The company started operations in 2009 and competes with
AIDA Cruises for the German market. It targets German-speaking customers who opt for a premium cruise experience. The onboard product, including food, entertainment and amenities, is tailored for German tastes and German is the main language used onboard its ships. Due to lack of new-building capacity, TUI Cruises started by acquiring the cruise ship
Celebrity Galaxy, which was built by
Meyer Werft and was owned by another
RCCL subsidiary,
Celebrity Cruises. She left the Celebrity fleet on 16 March 2009. After acquiring
Celebrity Galaxy, the ship headed to
Lloyd Werft shipyards in
Bremerhaven,
Germany. She arrived on 27 March 2009, and received a €50 million, 38-day conversion to upgrade her facilities to suit a
German-speaking market. After the conversion, she was re-christened on 15 May 2009 in
Hamburg,
Germany bearing her new name,
Mein Schiff (
My Ship). TUI planned to build two 2,500-passenger, 100,000-GT cruise ships in 2011 and 2012. '' On May 27, 2010, it was announced that another
Century-class ship,
Celebrity Mercury, would become the latest addition to TUI's fleet, renamed
Mein Schiff 2. Due to this
Mein Schiff was immediately renamed
Mein Schiff 1.
Mein Schiff 2 entered service with TUI in February 2011 after its extensive refurbishment, with the addition of more verandas, an expanded fitness area and design elements which are also found on
Mein Schiff 1.
Newbuilds '' TUI and
STX Finland announced a contract on 27 September 2011 to build a 97,000-GT vessel named
Mein Schiff 3, first of the Blue Motion class, which was delivered in 2014. The vessel is approximately long and approximately wide. It was announced on November 5, 2012, that TUI had taken up the second option for the sister ship to the
Mein Schiff 3, to be named
Mein Schiff 4. On April 22, 2014,
Mein Schiff 3 entered service. In March 2015,
Royal Caribbean International announced that they had agreed to sell to TUI Cruises in the second quarter of 2016, and that TUI would lease the ship to
Thomson Cruises to replace the
Island Escape. In May 2015,
TUI Group announced that as part of their modernization strategy, and would be transferred to
Thomson Cruises over the next few years, as a result, 2 replacement ships
neue Mein Schiff 1 and
neue Mein Schiff 2 were ordered. On January 15,
Mein Schiff 5 was launched. On April 28, ''Mein Schiff 6's '' was laid down. The new
Mein Schiff 1 debuted in 2018, followed by the
Mein Schiff 2 in 2019. These were both enlarged version of the previous ships, and included modification in the layout of the open decks, with an enclosed sport court, expanded forward suite area, an infilled aft deck, and a new elevated jogging track. In July 2018, TUI Cruises announces th order of two new 160,000 ton LNG InTUItion class ships at Fincanteri. In February 2020 TUI announced the purchase of
Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten. The
Mein Schiff Herz left the fleet in April 2023. In 2023 it was announced the new InTUItion class would introduce a new naming convention, with the first ship named
Mein Schiff Relax. The ship was floated out in November 2023 at Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard in Italy. The final ship of the Blue Motion Class,
Mein Schiff 7 debuted in 2024, and will be one of the first methanol ready ships. On February 7, 2025, the
Mein Schiff Relax was delivered to TUI Cruises. The first new prototype design for the line in over 11 years, it is also the first LNG powered and largest ship in the fleet. == Fleet ==