MS Silja Serenade

MS Silja Serenade is a cruiseferry owned by the Estonian shipping company Tallink Group, operated under their Silja Line brand on a route connecting Helsinki, Finland to , Sweden via Mariehamn. She was built in 1990 at Masa-Yards Turku New Shipyard, Finland.

The ship was ordered on 26 October 1987 by Effoa for Silja Line traffic. The ship had a revolutionary interior layout, a promenade-street running alongside the central axis of the ship for nearly her full length. This allowed amongst other things for a larger number of cabins with windows (today such promenades are found in the most recent ships of Royal Caribbean and Color Line). Before the ship was completed Silja Line's owners Effoa and Johnson Line merged to form EffJohn, and it was to EffJohn that the Silja Serenade was delivered on 15 November 1990. On November 18 she began service on the route Helsinki– route. Her original homeport was Helsinki, but in 1992 she was reflagged to the Ålandian shipregistry, her homeport altered to Mariehamn. This allowed Silja to make more money from her onboard slot machines and casino, due to legislation differences between Åland and the Finnish mainland. When Silja Line acquired Silja Europa in 1993 the Serenade was moved to the Turku–Mariehamn– route. The Silja Serenade was somewhat ill-suited for this route, her accommodations were not designed for daytime crossings and reportedly she steered poorly in the narrow archipelagoes of Stockholm, Åland and Turku. In 1995 it was decided that the Europa and Serenade switch routes, returning the Serenade to her original route, again sailing parallel to her sister ship Silja Symphony. In order to keep tax free sales on the –Helsinki ships when the EU changed its tax free legislation, a stop at Mariehamn was added to the route in July 1999. In early 2006, just prior to the sale of Silja Line to Tallink, Serenade and her sister had their interiors extensively rebuilt at Luonnonmaan telakka, Naantali.