Viking Yi Dun Departs Shanghai, Concludes Its Chinese-Flag Era

The Viking Yi Dun slipped her moorings at Shanghai’s North Bund International Cruise Terminal on June 5, beginning a roughly 60-day positioning voyage across the South China Sea.

The ship will sail past Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Mediterranean, with a scheduled arrival in Barcelona, Spain, in early August.

Viking said in a press release that the departure also marked the formal launch of what it has promoted as its first Chinese-language transcontinental itinerary, the “60-Day Afro-Euro-Asian Discovery Journey.”

At an onboard ceremony earlier in the day, Brendan Tansey, managing director of Viking China, said the voyage will cross the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, calling at 27 destinations across 16 countries including Singapore, Phuket, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, South Africa, Namibia and Morocco before reaching Tarragona.

Tansey added that the company is marking its 10th anniversary in the Chinese market and framed the sailing as a milestone: Viking’s first all-Chinese-service (long) ocean voyage, designed around a familiar, senior-focused onboard environment (Mandarin-speaking hotel team, Chinese menus and signage, as well as no casino), and the bridge to a regular Chinese-language Mediterranean season starting August 3 in Barcelona.

The departure also closes the book on the vessel’s time as China’s first “five-star-flag” oceangoing cruise ship.

Built as the Viking Sun and later acquired by the China Merchants and Viking joint venture, she was reflagged to the Chinese register and renamed the Zhao Shang Yi Dun.

In recent months, however, that joint venture structure unwound; the hull was repainted and the name formalized as the Viking Yi Dun, and the flag changed to Norwegian.