[9] Soon after this Safmarine decided to abandon their passenger operations, and in January 1986 the second Astor's construction contract was sold to the Mauritius-based Marlan Corporation.

[1] Immediately following delivery on 14 January 1987, the Astor set on her maiden voyage from Hamburg to Genoa and from there further to South America.

[citation needed] On 3 October 1988 Marlan Corporation sold the Astor to the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company.

Renamed Feodor Dostoevskiy and re-registered to the Soviet Union, the ship was chartered to the West German Transocean Tours in December 1988.

She was sailing in the Gulf of Oman en route from Sharm-al-Sheikh in Egypt to Dubai, when the German Brandenburg-class frigate Mecklenburg-Vorpommern detected pirate speedboats apparently attempting to attack Astor.

Warning bursts of machine gun fire were used to ward off the threat without those on the cruise ship becoming aware of the situation.

[14][15] In 2019, Cruise & Maritime Voyages announced it would rename Astor to Jules Verne and would deploy the ship in the French market beginning in May 2021.

[16][17] However, Cruise & Maritime Voyages entered administration in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ship was sold at auction by London-based C W Kellock on 15 October 2020 for $1,710,000.

[9] Like the 1981-built ship, the 1987-built Astor was furnished in traditional style using large amounts of dark wood, with many of the public rooms having high ceilings.