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Viking Line’s largest ship Cinderella on her way through a colorful archipelago in late October.

Birka Paradise departs from Stockholm during a fantastic autumn evening.

There is something special about mornings. Every morning is different and magical in its own little way. Me and my dear friend “Christopher” went out one morning to photograph some cruise ships as they went by on their way into Stockholm.  The water was calm. The only thing you could hear were a few seagulls. After a while you could hear a noise in the far distance. We both looked up and before us an beautiful vessel revealed itself betwen all the tiny islands that makes Stockholm archipilago. This is the moment you have been waiting for, your body fills up with adrenaline and both time and space stops existing for a short moment.  The full experince with the archipelago and the ships creates an amazing feeling of well-being. It might sound silly but this is a feeling that should be experienced. When you’re sitting there and the ship is approaching suddenly, you are so small in comparison. And this morning was no exception. Our first ship for that day was Arcadia from P&O Cruises. P&O Cruises is a British-American owned cruise line based at Carnival House in Southampton, England, and operated by Carnival UK. The ship was built by Fincantieri at their shipyard in Marghera, Italy. In her own fleet she is only a Mid-Sized ship. Its hard to imagine that when you see how huge she is in real life. She has the lenght of 289 metres. That`s 77 meters longer than our longest Finland ferry ” Silja Galaxy” who measuring 212 meters.

Not long after Arcadia had passed us we could see ship number two for this morning, the Italian owned Costa Atlantica. She belongs to the Costa Cruises who is also a subsidiary to the Carnival Corporation. She was built at the Helsinki Shipyard (now STX Europe) in Helsinki, Finland in year 2000. In other words, she is home in her birth waters when she is visiting the Baltic`s during the summer months. Perhaps the easiest way to recognize a Costa ship is to look at the funnel. It`s all yellow and resembles a yellow cigar in some way. Beautiful or ugly? YOU decide. Costa Altantica have basically the same dimensions as Arcadia, more or less. Just like Arcadia she was built to the Panamax form factor, allowing her to pass through the Panama Canal. It means in short terms that the vessel can not be wider than max 32m down at the keel. Anyway Costa Atlantica has the length of 292 meters, that’s only three meters longer than Arcadia. Although the vessels may be equal in certain things, they are very different even in terms of interior and how the whole atmosphere is on board. Arcadia is more stylish with tinted colors while the Costa Atlantica is the exact opposite, colorful in a lot of different ways. You will understand later on what I mean on this matter. The biggest difference is probably that Arcadia is dedicated mainly to adults, while Costa Atlantica is for families but of course also for couples. Despite morning clouds we got some sunbeams here and there, just enough for us to get that little extra feeling into our pictures. I think the pictures can speak for themselves, what do you think?

As if two vessels were not enough for this morning, another third ship was about to pass us. Once again an Italian just like Costa Atlantica but from a completely different ship company. MSC Orchestra is the name of this ship and she belongs to MSC Cruises. Most cruise lines have a fleet of various ship classes. For example, MSC Orchestra belongs to the Musica Class in her own fleet. She has three sisters in the same class, MUSICA, POESIA and MAGNIFICIA. There are only minor differences between these sisters otherwise they all look the same. Magnificia is the newest and with the biggest differences. She has a retractable glass roof over half of her sundeck, while the other ships don’t have it. MSC is also a family-friendly cruise line, just like Costa. In the summer of 2009, I and my friend took a one week long cruise on MSC Orchestra. We found the ship very pleasant, good service and nice selection onboard. But more about that trip later on, now back to the pictures from our beautiful summer morning.

Don’t forget that these images of respective vessel can also be viewed through the main gallery.