The Pride of Rotterdam was built as the latest generation of cruise-ferries for the historic Hull to Rotterdam route, the route after over 30 years was seeing the fourth new-design and new-build. Throughout the history of the route, barring short term charters the Hull to Rotterdam route has gone from new-build to new-build. The Pride of Rotterdam was designed effectively as two ships in one, three large freight decks being loaded via a single stern door and cars being loaded via a specially designed side ramp to a small car deck on 7 Deck.

The "Pride of Rotterdam" was built to replace the third-generation cruise-ferry Norsun (now renamed Pride of Bruges), and has proved to be very successful on the North-Sea route since entering service in 2001.