For those who don’t know a thing about it, the original Love Boat was a very successful comedy/romantic TV series that lasted an astonishing 10 years from 1977 to 1987.

The ship you see in the credits above, the actual “Love Boat” of the title, was at the time called The Pacific Princess and later was known as the MS Pacific.

The passage of time has not been kind for the ship.  As beautiful as she may look in those opening credits (this is assuming you enjoy looking at cruise ships), the fact is that the more modern cruise ships with their voluminous amenities and much, much bigger size (which equals more passengers which in turn equals more profits) have rendered the poor Pacific Princess an unprofitable relic.

The Pacific Princess is now docked at a Turkish scrapyard and taking on water.  It is listing to its side and waiting to be torn apart.

For those curious to see what this once majestic ship looks like today and before she’s gone forever, click here:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/cruiselog/2014/01/29/cruise-ship-tour-love-boat/5011661/

To whet your appetite, here’s the first of the many photographs from both outside and inside the ship presented on the above website:

I don’t quite know why, but seeing this ship lying in such a state of disrepair makes me sad.  While I was never a terribly big fan of The Love Boat (and haven’t seen so much as a minute of the Robert Urich starring The Love Boat The Next Wave), I can’t deny having seen some of the original show and finding it, at the time, entertaining.

Ah well, time moves on and as for Pacific Princess, may she rest in peace.