MS Starward was a cruise ship built in 1968 at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremerhaven, West Germany. Originally commissioned for Norwegian Caribbean Line after the success of its first ship, , Starward was the first purpose-built ship for the newly-established cruise line. In 1995, Starward was sold to Festival Cruises, which they renamed the vessel Bolero. The vessel was shortly chartered to Spanish Cruise Line, however, it was sold to Abou Merhi Cruises after Festival Cruises was forced to declare bankruptcy in early 2004. In 2006, Louis Cruise Lines bought Orient Queen and kept the name intact. Orient Queen was briefly used the United States Government in 2006 to evacuate U.S. citizens out of Lebanon due to conflict between Lebanon and Israel. Louis Cruise Lines renamed the ship to Louis Aura in 2012. In 2017, Etstur, a Turkish travel agency, chartered the ship and renamed it to Aegean Queen. She was sold to for scrap the following year, and was broken up in Alang, India. History After the success of , Knut Kloster, founder and owner of Norwegian Caribbean Line, asked naval architect Tage Wandborg to design an optimum cruise ship for the market. Built at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremerhaven, West Germany, Starward would also have a roll-on/roll-off freight capacity to transport vehicles. During construction, however, the demand for cruises on Sunward greatly exceeded, which prompted Kloster to request Wandborg to change the design and exclude the freight capacity for cabins instead. On 21 December 1968, Starward sailed on its first cruise out of Miami, Florida, United States. Starward was the first Norwegian-flagged ship to meet American ‘Method 1’ fire-protection standards that specified the use of non-combustible materials throughout passenger and crew accommodations. In 1995, Greek line Festival Cruises announced that Starward would be delivered to them from Norwegian Cruise Line in October of the same year, renaming the vessel to Bolero. In 2001, Festival Cruises chartered the ship to Spanish Cruise Line. Following the collapse of Festival Cruises, Bolero was bought by Cruises Elysia in 2004 who sold her on to Abou Merhi Cruises as Orient Queen. She was refitted the following year at a cost of $9.5 million, with the addition of a helicopter pad that was added and managed by Österreichischer Lloyd Ship Management. Orient Queen operated from Beirut for six months with seven-day cruises to Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. In November 2005,