*Chartered

For more than forty years, Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) has been recognized as a leader in luxury adventure travel. Started in 1962 as a safari company in Nairobi, Kenya, A&K's travel and tour operations now extend across the globe. Today, Abercrombie & Kent represents a fleet of top-rated canal and river cruisers, both hotel vessels and private charters, which travel on the waterways of Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and France and Holland as well in other regions of the world. Of the barges and river vessels operated, A&K owns the Sun Boat III and IV that offer a range of cruises on the Nile in Egypt—from an eight-day Pharaohs and Pyramids cruise on Sunboat III to a three-day cruise on Sunboat IV as part of a 10-day tour of Egypt for families. All other vessels are chartered

American Cruise Lines’ small ships explore the waterways of the Eastern US.

*Debuts in 2005.

Canadian Sailing Expeditions provides premier coastal cruising adventures to extraordinary destinations.

Captain Cook Cruises specializes in small-ship destination cruises in Australia and the Pacific. An Australian family owned and operated company for 35 years Captain Cook Cruises now offer passengers a wide variety of scheduled cruises on Australia's three major waterways—Sydney Harbour, the Murray River, the Great Barrier Reef— and also in the Fiji Islands.

Carnival Cruise Lines has been operating for more than a quarter of a century and was instrumental in the changes that have incurred in the cruise industry. The company was founded in 1972 by Ted Arison, a Florida-based businessman who wanted to make a vacation experience available for the average person. Together with a Boston travel agency, they bought the TSS Mardi Gras (the former Empress of Canada) and launched her when on her maiden voyage, she promptly ran aground. Eventually Arison took over the debt-ridden company, assumed its multimillion debt, bought The Empress of Britain for a pittance (renamed her the TSS Carnivale), and created the “fun ship’’ logo-moves, which boosted sales and turned a profit in Arison’s first year as sole owner.

Over the next two decades, the company added more ships and introduced trend-setting superliners-Celebration, Holiday and Jubilee. In 1990, the first of the six new Fantasy class vessels, the 70,367-ton Fantasy, made her debut By 1996, with six Fantasy-Class ships added to the fleet, the company introduced the first Destiny Class passenger vessel to exceed 100,00 tons, the Carnival Destiny, which at the time became the world’s largest cruise ship. By 2002, the company had added two more Fantasy-Class vessels and two more Destiny-Class ships.

In 2001, the first of the new Spirit Class vessels, the Carnival Spirit made her debut. By spring 2004, three more Spirit-Class vessels were launched.

In 2002, Carnival introduced the Conquest Class with its largest ship to date, Carnival Conquest, at 110,000 gross and passenger capacity at 2,974. A year later Carnival Glory made its debut. By spring of 2005, two more Conquest-class ships will have been added: Carnival Valor and Cardinal Liberty. Both the Spirit and Conquest class of ship are not able to transport the Panama Canal.

Along the way, cruise lines were added and Ted Arison’s son Micky Arison came on board working his way up to president of Carnival in 1979. In 1990 he was appointed chairman of the line. When the parent company, Carnival Corporation, was formed in 1994, Arison assumed the chairmanship.) Micky Arison engineered the acquisition in 1989 of Holland American Line and Windstar Cruises, and partial ownership in Seabourn Cruise Line in 1992; four years later Carnival owned 50 percent of the company.

In 1997, Carnival bought part ownership in Airtours, a European tour company, and together the companies bought Costa Cruises. The following year Carnival acquired a majority interest in Cunard from the line’s parent company Kvaerner ASA and purchased the remaining shares in fall 1998. In 2000, Carnival bought out Airtours’ shares of Costa and took 100 percent ownership of the Italian line. On April 17, 2003, agreements were finalized to combine Carnival Corporation with P & O Princess Cruises plc, creating a dually merged company.

Carnival Corporation & plc is the largest cruise - vacation group in the world, with a portfolio of 12 cruise brands in North America, Europe and Australia, comprised of Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn Cruise Line, Windstar Cruises, AIDA, Costa Cruises, Cunard Line, Ocean Village, P&O Cruises, Swan Hellenic, and P&O Cruises Australia. Carnival Corporation & plc also operates the leading tour companies in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon, Holland America Tours and Princess Tours.

*Kapitan Khlebnikov, offering cruises to the Arctic and Antarctic, is chartered from Quark Expeditions.

Celebrity Cruises was founded in 1989 by the owners of the Chandris Line to offer upscale cruises at moderate prices. Today, it is operated as a separate brand by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, the company formed when Celebrity and Royal Caribbean International merged in 1997. In 2001, the parent company launched Royal Celebrity Tours, which offers integrated land-and-sea packages.

*Dedicated to the German market

Costa’s parent company, Genoa-based Costa Crociere S.p.A., has been involved in the passenger side of shipping for nearly fifty years. The Costa brand first appeared on the Italian market in 1854 when Giacomo Costa founded a company trading in fabrics and olive oil between Genoa and Sardinia. By 1916,the company was now under the direction of Giacomo’s three sons. They expanded the business and purchased their first ship, Ravenna in 1924, and soon after, the Langano. In the 1930s, Costa, now a major producer of olive oil in Italy, began the tradition of naming their ships after the names of family member. By 1942, Costa’s fleet was made up of nine vessels. After World War II, only the Langano survived.

The family then turned to building and purchasing ships for coastal navigation and started passenger services in 1947 with the sailing of the motor ship Anna C, the first of the Costa fleet to offer air conditioning. The company changed its name to Linea C, which it kept for over three decades on transatlantic links with Latin America. Business services were inaugurated in 1948 to North America and in 1953, the company opened new routes to Venezuela and the Antilles.

In the ensuing years, the company added ships, leased some and owned others, as it streamlined its operations. In the 1980s the Costa group decided to concentrate on the passenger and cruise sector. In 1986, Costa Crociere S.p.A. was created and the idea of a ship as a floating hotel was established. In 1989 the company invited outside investors to increase its financial strength which led to tremendous growth for the company in the 1990s. In June 1997, Costa was purchased by Carnival Corporation and Airtours plc, its European partner at the time. The deal increased the investment capacity of the Genoese company but left its Italian identity untouched. In September 2000, Carnival Corporation purchased all of Airtours’ shares and became the sole shareholder of Costa Crociere.

Cruceros Australis was founded in 1990 to for cruises in the Chilean-Argentinian Patagonia. The company operates the Mare Australis, an expedition ship which offers

expeditionary cruises to remote areas in Southern Patagonia, Beagle Chanel and Cape Horn. A second ship, Via Australis, will debut in November 2005

*Scheduled to leave Cunard in November 2004, the ship will sail for Saga Cruises under the name Saga Ruby.

**Scheduled to debut in 2007.

Cunard Line dates back to 1840, when its founder Samuel Cunard began steam-powered crossings of the Atlantic. In succeeding decades, the company built and operated a high impressive fleet of ocean liners. But with the growing popularity of the jet age in the 1960s, the company adjusted by converting some of their ships to modern cruising. In 1969, the line’s flagship Queen Elizabeth 2 made her debut and continued to cross the Atlantic on a regular basis. (The ocean liner has under gone several multimillion dollar refurbishments, the most recent in 1999. Originally powered by steam turbines, in 1986 she was refit with a diesel-electric propulsion system for greater speed and efficiency.)

In 1971 Trafalgar House, based in London, acquired Cunard. In the 1980s Cunard acquired two more cruise ships and added the twin Sea Goddesses I and II to it fleet. In 1994, Cunard acquired the Royal Viking Sun.

 In 1996, Norwegian company Kvaerner ASA took over Trafalgar House and Cunard underwent massive changes again. In 1998 Kvaerner sold the Cunard Cruise Line to Carnival Corporation and a group of Norwegian investors, who then merged it with the Yachts of Seabourn. A year later the Royal Viking Sun and the two Goddesses were transferred to Seabourn and renamed, leaving only the QE2 and the Vistafjord, which was renamed the Caronia after Cunard’s original ship that sailed in the 1950’s and 1960’s and which introduced World Cruises.

Maintaining the legacy of her Cunard and White Star Line predecessors, the QE2 is an authentic ocean liner and is the fastest ship afloat with a speed of nearly 30 knots. She will bequeath regular transatlantic crossings to sister ship, the Queen Mary 2, the world’s largest ocean liner. After a refurbishment, the QE2 now operates regional cruises from the UK.  However, she will continue to operate her annual Round the World Cruise.

The 150,000-ton QM 2 is the first transatlantic liner to be built in more than 30 years, and will operate regular transatlantic crossings in addition to regional cruises in Europe and the Caribbean. A third ship—the 90,000-ton Queen Victoria—is currently on the drafting board and is expected to debut in 2007.