Originally the company concentrated in chartering tankers and cargo ships to other shipping companies, but in 1974 Olau Line started a car/passenger ferry services from Sheerness in the United Kingdom to Vlissingen in the Netherlands and from Copenhagen (Denmark) to Aalborg (Denmark).

By the end of the 1970s the company was in heavy debt, and in 1979 Ole Lauritzen was forced to sell 50% of Olau Line to the West Germany-based TT-Line.

TT-Line decided to invest in new, large state-of-the-art cruiseferries for Olau services.

In 1986 and 1987 the company had taken delivery of two cruise ferries for their route between Germany and Sweden, and it was decided that two additional sisters of the same type would be built for Olau Line.

[2][3][4] At the time P&O Ferries were looking for new tonnage for their Portsmouth to Le Havre route and had identified the two Olau ships as suitable, while TT-Line (which had also been having financial issues) did not want the distraction of continuing labour issues at its UK subsidiary.