Tag Archives: Genting Hong Kong

With its yacht product, Crystal goes for small-ship intimacy

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The 31 suites on the refurbished Esprit are smaller but more intimate than one might expect on a traditional Crystal vessel.

ABOARD THE CRYSTAL ESPRIT — The latest ship in Crystal Cruises’ fleet lies anchored in a protective cluster of tropical islands in the Seychelles, the Indian Ocean archipelago. In one direction, the ship’s two-person submarine is taking enthralled passengers on a 30-minute tour of an undersea coral garden. In another, Zodiacs zip guests to a sandy beach prowled by giant tortoises.

One thing is clear: This isn’t your grandfather’s Crystal Cruises.

The debut of the Esprit after a Dec. 20 christening ceremony marks the operational start of a new era at Crystal under its Malaysian owners Genting Hong Kong, which acquired the line in March for $550 million from Japan’s NYK, which had owned it for 25 years.

Crystal has built up a dedicated cadre of loyalists, and its officials, led by CEO Edie Rodriguez, are confident that the new Crystal will maintain its traditional passenger base, while the extensions of its core cruise product will attract new blood.

So what is the Crystal Esprit like?

A dozen top travel agents on a preview cruise remarked first that the Crystal standard of service has been successfully imported, despite ocean swells that cut a week-long training cruise to a day and a half.

“They’re very friendly and warm,” said Ralph Iantosca, owner of Dallas-based GoGirl.Travel, commenting on staff and crew.


The ship’s Sunset Bar is outside but covered by a canopy.

Another strong impression was about the size of the ship. With just 31 suites, the ship has none of the scale of Crystal’s two 1,000-passenger vessels; instead, it boasts the intimacy of small-ship cruising.

Guests on the Crystal Esprit will get the chance to know each other well. Making a play on the name, Rodriguez said they will develop an “esprit de corps.” They will also make friends with the largely Filipino staff.

At 280 square feet, cabins are not huge by luxury standards, but nevertheless Iantosca said they exceeded his expectations.

The Esprit is not out-of-the-box new. It was built in 1991 and was transferred to Crystal from Genting’s Star Cruises, where it was a charter-only vessel for the company’s high-end customers.

Crystal spent three months redoing the vessel’s interior and giving it new decorations, cabinetry, carpeting and fixtures, said COO Thomas Mazloum.

Its five decks include a small plate/buffet restaurant, a slightly more formal dinner venue, a lounge and an expansive aft Sunset Bar, which is outdoors but covered by a white canopy.

There is a small pool and gym and a postage stamp of a casino.

A good part of the Esprit’s revenue is expected to be from charter business. After the ship was named, Genting Hong Kong chairman K.T. Lim stood in the Sunset Bar and gestured to a nearby yacht that was every bit as long as the 280-foot Esprit.

That yacht, Lim said, would likely charter for as much as $1 million a week, but it has far fewer staff and only a half-dozen bedrooms. By comparison, “this is an incredible value,” Lim said of the Esprit.

“I do a lot of yacht charters,” said Iantosca, “and for a client who doesn’t want to spend [big], this is a good alternative.”

Another feature that distinguishes the Esprit is a toy cabinet with all manner of water sports equipment, including a stylish 12-passenger Wider speedboat and a two-person U-Boat Worx submersible submarine that is one of only four in the world.


The Crystal Esprit made its debut last month in the Seychelles.

On a demo, we were startled to run across a half dozen scuba divers, who were probably equally startled to see the submarine with its 3.9-inch-thick acrylic bubble suspended between two pontoons.

The sub, which will take passengers on 30-minute excursions for $599 a person, is like scuba diving in a high-tech lounge chair.

Food on the Esprit is cooked nearly on demand, and an open kitchen enlivens the Yacht Club dinner venue.

There is a butler assigned to every stateroom, which didn’t match the vibe in the laid-back Seychelles, where the Esprit will sail this winter. In the spring it moves to the Adriatic where it will cruise the coast between Venice and Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Pressed for downsides, Iantosca said the small size of the ship cuts both ways.

“I think you need to be aware of motion” that rocks the ship depending on the vigor of the seas. But all things considered, Iantosca was pretty impressed.

Crystal Cruises parent agrees to buy German shipyard

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The parent company of Crystal Cruises has agreed to acquire leading shipyard Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Global cruise and resort company Genting Hong Kong is to pay €17.5 million for 70% of a new shipbuilding business and a 50% ownership of the shipyard’s land.

The company will complete the acquisition of Lloyd Werft subject to the fulfilment of certain final purchase conditions.

The move follows plans for massive expansion of Crystal Cruises with the introduction of Crystal Yacht Cruises in December, Crystal River Cruises and Crystal Luxury Air in 2017 and new cruise ships from late 2018.

Genting Hong Kong signed a letter of intent earlier this year with Lloyd Werft to build Crystal’s ‘Exclusive Class’ polar-class cruise ships.

Lloyd Werft will also build luxury river yachts to sail to destinations in France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Genting Hong Kong chairman and chief executive, Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, said: “Lloyd Werft has built and lengthened six of the ships owned by an affiliate of the company and has the expertise to build a series of world class cruise ships for the company, which will include the ‘Exclusive Class’ vessels for Crystal Cruises.

“Ownership in Lloyd Werft will enable Genting Hong Kong to leverage on the shipyard’s technical expertise and their well-established and long track record in the shipbuilding industry.”

Crystal president and chief executive, Edie Rodriguez, said: “With such great anticipation for Crystal River Cruises and Crystal Exclusive Class ocean vessels, we are incredibly excited about Genting’s groundbreaking investment in the Lloyd Werft shipyard that will contribute mightily to Crystal Cruises’ expansion.”

Should river lines be worried about Crystal?

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By Michelle Baran

Throughout the last several years of seemingly unstoppable growth in the river cruise market, ocean cruise lines have resisted getting in on the river action, a segment of the cruise market that, while clearly very popular, represents entirely different economics of scale (in other words, much lower passenger volumes) than ocean cruising.

So when Crystal Cruises announced a massive expansion initiative, including plans for two new river cruise vessels, it effectively became the first ocean line to cross into the river world.

Until the Crystal announcement, the only significant crossover in Europe had been in the opposite direction: river cruise heavyweight Viking Cruises launched its first ocean-going vessel this year (there are several smaller scale examples, such as Haimark, which has both river cruise vessels and a coastal cruise vessel, as well as the now-defunct Peter Deilmann Cruises and Cruise West, both of which dabbled in river and coastal cruising). And Crystal has been involved on the rivers before, via a marketing partnership with AmaWaterways.

Crystal hasn’t revealed much detail about the river cruise piece of its ocean-yacht-river-jet expansion plan. Lloyd Werft, the German shipyard that will construct Crystal’s new ocean ships, is also building two luxury, Crystal-branded river cruise vessels that will operate in Europe. (Crystal CEO Edie Rodriguez told Travel Weekly’s Tom Stieghorst that Crystal will reveal additional information about its river cruise product at a later date for competitive reasons.)

Looking at all of this, should river cruise lines be somewhat nervous? Could Crystal entering the river cruise business put a dent into the all the hard work they’ve put into creating, growing and developing the market these past years?

Well, Crystal still has to fit those plans into the same 38-by-410-foot dimensions that all river cruise vessels are limited to, due to the locks and bridges along Europe’s inland waterways. In that regard, Crystal will be up against the same innovation challenges the river lines have been grappling with through these growth years: how to maximize space and onboard offerings when square footage is so limited.

Additionally, for now at least, it’s only talking about two vessels, a tiny fraction of the overall river cruise inventory in Europe.

But under its new ownership of Genting Hong Kong, which clearly has ambitious plans for the company, Crystal could have enough resources at its fingertips to at least make some waves in the river cruise market, both from a hardware as well as from a marketing point of view.

“I think Crystal is doing a very smart thing,” said Donald Baasch of American Canyon, Calif.-based LastCallCruises. “They might as well make money on their customers instead of letting someone else have them, especially if they believe that a lot of them will inevitably want to try a river cruise.”

So, all told, surely the highly competitive river cruise industry has its eye on Crystal’s plans, but I doubt they are shaking in their boots quite yet.