Reederei Peter Deilmann GmbH

Deilmann Cruises was the brand of the Peter Deilmann shipping company, which began operating cargo ships in 1968. Peter Deilmann founded the company bearing his name in 1972. Over the following decades, it brought together ocean, sailing and river cruises. The history of its ships reflects several distinct business areas, which did not all follow the same path later on.

Ships and concept

With the MS Berlin, Peter Deilmann expanded the fleet to include an ocean cruise ship; the company adopted “German cruising tradition” as its guiding theme. In 1994, the tall ship Lili Marleen joined the fleet, adding sailing trips as a third offering alongside ocean and river cruises. The MS Deutschland was built in Kiel from 1996, christened in 1998 and handed over to the company. From 1999, it became known to a wider audience as the ZDF “Dream Ship.”

River cruises and later use

The river cruise division began in 1983 with the Donauprinzessin on the Danube. In 1991, the Prinzessin von Preussen followed on the Elbe; in 1992, the Princesse de Provence expanded the program to the Rhône and Saône. The river cruise destinations thus extended from the Danube and Elbe to France. Dresden and Mozart joined the fleet the following year.

After Peter Deilmann’s death in 2003, the company changed. In 2009, Peter Deilmann Reederei GmbH & Co. KG filed for insolvency for its entire river cruise division, which at the time comprised nine river ships operating on the Rhine, Danube, Elbe, Vltava and French rivers. Two ships, Dresden and Königstein, had already been taken out of service in March 2009; the remaining river ships were initially scheduled to complete their season as planned. Falling revenues were cited as the reason for the river division’s insolvency. The MS Deutschland was not affected by the proceedings. From 2010, it was managed by the newly founded Peter Deilmann GmbH and sold to a US company in March 2015. From 2016, Phoenix Reisen chartered it from its new owner for summer voyages; in winter, the ship sailed as World Odyssey for the university program Semester at Sea. Phoenix extended the summer charter through 2026.