John, Eastern/Western Cruise Line bought the Emerald Seas from Chandris about 1971. Once known as the President Roosevelt, the Emerald Seas was built in 1944 with an eye to sailing her around the world, and she served the country in WWII as a troopship.
As one of the oldest lines in the country, Eastern could trace its history back to 1868 when the company was incorporated in Mass. and had ships plying the islands off the New England coast. During WWII most of the company's ships had negative encounters with German subs. Two, however, the Evangeline and the Yarmouth, managed to escape the German navy and returned to Boston where they sailed for some years between NY, Bridgeport and Canada.
In 1954 F. Leslie Fraser, a Jamaican living in Miami, purchased the two cruisers and brought them to Miami where they docked right downtown in the middle of what is now Bayfront Park.
By the 1960's Fraser had bought another ship, the Arosa Star, renamed it the Bahama Star and was doing a booming business on 3 and 4 night cruises to Nassau. Meanwhile the line's two original ships cruised to the Caribbean and Central and South America on longer voyages. This line also owned the Ariadne at one time, but eventually sold those ships, ending up with their present vessel, the Emerald Seas. In December of 1982 she began sailing to the Bahamas.
This information was taken almost word for word from the 1987-1988 Edition of Frommer's Dollarwise Guide to Cruises. by Marylyn Springer and Don A Schultz