Neptun Werft

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Neptun Werft

NEPTUN WERFT in Rostock builds river cruise ships and also carries out work for ocean-going vessels. It has been part of the MEYER WERFT Group since 1997. The specific contract matters when determining where a ship was built: a river cruiser such as the Viking Haki is a newbuild from the Rostock shipyard; floating engine-room modules that NEPTUN manufactures for MEYER WERFT ships, by contrast, are components, not entire cruise ships.

River cruisers from Rostock

NEPTUN WERFT states on its corporate website that it has delivered more than 70 river cruise ships. One recent example is the Viking Haki from the Longship series. The shipyard has been building this series since 2010. The 135-metre-long vessel has 95 double cabins and can accommodate up to 190 guests. NEPTUN officially handed it over to Viking in Basel on October 29, 2026; the technical handover had taken place two days earlier in Lelystad. This means the technical completion of the project and the formal handover were separate milestones for the same newbuild.

For travellers, the ship’s intended use is particularly tangible: the shipyard names the Rhine as its operating area, with voyages in the Netherlands and trips between Amsterdam and Budapest. According to NEPTUN, the Longships use a hybrid propulsion system combining diesel engines and batteries. These details apply to the series. The Viking Haki was the sixth ship the shipyard handed over to Viking in 2026. An overview explains a ship’s length, breadth and depth.

The development can be traced through earlier newbuilds. In 2007, the shipyard handed over the Avalon Imagery as the fifth vessel of the TwinCruiser type; according to the shipyard’s announcement at the time, it was the eleventh river cruise ship delivered by the site since 2002. The TwinCruiser consisted of two independent hull sections: the aft section housed the propulsion system and technical crew spaces, while the 110-metre-long forward section contained passenger cabins, public areas and the galley. Prefabricated cabins were installed as units. According to the shipyard, this spatial separation reduced noise and vibration in passenger areas. The Avalon Imagery could accommodate 170 guests and had four suites and 81 double cabins. It is a concrete example of how design, construction and interior outfitting were divided up for a river cruiser.

A later milestone was the Viking Longship series. In 2021, NEPTUN delivered the Viking Gymir and Viking Egdir; the shipyard said this brought the series to 65 vessels. The partnership began in 2010 with an order for a single river cruise ship. The Viking Haki belongs to this series, which has been built over many years and whose ships the shipyard describes as having hybrid propulsion. Thus, alongside individual handovers, recurring series orders are also part of the history of river shipbuilding in Rostock.

Rostock shipyard and Papenburg cruise ships

The Rostock site also builds floating engine-room modules for ocean-going cruise ships at MEYER WERFT in Papenburg. This division of work connects two shipyard locations without making them interchangeable: building a module in Rostock does not make Rostock the construction site of the complete ocean-going ship. Hull construction, section fabrication, module construction and final outfitting are distinct services. The article on ship sections, shipyard construction and undocking explains the individual construction phases.

The shipping company, shipowner and shipyard can have different roles; the distinction between shipowners helps put these details into context.