Ambassador Cruise Line has been forced to delay the launch of its first ship Ambience by two weeks.

The cruise line said there had been “significant recent supply-side delays” leading to a “temporary lack of availability of marine gas oil in Croatia”, where the ship had been in dry dock.

Despite the issues now being resolved, the ship’s maiden voyage to Hamburg, originally planned for 6 April 2022, will now depart on 20 April.

Ambience’s first two sailings to the Norwegian Fjords have subsequently been cancelled.

Ambassador Cruise Line CEO Christian Verhounig said: “We have taken the difficult decision today to delay the launch of our first ship Ambience.

“It’s not a decision that has been made in haste but something we have been working tirelessly to try and avoid.

“While we were able to mitigate several delays impacting our extensive programme of works during the period Ambience was in dry dock, everyone is aware that there is at present, extensive supply chain disruption and delays in many commercial areas. Most recently these have been worsened by the crisis in Ukraine.

“It has therefore not been possible to depart for London Tilbury on the original date we had planned.

“This has had a knock-on effect to our inaugural sailing programme which we have managed to limit to the three initial sailings.”

Verhounig added that despite the delay, the ship had been fully refurbished and “is now operating to a higher level of environmental responsibility, the captain and crew are on board, and she is looking wonderful”.

“All of us at Ambassador cannot wait to welcome our first guests on board. We appreciate that our guests may have questions beyond our initial communications to them, so we’re making more staff available today and opening our phone lines tomorrow to offer peace of mind and help with booking alternative sailings.”

Ambience will be joined by a second ship, Ambition, in 2023. The 1,200-guest vessel has been purchased from Costa, which operated it under the AIDA brand as AIDAMira.