Henna (ship)

The vessel as Jubilee in 2000.

Henna was built in 1986 by Kockums Varv, Malmö, Sweden, for Carnival Cruise Line as Jubilee, along with near-sister ship Celebration. The other near-sister ship of the class, Holiday, was built earlier by Aalborg Værft in Aalborg, Denmark.

The vessel as Pacific Sun in 2007.

In 2004, the vessel was transferred to P&O Cruises Australia and renamed Pacific Sun. Pacific Sun arrived in Australia in 9 November 2004, and began year-round cruises from Sydney to the South Pacific and Tropical North Queensland. From late 2007, she was based at Brisbane, and was then the largest year-round liner to be based in Queensland. After receiving a multimillion-dollar makeover, she sailed in all white colours, like P&O's other ships, along with new amenities.[8] Pacific Sun was the only ship of three sisters (with Grand Celebration and Grand Holiday) whose funnel was changed upon leaving the Carnival Cruise Lines fleet; her sister's funnels were simply painted over and not changed, while Sun had both Carnival's iconic wings and a part of shielding removed. Carnival's first new build ship, the slightly older Tropicale (Now MS Ocean Dream), also had her Carnival funnel removed, and replaced with Costa Cruises's round stove-pipe funnel which she still has today.

Pacific Sun in Lifou, New Caledonia on 15 September 2009.

In late July 2008, 42 passengers were injured in a storm.[9] The event became widely known when video footage was reposted on the internet two years later.[10]

On 18 December 2011, P&O announced that Pacific Sun would leave its fleet in July 2012.[11] Her farewell cruise was an 8-day roundtrip from Portside Wharf in Brisbane, Australia, and stopping at Nouméa, Lifou in New Caledonia, and Port Vila in Vanuatu with three days at sea. Pacific Sun had completed between 314 and 332 cruises, with 2,707 nights at sea and an estimated 586,000 passengers carried.[6]

On 13 September 2012, new owner HNA Cruises renamed the ship Henna; she made her maiden voyage under Chinese ownership on 26 January 2013 from Sanya to Vietnam. From January to April, the ship will run between Sanya and Ha Long Bay and Da Nang in Vietnam. From May to September, her home port will be shifted to Tianjin, with a new route launching between Tianjin and the South Korean ports of Incheon and Jeju Island.[7][12]

In September 2013 the ship was detained at a port on the South Korean island of Jeju after Chinese shipping service company Jiangsu Shagang International applied for a seizure. After several days stuck on board, the 1,659 passengers were flown home via HNA Group's China Hainan Airlines, leaving their cruise uncompleted but safe.[13]

In November 2015, HNA shut down its cruise ship operation after three years of losing money due to newer vessels being deployed to the region. Since the Henna's last cruise with HNA, she was laid up and was placed for sale for $35 million USD.[14][15] With there being no interested buyers, the HNA Henna was sold for scrapping in Alang, India, it was photographed at the ship breaking yard in Alang as the Hen, ready to be scrapped on 1 May 2017.[16][17] By late June, scrapping of the Hen began.[18] By late August, half of the vessel has been scrapped.[19] Scrapping of the vessel was finished by late 2017.

• List of cruise ships

Wikimedia Commons has media related to IMO 8314122.

• Henna page at HNA Tourism Cruise and Yacht Management
• Pacific Sun historical page at P&O Cruises (mirror)
• Professional photographs from shipspotting.com