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Originally posted by sslewis:

So they have a good link with RCI now.
I saw a documentary on SkyTravel about Island Escape, from which all crew seems to escape!
The captain was then the very likeable John Horn, was it the one you got that info from?

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Island Cruises always had a good link with RCI. In fact Island Cruises was created by RCI and First Choice as a joint venture. RCI provided the first ship, the ex-VIKING SERENADE. I'm not sure what the RCI stake in Island Cruises is now, but I'm fairly certain it's quite high.

It had been rumored that ZENITH and HORIZON would eventually find their way to Island Cruises. Maybe it's true??

Keep a watch on Carnival Corp. rival Ocean Village. If Island Cruises is adding tonnage, then Ocean Village can't be far behind. REGAL PRINCESS is an obvious candidate.

[ 11-30-2004: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

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Those *#%#?#!!.... it would be ashame if they did sell her...That is one beautiful ship...and i can't see her as anything else, than a celebrity ship.....Frankly she will look very odd..in an other livery.....

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you're right Salaison .
but i guess this is the end for all the innovates cruise
ships: to be transport to a budget or mass market
cruise line .
just like the Noordam , Niew Aamsterdam , and now
the Horizon
and to imagine her in all white colour scheme..

Elad

[ 11-30-2004: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

Celebrity either had to refurb or dump. I'm glad they dumped.

Celebrity Cruises pride themselves on having a young five star fleet. ‘Horizon’ is there oldest vessel at fourteen years old. She’s also small by modern standards at around 46,000 tons. The fleet expanded pretty dramatically with the ‘Millennium’ newbuilds, so it was only a matter of time before some older tonnage was shed. ‘Zenith’ will be next, in maybe a couple of years?

Horizon is probably starting to get more expensive to maintain and at half the size of the Millennium vessels, she cannot provide the same financial economies of scale. I’m not privy to the Celebrity's statistics, but she may be regarded as ‘out of date’ by some passengers and her bookings may not be as strong as they used to be?

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Originally posted by 6263866:

I hope they're not gonna change Horizon much and bring her down to a 3 star ship.

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The fact that she is no longer state-of-the art begins to degrade her star rating. In addition, Island Cruises are not in the business of running five star cruises, so we can expect some degrading of the product.

I don’t care much for Horizon or Zenith so I would not make a point about Horizon going to another fleet. Only pity is that again smaller intimate ships are fading out of existence and the large famous brands dump the smaller ships. Celebrity could create an excellent product on a small ship. A small ship is far better in creating high quality services and there are always people willing to pay the extra (and thus put right the money you would have loosed by running one or two small ship within a fleet of mega ships) I wouldn’t mind if Costa, Celebrity and HAL would have at least one small ship of about 30,000 tons.

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Originally posted by cruiseshipluver:
i cant belive that....... right after they anounced the '05 intenaries...

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We do not know it is true, yet.

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Originally posted by elad:
dear WhiteStar
is this a lobby with low ceiling?

i dont think so........

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Compared to the Infinity which I've sailed on...yes.

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Originally posted by Noordam:
But they are 80s/90s ships and aren't up to snuff today without an extensive refurbishment... Look at this picture with Pink Pastel and an old leather couch!!!!

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Have you seen the interior of the ROYAL PRINCESS? Totally 80's interiors, yet, still as popular as ever to the very end (of her life as ROYAL PRINCESS).

P.S. That pink is not there now, that's an old picture.

[ 11-30-2004: Message edited by: CGT ]

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Originally posted by CGT:
Have you seen the interior of the ROYAL PRINCESS? Totally 80's interiors, yet, still as popular as ever to the very end (of her life as ROYAL PRINCESS).

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FWIW (not much), some friends of ours just returned from Asia on Royal and they said when they first boarded they were shocked. They did not like the interiors and said it felt very dated. Ironically, that was our same exact impression some 11 years ago when we sailed Royal to the Baltic... and she was only 9-years-old at the time.

Of course, I have to note, that both we and our friends came to the same conclusion... the small-ship experience provided a more warm and 'family' type environment and we grew to love Royal by the end of our journeys on her.