Crystal Cruises Operations Suspended

[dottythecat]

I am feel so badly for the guests and crew.

[zalusky]

We needed to cancel a Royal Caribbean cruise for medical reasons and my travel agent said give me a few days as Crystal is filling up all my time right now.

[Heidi13]

It is way more serious than simply suspending operations.

 

In 2015, Crystal's original owners NYK Line sold the company to Genting Hong Kong. In August 2020, Genting stopped making payments on their substantial debt. In addition to Crystal, Genting also owns other cruise lines and 2 German shipyards, which were building new tonnage for their various cruise lines.

 

Last year the German Govt provided a grant to keep the doors open. However, on 10th January 2022 the shipyards filed for bankruptcy protection. A couple of days ago, a Miami Court issued an arrest warrant for Crystal Symphony over multi-million dollar unpaid fuel bills.

 

The Crystal Symphony was scheduled to complete a cruise in Florida today, but terminated the cruise in Bahamas, sending pax back to the US on a ferry. This was to prevent the ship being arrested. Sadly, this is simply delaying the inevitable, as once the ship is securely berthed, the US Court can petition the Bahamas, which uses English Common Law, to execute the arrest warrant.

 

Genting HK has also indicated it will also run out of cash by the end of January.

[OceanPatter]

Thank you, Heidi13, for the apt recap. In the past, there was all this discussion about Crystal vs Viking/luxury vs non-luxury, etc. In retrospect, those were trivial considerations  … especially when the real issue should have been insolvency vs financial viability.

Edited January 23, 2022 by OceanPatter

[dottythecat]

Thanks, Heidi 13. I also saw you on the Crystal site. They all have a mess on their hands today trying to get home. Is the crew left hanging?

 

[Heidi13]

13 hours ago, dottythecat said:

Thanks, Heidi 13. I also saw you on the Crystal site. They all have a mess on their hands today trying to get home. Is the crew left hanging?

 

 

If the company does not repatriate the crew, they do have the ability to attain assistance from the ITF and various seafarer unions. They can also have lawyers raise a lien against the ship.

 

While Crystal didn't respect their passengers, we can only hope they pay and repatriate the crew members.