The new generation of megaships for TUI Cruises – Mein Schiff 1 and 2 – are now under construction at Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland, as steel was cut for the Mein Schiff 1, hull NB-1392, today.
Previously named Mein Schiff 7 and 8, these ships will be larger than the most recent TUI newbuilds, with 180 more cabins.

Georgios Vagiannis, Project Manager Newbuild, TUI Cruises, was there to cut the steel for Mein Schiff 1.

Mein Schiff 1 will be delivered in 2018, and Mein Schiff 2 will join in 2019, both replacing older Mein Schiff vessels which will go to Thomson Cruises.

“The new Mein Schiff 1 will more than ever be built around the wishes of our guests,” Wybcke Meier, CEO of TUI Cruises, explained.

“After intensive collaboration with TUI Cruises and substantial new design work, we are happy to see that our ideas are starting to become reality with cutting the first steel for the new Mein Schiff 1,” said Jan Meyer, CEO of Meyer Turku.

“For Meyer Turku the new design also shows how real improvements can be achieved even within a long series of ships. This nicely shows that working long-term with the leading ship owners, that we are iteratively improving on already good designs to new levels of performance, which otherwise would be hard to reach. In other industries this ideation, design, realization and reality feedback approach is called ‘design thinking’. Our approach is: It’s in the core DNA of shipbuilding.”