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Costa sold FLAVIA to Hong Kong shipping magnate C.Y. Tung in 1982. Tung renamed her FLAVIAN and planned on using her for cruises from Hong Kong, however she was laid-up at Hong Kong. She was sold to another owner in 1986 and renamed LAVIAN but remained laid-up. In 1989 she caught fire and sank in Hong Kong harbor, and was subsequently scrapped.

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My first cruise was on the Flavia in 1981 for my college graduation. We were 10 sorority sisters making our own fun. I vaguely remember some entertainer balancing upside down on stacks of chairs while the ship rocked and swayed. Made for an interesting show. Not great stabilizers on that ship. The iced tea rarely stayed in the glasses at dinner. However, I loved every minute of that cruise and couldn't wait to try it again!

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My first cruise was on the Flavia in June of 1975. We were a bunch of high school juniors-almost seniors. And the nuns were our chaperones! I got a job less than a month after I turned 16 so I could pay for the trip. It was worth every hour on my feet. It was a long time before I got to cruise again but that's what got me hooked.

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The Flavia was my first cruise, too. I sailed with my family in 1969 on a 3-day weekend cruise to Nassau, all four of us in an inside room with two lower and two upper bunk beds. In 1969, the Flavia was the largest cruise ship sailing regularly from Miami. The new terminal at the Port of Miami had just opened and the Flavia had the first berth. The competition was the Ariadne and the "New" Bahama Star, both sailing from the old Miami terminal (where the AA Arena is now, I think). I still remember our Italian room stewardess, with her black uniform, black stockings and heavily starched white apron. Got hooked and have sailing ever since!

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Bruce and I honeymooned on the Flavia in 1976 ! We had the "largest" cabin on the ship and you still had to stand on the bed to look out the tiny porthole, but we loved it !! I can remember the announcements made in Italian as well as English on the loud speaker ! And all the PASTA they served before your entree! But most of all I remember and miss the FLAVIA BAND ! I would LOVE to have a CD of their Italian music.I used to have the 8-track ,but it's long gone, unfortunately !! If anyone knows where I could get one please let me know.Anyway, The FLAVIA was wonderful.She and the NORWAY will always be my favorite ships.Going on # 24 next month! Thanks for the memories !! GINA

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I remember the FLAVIA well!!! :D It was my first cruise and I was 13 years old. That makes it 1970. Wow! :confused: Where does the time go? My parents and I shared an inside cabin on the Capri Deck which was the top row of cabins.:cool:

Does anyone remember the chapel on board? We made friends with the chaplin and he was at our house in Fort Lauderdale several times. He was from Malta.

And I too have the record of the FLAVIA band.:) And the band from the Federico C. And I believe the Carla C as well. You can buy affordable record players these days. Find them online. New ones. The one thing I would like to do is record from the record player to a CD so I could listen in my car.

I became close friends with the deck steward, who later became a room steward, and also a waiter on board. Jack of all trades, I guess. His name was Mario DiBiasi. Does anyone know or remember him? Do I have a memory like a trap or what? He was from Venice and used to stay at our home in Ft. Lauderdale for a week just prior to the FLAVIA resuming service out of Miami from being in drydock in Genoa. Ah! What great memories. It was a magical ship. By today's standards, nothing at all. But in those days, during our youth...it was divine!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Bruce and I honeymooned on the Flavia in 1976 ! We had the "largest" cabin on the ship and you still had to stand on the bed to look out the tiny porthole, but we loved it !! I can remember the announcements made in Italian as well as English on the loud speaker ! And all the PASTA they served before your entree! But most of all I remember and miss the FLAVIA BAND ! I would LOVE to have a CD of their Italian music.I used to have the 8-track ,but it's long gone, unfortunately !! If anyone knows where I could get one please let me know.Anyway, The FLAVIA was wonderful.She and the NORWAY will always be my favorite ships.Going on # 24 next month! Thanks for the memories !! GINA

 

Ahoy Mates :-)

My wife and I took our first cruise on the Flavia in 1980. It was a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas and we didn't know what to expect but had a wonderful time. We had an inside cabin on the same deck as the dining room. Passengers would line up past our door for each meal presenting a small problem for us to leave our cabin. The Italian cuisine was outstanding especially the deserts. Our waiter, Antonio, did an excellent job of serving our table with pride and dedication. He was homesick for his wife and children back in Italy. Our room stewart was Rocco, also from Italy, who would sing opera while cleaning the cabins. We had great entertainment for free.

Our beds were like small bunks and so close together that my knees would touch the other bed when I sat on the side of my bed. I'm not quite 6 feet tall but my feet almost hung off the foot of the bed. The shower was in the middle of the bathroom with a circular ring on the ceiling. The shower curtain hung from that ring and when you turned the water on, the shower curtain

became very close and personal with your body. LOL.

The small ship floated around the ocean like a cork. When we got up on the dance floor the motion of the ship joustled us into the other dancers. We met the niciest people on that dance floor. We all just went back and forth with the ship's motion and had a blast.

We had a lot of laughs when the crew had to lower the lifeboats into the

ocean for their drill. It reminded me of an old keystone kops routine. Especially when the crew tried to attach the cables to the lifeboats to hoist them back onto the ship. The currents made it difficult and it took several tries before they were able to bring them back on board the Flavia.

When the ship was in port, young kids would come on board and dive off of the deck for coins the passengers would toss into the ocean. It was amazing because it was quite a dive from the deck but they were able to grab the coins. What a way to make a few bucks.

On the last night of our cruise, the crew put on the show and it was better than the previous ones by professional entertainers. It was an opera and our room stewart, Rocco, had the lead. He wore a dual purpose costume with the male part as a profile on one side and the female part a profile on the other side. When he sang the male part of the opera, he had the male profile facing the audience. He would turn around so the female profile would face the audience when he sang the female part. It was hilarious and he was outstanding.

I would like to thank all who contributed to this thread for bringing back so many fond memories our our first cruise on the fabulous Flavia.

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Ahoy Mates :-)

 

Does anyone remember the tonnage of the Flavia? It was very small by today's standard cruise ships.

Our first cruise was on the Flavia in 1980 and our second cruise was in

1982 to Alaska on the 17,000 ton Cunard Princess. As I recall, it was

larger than the Costa Flavia.

The personable Italian crew made our cruise on the Flavia special. It was

a fun cruise.

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The Flavia was my first cruise, too. I sailed with my family in 1969 on a 3-day weekend cruise to Nassau, all four of us in an inside room with two lower and two upper bunk beds. In 1969, the Flavia was the largest cruise ship sailing regularly from Miami. The new terminal at the Port of Miami had just opened and the Flavia had the first berth. The competition was the Ariadne and the "New" Bahama Star, both sailing from the old Miami terminal (where the AA Arena is now, I think). I still remember our Italian room stewardess, with her black uniform, black stockings and heavily starched white apron. Got hooked and have sailing ever since!

 

Wow! I thought no one but me knew the Ariadne! She was my "first" and I was 9 years old. We would drive down from NJ and go right to the pier where my mom would negotiate these great last minute rates for my family. I still have a photo of myself shaking hands with the Captain!

 

Thanks for brining a big smile to my face this evening! Such WONDERFUL memories!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ahhh FLAVIA!!! My first cruise also, June 1980 @ 10 years old...we had an outside cabin that slept 6....I remember looking out the porthole from my upper berth...having to crawl into the porthole housing because our cabin was at the front of the ship.

 

I still remember the swimming pool with the windows so you could look into the pool from the hallway.... and I also remember the Bahamian kids climbing the mooring ropes and jumping off the ship for nickles....

 

There was a waiter, Jon, that my parents had on the Federico C in 1973 that was on the Flavia...and when my parents spoke to him, even after all those years, he seemed to remember them....

 

I remember "racing" the Emerald Seas and Dolphin IV to Freeport.....and looking over the railing after dinner to see them throwing garbage bags overboard...yup, true!!!

 

I gave myself a personal tour of the bridge numerous times that cruise....the officers all knew me by name...hahaha...my parents were so proud :(

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I sailed on the Flavia in 73 to the Bahamas. As I recall the waiters were good time Italians, definatly loved to flirt with the ladies. I too have a signed Flavia band LP and I still have a record player. But really the music is not that good.

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  • 6 months later...

I too took my first cruise on the Flavia - I was fresh out of high school in 1978, was on a tour of Europe and we cruised from Venice to Athens and back. Was just looking at the pictures recently. The cabins were sooooo small, they put 4 of us in one cabin, two on one wall, two on the other..and not much walking space in between. There is a website where you can see the deck plan of that ship and we were waaayyy on the bottom deck, on the Trinidad deck. I wish that I could remember more about that ship because I haven't cruised since and will be going on Carnival Triumph here in a couple of months - and something tells me that I'll be in awe at the difference between the Flavia and todays cruise ships. But...it's good memories and we had a great time! I still have my little vinyl "goodie" bag that they gave us, with pull strings at the top...along with a couple of menus and the pictures of meeting the captain.

:rolleyes:

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Would this be the same ship?

Indeed this was, though at that time she was not a Costa ship but was owned by another Genoese company, Codegar Line.

 

FLAVIA was a very interesting ship with a long and varied history. She was built in 1948 as Cunard's MEDIA, a transatlantic passenger-cargo ship. In 1953 she became noted for being the first Atlantic liner fitted with stabilizers, as a "test case" for the QUEENs (which were later fitted).

 

By the 1960s, traditional passenger-cargo ships were becoming obsolete on the North Atlantic and in 1961 Cunard sold her to Codegar who renamed her FLAVIA and entirely rebuilt her as a modern passenger ship for the emigrant service between Europe and Australia, along with occasional cruises.

 

Changes in the emigrant contracts necessitated that Codegar close their Australian service in 1968 and she was sold to Costa who rebuilt her again (this time less dramatically) as a full-time cruise ship. She served successfully in this role until they sold her to C.Y. Tung in 1982 who renamed her FLAVIAN and intended to use her for cruises in Asia. Instead she remained laid-up in Hong Kong. She was sold again in 1986 and renamed LAVIA, but remained laid-up. Finally, she burned and sank in Hong Kong harbour in 1989. This was eerily reminiscent of the demise of another former Cunarder which burned and sank in that same harbour almost two decades before - the then-largest liner in the world, SEAWISE UNIVERSITY, the former QUEEN ELIZABETH, which burned and sank in Hong Kong in 1972! (Before being scrapped, SEAWISE UNIVERSITY's wreck starred as a secret British headquarters in Hong Kong in the James Bond film, "The Man With the Golden Gun".) Ironically, SEAWISE UNIVERSITY's owner was none other than C.Y. Tung, the same Hong Kong shipping magnate who bought FLAVIA a decade later (but had already sold her by the time she burned)!

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The Flavia was my first cruise, took it the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1976 from Miami, I think it was 3 days. I loved the music and the song I think it was Goodbye Bambino they kept singing. I thought it was sooo elegant. i was 19 and it was my very first cruise.

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  • 1 month later...

We honeymooned on the Flavia in February of 1976! What a great ship. We had four fabulous days onboard and went to Nassau and Freeport. We're taking another cruise this year for the first time to celebrate our 30th anniversary. :)

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  • 8 months later...
  • 9 months later...

This was my first cruise (senior trip) after graduating HS in 1970. I remember the cabin being small and all the way forward in the bow of ship. The first evening we partied and danced so much that when a storm blew in I got sicker than a dog. I still remember swaying back and forth dancing, and then watching the single flower in the bolted down vase swaying slowly back and forth and racing to the railing. Mercy! I spent the rest of the first night in misery hanging over my bunk. The second day, weather was better and and I made sure not to try every different type of cocktail (wasn't a drinker) so got my sea legs. I remember the old Straw Market at Nassau, and being on the back of a Vespa with my guy friend who drove it right into the lobby of a hotel. Then there was the Greek dancing in a nightclub on board, and on and on. I've always thought that those Italian waiters and stewards were absolutely wonderful to us. We were only kids, but they sure served up the service. Oh, and the parade of Baked Alaska with the sparklers. Wow, I could go on and on. Thanks, to whoever began this thread. It sure was a walk down memory lane!

 

Lynne :)

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