Remember the Big Red Boat?

So I'm a Cruise Addict. I took my first one in May 2007, my second in May 2008, and am planning to go on a third next month. I find them to be absolutely fabulous vacations, especially since they enable you to see all sorts of different places and experience many different activities for a very reasonable price. My current experiences have all been with Carnival, and I'm a big fan. I do plan on trying out other lines in the future, as I've heard great things about Disney, Royal Caribbean, and Holland America.

When I was beginning to research to book next month's cruise, I was considering a few different cruise lines. At one point, the commercials for the Big Red Boat began running through my mind, and I took the time to look up the company, since it had been years since I last saw an advertisement from them. Turns out they shut down in 2000, which intrigues me, since they were so well known for so long.

The cruiseline known for Big Red Boats was Premier Cruise Line, which operated from 1983-2000. They were first affiliated with Disney, but when Disney began its own line of ships and ended their relationship, Big Red went with the Looney Tunes (which is how I remember them). The also were partnered with Universal Studios at some point.

There were several Big Red Boats, and a few others to sail under this cruiseline as well. All have been scrapped at this point, with the exception of 3: one sank off the coast of Virginia in 2000, one was purchased by the city of Rotterdam in The Netherlands to be preserved as a historical landmark, and the final one (Big Red Boat I, now Oceanic) is still sailing, as part of the Pullmantur fleet in Spain.

So, what happened to make Big Red go out of business? Well, the ships were older... built before a lot of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) regulations were put into place. So, in 1997, ADA sued them for their lack of ability to accommodate the disabled. They eventually went bankrupt in 2000. :(