Cruise liner Dream Cruises will dock its World Dream ship forever after drowning in financial losses.
Owner Genting Hong Kong announced today that it had failed to acquire funds to stay afloat and would stop sailing tomorrow. It directed passengers who’ve already booked cruises to file a claim.
“Despite the continued efforts to source and introduce external funding, the group’s liquidity continues to deteriorate given the absence of sustainable operational income under current challenging circumstance and in the face of mounting creditor pressure which poses an immediate threat to the operation of the vessel,” it wrote.
Those who have placed deposits for cruises booked after tomorrow can submit claims to liquidators Alvarez and Marsal but the operator did not confirm whether they would be honored, saying that it is “assessing the impact of the cessation of operation of the World Dream, in particular its ability to meet potential refund claims.”
It added that it managed to get “emergency funding” to schedule 16 more cruises after Genting applied to wind up the company in late January. Since then, it has been coming up with potential remediation plans and facilitating the restructuring of the group.
Since the start of the outbreak, the cruise line tried to cut losses by offering cruises around Singapore, which launched in November 2020. It also had a COVID scare in July after a passenger tested positive.
But this was not enough to hold its ship together as Genting Hong Kong reported a net loss of US$1.7 billion for 2020 and US$238 million in the first half of last year.
Besides Dream Cruises, which operates the Genting Dream and Explorer Dream vessels, Genting Hong Kong also runs Star Cruises and Miami’s Crystal Cruises.
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