Has anyone sailed on the Discovery Sun

[Joanandjoe]

I was surprised to find out a few minutes ago that the first ship on which we sailed, the Freeport, is still in service, and once again going between Florida and Grand Bahama, as the Discovery Sun. The ship was built in 1968, so it's quite old, and has had a lot of names and a lot of uses. According to http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/, here is the history of the ship:

Freeport I was built in 1968 by Orenstein-Koppel und Lübecker Machinenbau, Lübeck, for the Miami Terminal Transport Co (Freeport Cruise Line), running between Miami-Freeport. She was renamed Freeport I soon after delivery. In 1973, she was sold to Oy Birka Line Ab, Mariehamn, and renamed Freeport for cruises between Stockholm-Helsinki. Later the same year, Freeport was sold again to Stockholms Rederi AB Svea, for the Trave-Line service Helsingborg-Tuborg (Copenhagen)-Travemünde as Svea Star. In 1976 she was sold to Bremer Schiffahrts for a summer car ferry service between Portland (USA) and Yarmouth (Canada). In winter she was chartered to Commodore Cruise Line for Caribbean cruises. In 1981 she was renamed Caribe Bremen, before being sold to Caribe Bremen, she was sold to Scandinavian World Cruises as the Scandinavian Sun for a Miami-Freeport service. She was chartered to SeaEscape Cruises in 1985, followed by purchase in 1988. In 1992, Scandinavian Sun was sold to Belle Meade Shipping, and renamed Balanga Queen for the Corona Line between Karlskrona-Gdynia. In 1994 Balanga Queen was chartered to Hansatee, Tallinn, Estonia, and used on a Tallink route Tallinn-Helsinki-Tallinn-Travemünde. The same year, she returned to the Caribbean as Discovery Sun for Discovery Cruises.

Has anyone taken the day trip on the Discovery Sun? If so, we'd like to know what the ship is like after almost 40 years. It obviously has changed: there are no overnights, so most of what was once cabin space is now devoted to other uses.

According to this article, http://web.archive.org/web/20021209054641/...overy_sun_1.htm, the Freeport, as originally built, had 690 cabin berths and a total capacity of 812. Since we count ship size at the nominal capacity, not the full (more than 2 to a room) capacity, we'll add another "under 750" to our ship size post.