The ship, which was originally known as the Alexandr Pushkin and operated by Russia’s Baltic Steamship Company, made its first departure from Tilbury, sailing to Leningrad on October 26, 1965.

This weekend’s celebrations at the London International Cruise Terminal will include onboard lunches and dinner as well as overnight events on October 30-31. The ship was originally built in East Germany and began sailing on a transatlantic route between St Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) and Montreal, with calls at Helsinki, Copenhagen, London and Quebec City.

The announcement of the route was reported in TTG on October 16, 1964. The vessel’s name was changed to Marco Polo in 1991 when the ship was purchased by Orient Lines and underwent a $60 million rebuild.

CMV began operating the ship five years ago. As part of the celebrations, CMV has also operated 50th anniversary cruises on Marco Polo to Canada.

CMV head of marketing Mike Hall said: “Marco Polo has probably covered more nautical miles and visited more ports of call than virtually any other cruise ship.” CMV uses Tilbury as its home port and is expecting more than 100,000 passengers to sail from the Essex terminal this year, which compares with 54,000 in 2014. The line is likely to increase numbers further next year when three of its ships will depart from Tilbury: Magellan, Astor and Marco Polo.

The anniversary celebrations at Tilbury on October 30-31 are priced at £49pp for lunch and £79pp for dinner, plus £10 for an overnight stay with breakfast.