MIAMI -- Island Cruises, a joint venture between Royal Caribbean
Cruises and U.K. tour operator First Choice Holidays, scrapped its
plan to market cruises in the U.S.
The cruise line had planned to offer two Panama Canal sailings
and a series of three- and four-night Baja Mexico sailings
roundtrip from Los Angeles this winter on its only ship, the Island
Escape.
But now, the company said, it will shift the Island Escape to
South America, and its marketing focus to Brazil. The ship will
return to the Mediterranean in the spring and summer of 2003, where
it will be marketed to U.K. and European vacationers.
The itinerary change will help Island Cruises' "original
strategy of building international business," the line's new
managing director Michael Bayley said.
Reservations had not been taken for the trans-canal or
U.S.-based sailings, the company said.