What's New?

NEW PAGE Le Boreal with 3 pictures (New Smallternatives) (29-06-2010) (no text yet)

New Prinsendam picture in Prinsendam (New Smallternatives) (09-07-2010)

NEW PAGE HAL's Eurodam got her own page under Holland America (New Giants) (14-07-2010)

Eurodam picture added from the naming ceremony in Eurodam text (New Giants) (14-07-2010)

Two Noordam pictures added to Vista Class in Holland America (New Giants) (14-07-2010)

NEW PAGE Celebrity Eclipse with 3 pictures (New Giants) (23-07-2010) (no text yet)

Galaxy picture added to Galaxy-page (no text yet) (23-07-2010)

Welcome to Castles of the Seas

Castles Of The Seas is the result of over twelve years of cruiseliner photography in The Netherlands. My name is Robert Klein and I became interested in oceanliners and modern cruiseships around 1994. In december 1996 I took my first photographs of P&O Ferries Pride Of Bilbao and since then, I tried to take pictures of as many passengerships as possible. In may 2005 I started up castlesoftheseas.nl and since then the website has been growing rapidly. On the first version of the site I concentrated on the modern ships, because I wanted to show that we live in a time where great passengerships are built, although the classic ships mostly get more attention. I do not agree to the thought that modern ships are less interesting then the older ones and on this site I like to show these ships and include nice stories about their history so the ships come alive.

When the webside grew, I started adding older classic ships too, and Castles Of The Seas became more a way to show the evolution of modern cruiseships then just a collection of modern ships. The main focus still lies with the modern ships, but that is now mainly because they are the ships I mostly take pictures of because of the rapid demise of the classic cruiseship. But also the early modern ships are starting to become classic due to the fast developments in cruiseship design of the past 20 years or so. The early ships of the 1990's are now almost 20 years old and of a totally different generation then the ships that are built nowadays. And I think in 20 years time, we will again see a totally new kind of cruiseship. This has ever been so and this will not change.

Next to the cruiseships, I also feature ferries on this webside. This is the newest addition to the site as the thirth kind of ship next to modern and classic cruiseliners. I think ferries are a very interesting part of seatravel. They are a real link to the past because they operate sceduled linervoyages, long or short, and people sometimes really rely on them because no alternative is available.

I do never use programs like photoshop to create better pictures, all pictures shown on this website are original and not modified. I do not use it, because I think pictures always should be original, and they have to show the situation and the ship as it was at that exact moment. I also believe pictures can be beautiful without modification so the need to adjust things simply is not there. On the pictures, I try to avoid to have obstructing items in front of the main focus, although sometimes it can add something to the picture like depth or vibe. Also the background I think is very important, and I always try to look for the best shot. Within all pictures, I try to show a little of the vibe of the day. In that sense, rainy day pictures and dark clouds can be as fascinating as nice-weather shots.Because I took all of my pictures in Northern Europe, some well known ships and classes of ships are not included simply because they never sailed here. But in my opinion, Northen Europe is a great place to be, because of the wide variety of ships sailing this northern waters. Here you will find the new megaliners as well as the old classics of the seas and this combination gives a good indication of what cruiseships sail around the world today.

The information I use on this site comes from several books and websites, as well as newspapers and magazines and of course my own research. But I want to name www.maritimematters.com, www.cruisepage.com,  www.faktaomfartyg.se and the 'Great Passenger Ships Of The World'-books by Arnold Kludas, Frank Heine and Frank Lose as my main sources of information and data.