Does anyone remember the Princess Carla?

[janacin]

In the late 60's Princess acquired it's third ship, the Princess Carla. The Carla was chartered from Costa. Actually she was bult in 1951 by the French line as the Flandre. It was the first ship built by France after the war to compliment the rebuilt Liberte and the Ile de France in express trans-atlantic service. On it's maiden voyage it developed engine trouble a day out of New York and had to be towed into New York harbor. It got the nic-name "The Flounder". The French were mortified. The Princess Carla ran 3 and 4 day cruises out of Los Angeles to San Diego and Ensenada. I remember seeing my relatives off on one of those short cruises. It was later given back to Costa and became The Costa Carla and ran 7 day cruises out of San Juan in the Caribbean. She was our second cruise back in the '70s. It was a thrill sailing on a real trans-atlantic steamship. She remained with Costa for many years.

[Coolmama_1]

My parent's talked about the "Carla C" as their first cruise out of San Juan. Is this the same ship?

[janacin]

My parent's talked about the "Carla C" as their first cruise out of San Juan. Is this the same ship?

 

Yes it is. It was called the Carla C and later Costa called it The Costa Carla.

[beg3yrs]

Here's the Wikipedia link for the ship.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Flandre_(1951)

 

After leaving service with Costa in 1992 for a Greek cruise line, she had a major fire in 1994 and was subsequently scrapped. :(

[RMS Olympic]

I sailed the Carla C in 1984.......I remember being on her bridge at midnight when we pulled out of San Juan. In european fashion her bow was pointed out to see (had backed into the port).

Later on Costa did a refurbishment on her interior...much needed). I wish I had sailed her a second time. In 1992 I was sailing the Stella Solaris out of Greece and watched the Carla limp into port. She was wearing the Epirotiki colors........black smoke churning from her funnel....and streaked in rust. I was not surprised to read she had burned....Epirotiki had a habit of buying old ships that were mysteriously destroyed.....we called them Epiro=sinky.

Other ships.....the Oceanos that sank off of Africa....then the Seabreeze that mysteriously took on water while being towed across the Atlantic.

The Carla....no glamour queen, but I loved her anyway...may she RIP:o

[enyliram]

it was costa and called the Carla C . was one of the filthiest ships ever been on. room steward would lurk in the hallways and roach spray the cabins when passengers were out. our cabin did have some residents other than ourselves.

however i remember the cruise director was named miss pia and she was alot of fun. food was good and dining staff went to great lengths to fill special requests.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Our honeymoon cruise in 1974 was on Costa out of San Juan and for years we told everybody that it was the Carla C.

 

I was surprised to read about the reliability issues of the Carla C, because our cruise was flawless.

 

Then when we tried to get a past-customer credit from Princess, I went back to my file of color slides [remember them?] and zoomed in on a life preserver on the deck railing. It read "Italia."

 

So all I can figure is that we booked the Carla C, it was still suffering reliability issues, and Costa substituted the Italia for our cruise.

 

The good news is that Princess seemed impressed enough that I still have color slides from 1974 that they gave me the credit without even checking my scan!