MV DISCOVERY SUN In Bomb Scare
At about 9pm Friday August 19, Miami Dade police department in Florida received a emergency call warning that there was a man aboard the Discover Cruise Lines ship with a gun and a bomb. Discover Cruise Line’s sole ship, the DISCOVERY SUN had departed from Lucayan Harbor at Grand Bahama Island at 5pm with nearly 900 passengers, and was en route back to Port Everglades, FL due to arrive at 10:30pm.
The ship stopped some 18 miles off Florida’s coast while passengers were restricted to their either their cabins or designated public areas, while US Coast Guard and bomb squad technicians boarded the ship around midnight. After the initial search turned up nothing, the ship was allowed to proceed to Port Everglades around 4am. Around 6am, passengers and crew were cleared for disembarkation. After the ship was emptied, Coast Guard, FBI, Customs and Border Protection and the Broward Sherriff’s Office further searched the ship but and again found nothing.
Discovery Cruise Line had previously announced that it will close down on September 6, as a result of high operating costs and the line being unable to raise their rates due to poor economic climate, according to the line’s spokeswoman, Roberta Backus.
DISCOVERY SUN was built in Germany as FREEPORT I, for the Freeport Criuse Line, sailing between Miami and Freeport, Bahamas. In 1973, the ship was sold to Oy Birka Line Ab, Mariehamn, and renamed FREEPORT for cruises between Stockholm-Helsinki. The same year, FREEPORT was again sold again to Stockholms Rederi AB Svea, for service between Helsingborg-Tuborg (Copenhagen) to Travemünde and renamed SVEA STAR. Again renamed as CARIBE BREMEN, and then sold to Scandinavian World Cruises renamed the SCANDINAVIAN SUN for a Miami-Freeport service. In 1985 the ship was chartered to SeaEscape Cruise who then bought her in 1988. In 1992, SCANDINAVIAN SUN was sold to Belle Meade Shipping, being renamed BALANGA QUEEN for the Corona Line between Karlskrona-Gdynia, two years later she was chartered to Hansatee, Tallinn, Estonia, and sailed on Tallinn-Helsinki-Tallinn-Travemünde route. Later in 1994, she returned to the Caribbean again wand was renamed as DISCOVERY SUN for Discovery Cruise Line and has remained in service since then, replacing the previous vessel on the route DISCOVERY I.
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This is the ship that started it all for me. Back then she was M/S Caribe, sailing between Portland, Maine and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
Recently ferry service on that route ceased service, and there is an effort afoot to restore the service. Bringing her back would probably be the cheapest option — too bad passengers have been on a steady decline for many years!
David Ingram
Please keep us all posted as to the restoration – if it be – of ferry service from Maine to Nova Scotia. I took the Scotia Prince, and the service was fun, and, with gas prices today, could possibly prove lucrative.
While I would not rank the SP highly compared to a genuine cruise, it was a fun way to get there, especially with a booked stateroom, and car stowed away. The ship, car and B&B packages were priceless.
There are newer, more fuel economic and better-equipped ferries available on the market than the DISCVOVERY SUN (and it seems likely more will become available in the near future). While I would love to see the DISCOVERY SUN find further employment, it would probably be preferrible to look for a more up-to-date ship if the restorations of the Portland-Yarmouth service is to become a success.
I just got an email from Vessel Tracker, she’s been sold for scrap.
🙁 🙁 I’m going to miss this little ship pulling out and returning to Port Everglades. Peter, I hope your contacts will have photos of her on the beach when she reaches Alang. I sailed on this ship when Scandinavian World Cruises started in the early 80s, she was the SCANDINAVIAN SUN and I wished I had taken more photos of her interiors.
Yes, to shall miss those sad sailing “casino” ships out of Florida – they were sad looking, in desperate need of a good cleaning and paint touch up. I often felt a twinge of revultion as I could see them, in very palin site, as the cruise ship I was sailing on sailed from Port Everglades, and these – there have been more than one – seemed to fight to sail past – that was then – at least they were still sailing. I also often wondered about the safety factor on board – not sanitation – the very safety concerns.
Update: I watched her depart Port Everglades for the last time. She’s sitting at her normal pier in Freeport, Bahamas; I’m not sure how long she will be there and I’m sure her name will be changed. Hoping to know more soon and to get photos of her on her way.