Psst-who wants to buy a cruise ship?

Reports that cruise ship Seabourn Legend was about to be sold have been strenuously denied by the owners, part of Carnival Corporation.
The 20-year-old ship was the star – with Sandra Bullock – of the 1997 film Speed 2: Cruise Control, surviving to carry on cruising after a collision with a giant tanker (above) and a head-on crash into a pier on the island of St Martin.
Seabourn is Carnival’s most luxurious and intimate brand; Legend carries just 212 passengers and carries its own kayaks, windsurfers and jet-skis deployed from a marina which opens up from the stern.
Rumours of its sale – but no mention of the potential purchaser – surfaced at Cruise Industry News, who quickly published a rebuttal.
Elsewhere there have been suggestions that another cruise ship may be about to change hands.
Following last week’s announcement that Saga Ruby is to be retired, some industry insiders have suggested Holland America’s Prinsendam – itself a former Seabourn ship and also part of Carnival Corporation – as a potential replacement.
There is an argument that the 38,000-ton vessel (above) , built in 1988, is now out of place in a Holland America fleet of bigger and more modern ships; with a capacity for 835 passengers and described on the sompany’s website as “our most intimate ship,” it is of similar size to Saga Sapphire.
A Saga spokesman would not confirm interest in buying the ship and HAL told me today there are “definitely no plans to sell or transfer Prinsendam. She fits very well into the fleet, offering many longer and more exotic cruises, and commands the highest daily revenue of all our ships.”
Prinsendam is currently on a round-Britain cruise. The ship is in Belfast today and on Friday will be in Liverpool, where she will be visited by a group of north-west travel agents.