Order placed with Rostock yard
Rostock, January 18, 2005 - AIDA Cruises has placed an order with Neptun Stahlbau GmbH in Rostock for the modernization of m/v AIDAcara. On 18th April, 2005, the club vessel is going to end her last winter voyage from Palma de Mallorca in Warnemünde and will then move into the shipyard for two weeks. Along with the specified repair work the planning also includes some modernization work amounting to EUR 2.5 mill.
Thus 44 cabins on deck no. 7 shall be provided with balconies at short notice. " By this AIDA Cruises meets an international trend as well as passengers' demands for more cabins with balconies" says Burkhard Müller, Vice President Fleet Services of AIDA Cruises. The cabin splitting will also be optimised: Families, in particular, will gain from the child-oriented "4-bed cabin" category which for the first time can be booked on AIDAcara on decks 4 and 5. The restaurant areas will be enlarged, too. 76 additional seats will be arranged inside the Caribbean Restaurant on deck 9, and (which is particularly interesting for fresh-air fans) another 49 seats in the sun outside. Furthermore, the wellness area will be equipped with new massage cabins.
An unusual technical feature is the 1.80 m long retractable platform to be arranged on the captain's bridge wing to ensure safe berthing manoeuvres. The aesthetic improvement of the club vessel will be completed by a new paint coat requiring 5 to 6 thousand litres of paint.
On the 1st of May the freshly overhauled AIDAcara will officially open the new Warnemünde Cruise Center and start on a 4-days "tasting" trip in the Baltic Sea. Another 12 trips from Warnemünde will follow, each lasting 10 days and leading to the most beautiful cities along the Baltic.
In the meantime the AIDA fleet consists of four club vessels. AIDAcara as the first vessel of the AIDA fleet has been ceremonially named in Rostock on July 7, 1996. Since her commissioning she has sailed 669,679 nautical miles and welcomed appr. 355,000 guests on board.
Manfred Müller-Fahrenholz, managing director of Neptun Stahlbau GmbH, is obviously pleased with this highly ambitious order: "The modernization of the AIDAcara is an important step to ensure a full-capacity use of the facilities of the yard and other companies in the area." All essential suppliers for this contract are regional companies. Neptun Stahlbau is an associated company of the MEYER WERFT at Papenburg which already received the contracts for the two newbuilding ships of the AIDA fleet amounting to EUR 630 mill.
(Press Release AIDA Cruises)
