MS Deutschland (starting in 2015 also sailing as World Odyssey from September until April each year) is a cruise ship launched in 1998 and owned and operated by Peter Deilmann Cruises until 2015. She is decorated in the 1920s style as it could be seen in SS Columbus of Norddeutscher Lloyd. The ship carries 513 passengers and 260 crew members. She has a gross tonnage of 22,400 and has seven passenger accessible decks. History In 2000, Air France Flight 4590 crashed near Paris, killing all 100 passengers and 9 crew members on board. The New York City-bound Concorde charter flight had been carrying passengers for a sixteen-day cruise to Manta, Ecuador on board MS Deutschland. Despite the accident, the cruise continued as planned and was later sailed to Sydney, Australia for the 2000 Summer Olympics as a use for entertainment ship. During the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the German Olympic Committee used the MS Deutschland as a hospitality ship. On 19 May 2015 the MS Deutschland was sold over to the Absolute Nevada company based in the United States, which purchased the ship for approximately $21 million. The new owners took on approximately half of the crew. Initially the ship was planned to serve as a floating university for the American organization Semester at Sea and in the process was reflagged to Nassau in the Bahamas. It was proposed that the ship would be renamed World Odyssey following a refit at a northern European shipyard. On 31 May 2015, Plantours announced that they would be chartering the ship for four sailings between 9 June 2015 and 29 July 2015 whilst its usual ship MS Hamburg was repaired. The crew of MS Hamburg travelled to Gibraltar to prepare the ship, before guests embarked on 9 June 2015 in Kiel. Places in the additional 80 cabins were made as a result of MS Deutschland being larger than planned MS Hamburg ship. It was on this occasion that MS Deutschland began sailing under the Bahamas flag, and its funnel was painted into Plantours yellow branding. From 20 June 2015 to 10 August 2015 the ship carried cruise tours to the North Sea, Norwegian Fjords, Svalbard, Greenland, the Faroes and Shetland Islands and to Hamburg city before ending in Kiel. On 27 July 2015 the new owners of ship announced that the ship would alternate between two roles. For part of the year