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In 1961, the third of the new sister ships, Empress of Canada (III) replaced Empress of France, and Canadian Pacific finally had a complete fleet of modern liners on the transatlantic service. However the emergence of the Boeing 707 sounded the death knell for passenger transit shipping. By the early 1960s transatlantic air travel had become cheaper than sea transit. As a result, within ten years of Empress of Canada's launch, all three new white Empresses has been sold off and had become cruise ships. Empress of Britain's last transatlantic voyage was in 1963, and Empress of England was sold by CPS in 1970. The arrival of Empress of Canada at Liverpool for the last time in November 1971 marked the end of 80 years of Canadian Pacific passenger shipping.

Empress of England was not commercially successful, and was beset with problems as the cruise ship Ocean Monarch with Shaw Savill Line. She was scrapped in 1975. Empress of Britain had a long spell with Greek Line from 1965 as the Queen Anna Maria, named by and after the Queen of Greece -- the only ship ever to be named by two reigning Queens. In 1975 however the two remaining ships came back together when the former Empress of Britain was sold to Carnival Cruise Lines to become the Carnivale. She thus joined the former Empress of Canada, which had been sold to the newly formed Carnival in February 1972 to be their first ship, the Mardi Gras. The Canadian Pacific funnel logo (CP had dropped the red & white chequered design in 1968) was modified to become Carnival's logo, and the ships remained all white. This remains the now familar livery of Carnival Cruise Line ships. All Carnival ships still have a deck named 'Empress Deck', inherited from Canadian Pacific's White Empresses. The two ships are probably best remembered for their twenty odd year careers with Carnival, starting at that company's very beginnings.

In 1990 Carnival began expanding its fleet with large, new ships, starting with the 70,000 ton Fantasy, and within four years it had relinquished Mardi Gras and Carnival. Both ships however continued as budget cruise ships into recent years. Their style and panache from the CP days was still evident, especially in the case of the former Empress of Canada, which had turned out to be the very last of the White Empresses, She was sold by Carnival in 1993 and went through the identities Star of Texas and Lucky Star with Epirotiki. In 1999 she sailed from Liverpool again for Direct Cruises as the Apollon, but this company was bought by the UK travel company Airtours, who preferred to use other cruise ships under their own brand name. After being laid up in Greece, Apollon was sadly sent to India for scrapping in December 2003, and was completely broken up by November 2004.

In 1993 Carnivale, the former Empress of Britain, was transferred to a small Carnival subsidiary and renamed Fiesta Marina. But this operation petered out, and from 1994 she sailed with Epirotiki as Olympic. In 1998 she was acquired by UK-based Thompson Cruises and renamed Topaz. Thomson used Topaz for all-inclusive, budget Mediterranean fly cruises out of Palma, Majorca. In 2002/3 both P&O and Royal Caribbean Cruises decided to capitalise on this growing market, introducing newer, larger ships -- Ocean Village and Island Breeze respectively. Topaz could not compete with these, and having chartered a more competitive ship themselves (Thomson Spirit), Thomson relinquished Topaz. Nevertheless in her forty eighth year of service she achieved yet another lease of life and was chartered to the Japanese educational organisation Peace Boat, for round the world voyages.

Topaz was the last survivor of the Canadian Pacific passenger fleet. SOLAS (Safety of Life At Sea) regulations which came in in 2010 mean that Topaz and ships of her era were no longer deemed seaworthy. Sadly Topaz was consequently retired in April 2008 and sold to breakers in Alang, India.

In 2001 Canadian Pacific spun off its various divisions. The freight shipping unit became a separate company, CP Ships, which in 2002 adopted the red and white chequered flag as its corporate logo. CP Ships was acquired by TUI AG in December 2005, and was integrated into its Hapag-Lloyd division in order to create one of the world's five largest container shipping companies. Hapag-Lloyd follows a single-brand strategy, and the CP Ships brand was phased out in 2006.