Crystal Harmony to Leave Fleet

Following several years of growth, ship consolidation in the U.S. luxury end continues with the announcement Thursday night that the Crystal Harmony will be leaving Crystal's fleet in early December. The announcement comes shortly after Radisson Seven Seas announced in successive stages the removal of the oldest ships from its fleet.

The Harmony, in service since 1990 and extensively renovated in 2002, will move over to the Japanese cruise division of Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK, which also owns Crystal) and be renamed Asuka II. It will begin sailing under its new brand in April 2006.

In concurrence with the departure of the Harmony, Crystal made it official that they will be building a new ship, hence returning in time to a three-ship operation. However, since no order has been placed with a yard yet, the line can't speculate on the time frame for the replacement. Given general construction periods, it's unlikely to arrive prior to 2008 and perhaps not be in service until 2009, meaning that while the long-term future is bright, high-end cruisers will have 940 less quality berths to pick from for a considerable time period.

With the Harmony leaving in early December, clients booked on the 12-day holiday cruise (a Caribbean sailing out of New Orleans) will be offered the same price for same categories for 14-day departures on Serenity (Mexican Riviera ex. Los Angeles) and Crystal Symphony (Caribbean cruise ex. Ft. Lauderdale). Another option, beyond a full refund, is passengers booked on cancelled Harmony sailings can receive a $250 future cruise credit on any 2006 cruise.

In the short term, one impact of the news is that the Harmony is likely to become one of the hottest sellers in the industry in the upcoming months. She has a lot of loyal fans, and it's likely many of them will want to take one last sailing before her departure. Making it easy, she'll be in markets readily accessible to many of these loyal followers--Alaska ex. San Francisco, Mexican Riviera ex. Los Angeles. A few years back, when the Los Angeles Times used to have Southern California readers rate their favorite ship, the Harmony finished on top. The last sailing under the Crystal banner will be a seven-day Mexican Riviera departing Los Angeles on November 18.

The departure of the Harmony also means that Alaska will be out of the picture for Crystal in 2006. "We're sorry to eliminate Alaska, being the only luxury operating roundtrip out of San Francisco for several years," says Crystal VP Mimi Weisband. "But we had to make a choice, and the truth is Europe is so hot that we couldn't not have a ship in the Baltic or in the Mediterranean."

While the Crystal Serenity will maintain her schedule for 2006, the Crystal Symphony's January-May schedule has been revised to incorporate several sailings originally planned for Harmony. There will now be additional winter Panama Canal transit, new Amazon cruises, Cape Horn and East Coast South America cruises, an Atlantic crossing, and an additional 10-day Med cruise before resuming her previously announced pattern beginning on May 18.

Cruise Week 3/31/05

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