HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- After putting the 860-passenger, 20,000-ton
Crown Dynasty into seven-day service from Aruba late last year, the
revived Crown Cruise Line is experiencing above-target load factors
at just under 100%, reported president Ron Kurtz.
Encouraged by initial results, the line's parent company,
Commodore Holdings, signed an agreement to buy the vessel for $82.2
million from its Helsinki owner, Kurtz said, with the closing
scheduled for the end of January.
The Crown Dynasty was operated by Crown before the line
disbanded in the mid-1990s, with Cunard taking over the ship's
marketing. Later, the vessel was operated by Norwegian Cruise Line
as the Norwegian Crown, which late last year was turned over to
Commodore, which restored the name of the ship and revived the
line.
An asset of the resurrected Crown is a three-year agreement with
Bermuda for the vessel to call at the Royal Naval Dockyards through
2002. Kurtz said Crown set competitive rates for both the Aruba
winter season and the Bermuda season thereafter.
Group rates as well as special Florida resident pricing start at
$799 per person for an outside cabin in value season, increasing to
$839 in peak season, including port charges. That does not include
a $149 roundtrip air add-on from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., or $179
from Tampa, Fla.
For the seven-day Bermuda sailings from Philadelphia and
Baltimore, the outside cabins start at $1,199 in value season, and
increase to $1,399 in peak summer months. For this year's Aruba
season, which extends through April, Crown is handling sales and
marketing in the southern tier of the U.S., with northern states
being handled by Apple Vacations.
For the Bermuda season, sales and marketing is exclusively
through Philadelphia-based Apple. After Bermuda, the Crown Dynasty
will sail seven-day cruises from Baltimore to Quebec and back,
before returning to Aruba for the 2001 winter season.
Kurtz, who noted that the Crown Dynasty under Cunard enjoyed
ratings as high as four-and-a-half stars, said that the revived
Crown line would strive to maintain those ratings.
Besides undertaking a $5 million renovation, Crown added 40 more
crew members to the hotel staff, a 20% increase. The
Continental-style cuisine, which is being catered by Apollo Ships
Chandlers of Miami, has undergone a major budget increase, he
said.
Noting that there are about 30 ships operating in the premium
category, he added: "It's very unusual to find a ship in the
premium market that's this size and yet is relatively new."
Kurtz said that travel agents who are interested in
familiarizing themselves with the Crown Dynasty can sail in
February at the rate of $35 per person, per day, not including port
charges and gratuities.