Viking today announced it took delivery of Viking Venus, the company’s newest ocean ship. The delivery ceremony took place when the ship was presented at Fincantieri’s shipyard in Ancona, Italy. Viking Venus will now make her way to the United Kingdom, where she will be officially named on May 17, 2021, by her ceremonial godmother, Anne Diamond, the noted British journalist and broadcaster.
The ship will then begin an itinerary of spring and summer departures along England’s Scenic Shores.
“Many of us have stayed close to home for months, so this is an important milestone as we begin to get back out into the world again,” Torstein Hagen, chairman of Viking, said in a statement. “We look forward to ... welcoming our UK guests back on board next month.”
For more than a year, Anne Diamond has been a key figure on Viking’s award-winning enrichment channel, Viking.TV. Viking.TV went live in March 2020, in the early stages of the pandemic, and was conceived as a way to build community, stay connected and share positive experiences while people are staying home, rather than traveling.
Every Thursday since the launch of Viking.TV, Diamond has interviewed a number of significant figures with relationships to Viking, including world-renowned cellist and humanitarian Yo-Yo Ma; Xander Parish, principal ballet dancer at the Mariinsky Theatre; the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon; the Duke of Devonshire; explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, OBE; former PBS MASTERPIECE Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton, OBE; Downton Abbey’s “Mrs. Patmore,” actress Lesley Nicol; polar explorers Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft; NASA astronauts Dr. Anna Fisher, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan and Dr. Richard Michael Linnehan; classical musicians Alma and Helen Deutscher; legendary British actor, broadcaster and writer Sir Michael Palin; celebrity chefs Eric Ripert, Andreas Viestad and Ainsley Harriot, MBE; bestselling authors Jeffrey Archer, Claire Cook, Robert Harris and Paul Schneider; and Kyle MacLachlan, Sofia Helin and Alexander Eik, the lead actors and the creator of the new PBS Masterpiece series, Atlantic Crossing.
Today’s news follows Viking’s recent announcement that it is restarting operations with a collection of new itineraries in England, Bermuda and Iceland beginning in May 2021. All of Viking’s new Welcome Back voyages are available exclusively for vaccinated guests, in accordance with local entry rules in many of the destinations that will welcome Viking ships—and as a complement to the Viking Health & Safety Program, which was designed to protect guests and crew even while the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is still moving forward.
Viking Venus joins Viking’s award-winning ocean fleet of nearly identical sister ships. Classified by Cruiseable as mid-sizeships, Viking’s ocean vessels have a gross tonnage of 47,800 tons, with 465 staterooms that can host 930 guests. The ships feature all veranda staterooms, Scandinavian design, airy public spaces and abundant al fresco dining options.
— from Cruiseable news sources
