The vessel was built in 1986 as Olympia at the Wärtsilä Perno Shipyard in Turku, Finland for Rederi AB Slite, Sweden for use in Viking Line traffic.

[1] She was sold by Irish Continental Group to St. Peter Line in December 2010 and renamed Princess Anastasia and operated on the Saint Petersburg – Helsinki – Stockholm – Tallinn route.

It is thought the ferry either collided with, or had a near-miss, with the 25-foot (8 m) yacht Ouzo off the Isle of Wight on 20 August, leading to the deaths from drowning of all on board.

On 20 September 2006 a P&O Ferries employee from Pride of Bilbao was arrested by police on suspicion of causing manslaughter through gross negligence.

The defence contended that lights were visible astern of the ferry, encounters with yachts were common, and Ouzo was not the vessel involved in the near miss.

[12] Pride of Bilbao briefly featured in an episode of Only Fools and Horses called Strangers on the Shore which saw Del Boy and Rodney Trotter travel to the village of St. Claire a la Chapelle in northern France to represent Uncle Albert at a naval reunion.

The ship left Portsmouth for the last time on 30 September 2010, after all P&O merchandise and other equipment had been removed, and sailed to Falmouth for refurbishment.

Renamed Princess Anastasia, she left Falmouth just after Christmas 2010 and made her way to Skagen in Norway arriving 31 December 2010 where she anchored off for a couple of days.

She set sail from Saint Petersburg on 31 March and docked in Stockholm the next day on 1 April, completing her first passenger voyage since September 2010.

[14] During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, sailings had been cancelled[15] and Princess Anastasia was used as an accommodation ship at a construction yard in Murmansk,[16] where she remained until early 2022.

[18] On the evening of 6 November 2019 Princess Anastasia ran aground outside Lidingö in Stockholm en route to Helsinki, after suffering a black-out of the ship's electrical systems.