tax-free shop, pub and disco were completely rebuilt, and two restaurants based on new concepts replaced two earlier restaurants. In the future Viking Line plan to refurbish all of the ship's cabins as a part of their large-scale fleet rebuilding programme.
MS Mariella is a cruiseferry delivered in 1985 to SF Line and has since operated as a part of Viking Line. She was built by the Wärtsilä Shipyard in Turku, Finland. Her sister ship is the Olympia (now Pride of Bilbao). In September 2000 Mariella was refitted at Naantali with rear sponsons and a new fast rescue boat. Her interior was also brought up to date, the disco moved from deck eight to deck seven, and for some time after the refit she sported the text "Updated 06/10 2000" on her hull. Another large refit was carried out in September 2006, again at Naantali, which included rebuilding of the tax free shop and parfumerie, one restaurant and disco, as well as the addition of one new restaurant next to the Food Garden restaurant.
Viking Line MS Rosella
MS Rosella is a cruiseferry, built in 1980 by Wärtsilä Turku shipyard (now Aker Finnyards), Finland for SF Line, one of the owners of the Viking Line consortium. She currently servers Viking Line's Kapellskär—Mariehamn route. The market for transporting passengers, cars and cargo trucks across the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden grew steadily during the 1960s and the early 1970s. During these years, two major carriers on these services emerged: Viking Line and Silja Line. By the time of the mid 1970s, the Alandian based shipping company SF Line operated three ships as a part of Viking Line. Although not more than ten years old, these ships was already beginning to be too small and held too few passenger cabins to meet the growing demand from passengers. In response to this, as well as the newbuilings recently added to the Silja Line fleet, SF Line decided to order two new and bigger ships. These ships would later be known as the Turella and the Rosella.
MS Viking Cinderella is a cruiseferry built in 1989 by Wärtsilä Turku shipyard, Finland, as MS Cinderella for SF Line, one of the owners of the Viking Line consortium. She's currently used on cruise traffic from Stockholm to Mariehamn and occasionally Riga during the summer. Viking Line decided to withdraw Cinderella from the Helsinki - Tallinn route after the end of the 2003 summer seasons, due to increased competition from Tallink's newer MS Romantika and the fact tax-free sales on the route would end in 2004 when Estonia joined the EU. Cinderella was extensively rebuilt in Naantali, and emerged as the all-white Swedish-flagged Viking Cinderella for the Stockholm - Mariehamn 22 hour cruise market. The name change was dictated by nescessity as a ship called Cinderella already existed in the Swedish ship registry. From 2004 onwards Viking Cinderella also made cruises to Riga (via Mariehamn in order to sell tax-free goods) during the summer season.
Viking Line History
1967-1985 - Because Viking Line was only a marketing company, each owner company retained their individual fleets and could choose on which routes to set their ships (naturally there was also co-ordination on schedules and such). Each company's ships were easy to distinguish by name: all Sally ships had a "Viking" prefix on their names, Slite took their names from Roman and Greek mythologies, while SF Line's names ended with -ella in honor of managing director Gunnar Eklund's wife Ellen Eklund.
During the 1970s Viking expanded greatly and overtook Silja Line as the largest shipping consortium on the Northern Baltic Sea. Between 1970 and 1973 Slite and Sally took delivery of five nearly identical ships built at Meyer Werft Germany, namely MS Apollo and MS Diana for Slite, and MS Viking 1, MS Viking 3 and MS Viking 4 for Sally. MS Viking 5, delivered in 1974, was an enlargened version of the same design. These so-called Papenburg sisters can be considered to be one of the most successful ships designs of all times (the shipyard built three additional sisters of the original design for Transbordadores for ship services in Mexico: Coromuel, Puerto Vallarta and Azteca). In 1973 Viking Line started service on the Turku—Mariehamn—Stockholm route, directly competing with Silja Line for the first time. The next year Sally began Viking Line traffic between Helsinki and Stockholm. For the next decade this route stayed in their hands, whereas on other routes the three companies operated together.
By the latter half of the 70's Sally was clearly the dominant partner in the consortium. In 1980 they took delivery of three new ferries (MS Viking Saga, MS Viking Sally and MS Viking Song), largest to have sailed under Viking's colours. This further established their dominance over the other partners, although SF Line did take delivery of the new MS Turella and MS Rosella in 1979-1980 and Slite MS Diana II in 1979. In the early 1980s Sally started expanding their operations to other waters, which became the company's failing as those operations were largely unprofitable and ultimately made Sally unable to invest on new tonnage for Viking Line service
1985-1993 - M/S Mariella leaving HelsinkiIn 1985 a new leaf was turned in Viking Line's history when SF Line's brand-new MS Mariella, at the time the largest ferry in the world, replaced MS Viking Song on Helsinki—Stockholm service, breaking Sally's monopoly on the route. The next year Slite took delivery of Mariella's sister MS Olympia and thus forced Sally out of Helsinki—Stockholm traffic completely. While SF Line and Slite were planning additional newbuilds, Sally were in an extremely poor position financially and in 1987 Effoa and Johnson Line, the owners of Silja Line, purchased Sally. As a result SF Line and Slite forced Sally to leave the Viking Line consortium.
Between 1988 and 1990 SF Line took delivery of three new ships (MS Amorella, MS Isabella and MS Cinderella) while Slite took delivery of two (MS Athena and MS Kalypso). Unfortunately Wärtsilä Marine, the shipyard building one of SF Line's newbuilds and both of Slite's, went bankrupt in 1989. SF Line avoided financial repercussions, their Cinderella had been continuously paid for as her construction progressed. Hence it was SF Line who owned the almost completed ship when the shipyard went bankrupt. Slite however had signed a more traditional type of contract, the Kalypso was to be paid for on delivery. Since the shipyard owned the unfinished ship, this led to an increased cost for the Kalypso - about 200 million SEK more than had been originally envisaged. In the end, despite the financial problems, by 1990 Viking Line had the largest and newest cruiseferry fleet in the world.
In 1989 Slite started planning MS Europa, which was to be the jewel in the company's crown, the largest and most luxurious cruiseferry in the world. Unfortunately for them Sweden entered a financial crises during the construction of the ship, which led to devaluation of the Swedish krona. This in turn meant that the cost for the Europa increased by 400 million SEK. When time came to take delivery of the new ship, Slite did not have the funds to pay for it and their main funders (Swedish Nordbanken, who were also the main funders of Silja Line) refused to loan them the money needed. Eventually the ship ended up in Silja Line's fleet and Slite was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1993.
1993-present - Following the bankruptcy of Rederi AB Slite SF Line was left as the sole operator under the Viking Line brand. The remaining two Slite ships, Athena and Kalypso were auctioned in August 1993. SF Line made a bid for the Kalypso, but both ships ended up sold to the newly-established Malaysian cruise ship operator Star Cruises. In 1995 SF Line changed their name into Viking Line.
Between 1994 and 1996 the company operated a fast ferry service from Helsinki to Tallinn during the summers on chartered catamaran ships. In 1997 they purchased MS Silja Scandinavia from Sea-Link Shipping AB and renamed her MS Gabriella for Helsinki—Stockholm service. It has been reported that around the same time plans were made to construct a pair of new ships for the Helsinki—Stockholm service so that Viking could better compete with Silja on that route, but the plans were shelved.
It took until 2005 for Viking to order a new ship, in response to growing competition from Tallink on the Helsinki—Tallinn route. In April 2008, the new MS Viking XPRS was delivered from Aker Finnyards, Helsinki and entered service between Helsinki and Tallinn. In January 2007 Viking Line announced that they had placed an order for another new ship, a ferry with a gross tonnage (GT) of 15.000 tons at the Spanish shipyard Astilleros de Sevilla. The project name for the ship, that will replace the MS Rosella on the Mariehamn—Kapellskär route, is Viking ADCC and delivery is expected for March 2009.
In addition to building the XPRS and ADCC, Viking Line's CEO Nils-Erik Eklund stated in an interview of the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat that the company were looking to replace the ships operating between Turku and Stockholm. The volume of freight transported on the route has been steadily growing during the past years and if the growth continues the current ships will be too small to meet demand in the future. However, a large-scale refurbishment of public space and cabins is planned for all Viking ships on Turku—Stockholm and Helsinki—Stockholm routes. Refurbishments of the public spaces have already been carried out on Mariella and Isabella.
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