A long laid-up former German cruise ship that was sold at the height of the pandemic for conversion into a superyacht is set to return to service under a new Malaysian cruise operator.
Berlin Capital Group (BCG) has emerged as the new owner of the 9,600-gt cruise ship Dream Goddess (built 1980), which departed its lay-up moorings at a shipyard near Piraeus toward the end of 2024 and sailed to a shipyard in the Chinese port of Ningde.
Since arriving at Ningde, it has been undergoing a complete transformation into what BCG claims will be a luxury-end cruise ship that will be based in Penang and offer short regional cruises to Southeast Asian ports.
The new owner has been proudly documenting the transformation of the ship via video reels posted on its social media accounts showing how the long-neglected, rust-streaked vessel is being transformed back into a gleaming white cruise ship.
The interiors of the ship have been gutted, with construction of new accommodation underway.
The ship will return to service as the Berlin Oceanis, a name that pays homage to its origins as the Berlin, the flagship of Peter Deilmann Cruises and the star of the long-running German TV series Das Traumschiff.
BCG has acquired the ship from Dreamliner Cruises, a subsidiary of holding company Royalton Investments that has a large investment portfolio of luxury yachts and shipyards specialising in the yachting industry.
Dreamliner bought the ship off German tour operator FTI Cruises in September 2020 after the German tour operator decided to exit the cruise sector due to the pandemic.
The plan back then was to convert the ship into a mega yacht and make it available for charter to high net-worth individuals and groups.
That plan was later abandoned, due in part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctioning of many Russian oligarchs, who were among the biggest charterers of the larger-sized superyachts.
The ship was left sitting alongside a dock at a shipyard on the island of Salamina alongside a clutch of unwanted old cruise ships and ferries, with most cruise industry observers expecting it would be sold off as scrap.
