Celebrity Cruises and its new sister
company, Madrid-based Pullmantur, will swap ships in the spring, a
move that will expand Celebrity's Xpeditions brand, according to
parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises.
Royal Caribbean,
which last month received antitrust approval for its purchase of
Pullmantur, said it will move Pullmantur's Blue Dream to
Celebrity's Xpeditions fleet, rename it the Celebrity Journey and
send the Celebrity Zenith to Pullmantur. One other Xpeditions ship,
the Celebrity Xpedition, operates in the Galapagos
Islands.
Celebrity President
Dan Hanrahan called the 718-passenger Blue Dream a "versatile ship"
and said that despite being smaller than the 1,350-berth Zenith, it
would perform better.
"We believe we will
get much higher revenues out of the Celebrity Journey than we did
out of the Zenith," Hanrahan said during RCCL's third-quarter
earnings call.
The Journey will
join Celebrity's fleet in April and replace the Zenith for the
summer Bermuda schedule. The Journey will sail out of Bayonne,
N.J., beginning May 5.
The Zenith will
join Pullmantur's fleet in June. Before that, it will sail
Caribbean itineraries from Tampa until April 13, ending its
Celebrity service with a final repositioning cruise to Bermuda. It
will then sail seven-night Mediterranean cruises between Athens and
Venice for Pullmantur.
"It is gratifying
to see the benefits of our new alliance come together so quickly,"
said Alfonso Lopez Perez, Pullmantur's general manager. "Adding
Zenith to our fleet gives us greater strength in meeting the
demands of the Spanish market."
Both ships will
undergo dry-dock time. The Journey will be retrofitted with
Celebrity signature elements, including two specialty restaurants,
an expanded spa and additional guest suites. The Zenith will get
balcony cabins and enlarged public spaces. It will be customized
for Spanish tastes.
RCCL said rounding
out the Celebrity brand has been an important focus for the
company, and that the expansion of Celebrity Expeditions furthers
that objective.
To
contact reporter Johanna Jainchill, send e-mail to [email protected].