With a two year lease to Hapag-Lloyd coming to an end in April, 2014, MS Insignia will shed the MS Columbus 2 moniker she’s held since 2012. Insignia will rejoin the Oceania Cruises fleet, reunited with her Regatta Class sisters, MS Regatta and MS Nautica.
The Ship
MS Insignia was put in service back in 1998 and was refurbished in 2010. Originally, Insignia was known as R One in the R Class of ships belonging to Renaissance Cruises. After the demise of Renaissance, R One was leased to Oceania by CruiseInvest and renamed Insignia. Oceania took over full ownership of the ship from CruiseInvest in 2006.
Leased to Hapag-Lloyd in April, 2012, the name of the ship was changed again, this time to MS Columbus 2. Until April, 2014, she is one of five cruise ships in the Hapag-Lloyd fleet.
Built by Chantiers de L’Atlantique in St. Nazaire, France, Insignia is not the largest ship with a gross tonnage of 30,277 and a length of 594 feet or 180 metres. There are nine decks accessible to passengers, which is plenty of room with a capacity for just 684 guests. The ratio of staff to guests is well less than 2 to 1 with 400 crew members on board.
The Schedule
On her first voyage back with Oceania, MS Insignia will embark from Barcelona, Spain at 6pm on Thursday, May 8, 2014 for a seven night journey to Rome, Italy. She will reach Rome by 6am on Thursday, May 15.
Along the way, Insignia will make port calls at Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Marseille, France; Antibes, France; Monte Carlo, Monaco; Portofino, Italy and Livorno, Italy. This is a luxury cruise line and the pricing reflects that. A stateroom for this first voyage back in the fleet can be had starting from $3,495 to $5,402 per room, based on double occupancy. Not bad when you consider her next voyage from Rome to Venice is starting at $10,000 per room.
Until October, 2014, Insignia will remain in the Mediterranean running various different itineraries. On Thursday, October 2, she leaves Southampton in the United Kingdom on a 15 night Transatlantic Repositioning Cruise, arriving in New York City on Friday, October 17.
This cruise smells of jigs and reels. On the eastern side of the Atlantic, Insignia makes stops at Belfast, Dublin and Cork in Ireland. Once across the pond, she stops at St. John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Saint John, New Brunswick; Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts before reaching New York City.
MS Insignia spends the rest of 2014 running Southern, Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises from Miami, Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Always on the move, after that she’s off to South America.
