Silversea Cruises, a boutique cruise brand owned by Royal Caribbean, is the new owner of Crystal Endeavor, winning an auction for the expedition ship that became available with the liquidation of Crystal Cruises, and it's making the most of it.
After a brief pause to rename the ship Silversea Endeavour (yes, it's added a British 'u' in the name) the ship will take over for Silversea's Silver Explorer, which will be retired from the fleet. Endeavour can hold 200 guests, while Explorer topped out at 144, leaving the line with a chance to sell more tickets.
Silversea paid a reported $275 million for the ship, which originally cost $385 million when it was launched last year by Crystal; on a per berth basis, it is the most expensive cruiser ever built, costing about 10 times as much per berth as the huge super cruisers of other lines.
In an unusual move, Royal Caribbean is notifying passengers who had booked cruises on the ship under the old owners or who had paid deposits that it will cover the difference between their costs and whatever they may get from the bankruptcy court or from travel insurance.
The goodwill gesture is likely to help build brand loyalty and even though it will not be a cheap gesture, is still far less than how much more it would have cost for Royal Caribbean to build a new polar-class ship from scratch.
Silversea plans to use the new ship entirely on Arctic and Antarctic cruises, with seasonal transits between them. Crystal's other two ships were acquired by Abercrombie and Kent, which will operate them under the Crystal name.
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