Editor’s note: This article was originally posted on August 26, 2018 but has been updated to a new format and expanded upon.
There’s a lot to unpack in the story of Crystal Cruises’ dramatic transformation under Genting Hong Kong, so please bear with me as we explore the highs and lows of this luxury cruise line’s recent history.
In 2015, Genting Hong Kong, a subsidiary of the Genting Group, acquired Crystal Cruises from NYK Line for $550 million. This marked the beginning of a bold and aggressive expansion plan aimed at transforming Crystal into the world’s most luxurious and diverse travel brand.
Genting’s vision included:
- Shipbuilding: Acquiring Lloyd Werft and forming MV Werften shipyards in Germany to build these ambitious new ships for Crystal and sister brand Star Cruises.
- New Ocean Ships: Orders for new, purpose-built ocean vessels.
- River Cruising: Launching Crystal River Cruises with a fleet of new luxury river ships.
- Expedition Cruising: Developing the Crystal Yacht Expedition Cruises brand.
- Luxury Air Travel: Purchasing a Boeing 777 and 787 to launch Crystal AirCruises.
- Acquisitions: Crystal under Gentings leadership purchased the iconic 1958 SS United States as well as the MegaStar Taurus from sister brand Star Cruises.
The first clean-sheet design that would launch was the Crystal Endeavor, Crystal’s first purpose-built expedition ship. Construction began in Germany, and the ship was designed with PC6 polar class specifications for luxury adventure cruising. The Endeavor’s design evolved significantly during development, with initial concepts featuring extravagant amenities and a rather bold design. (Interestingly enough, she would have resembled Scenic Groups’ Scenic Eclipse)
After that, there was a significant redesign of her to this. This scaled back design is more in line with the direction they’re headed with her.
Then at Seatrade 2018, they released this more detailed render.
Update: After Genting Hong Kong’s bankruptcy in 2022, Crystal Endeavor was sold to Royal Caribbean Group and now sails as Silver Endeavour for Silversea Cruises.
The Diamond-Class
Another headline-grabbing announcement was the plan to build three 100,000gt Diamond-class ships-far larger than Crystal’s existing ships, Symphony and Serenity. The latter measuring only 68,000gt. The Diamond-class were to feature:
- Multiple helicopters and possibly a seaplane
- Private residences (Crystal Residences) for sale onboard
- Over 1,000 guests, with amenities rivaling the world’s top hotels
I would opine that maintaining their 5-star ultra-luxury standards on a ship this large, with this many guests would be quite difficult.
Fast forward to earlier this year. After poor financial results in 2017, a change of CEO occurred. One of Thomas Wolber’s first actions as the new CEO was to rein in their expansion to something more manageable. Among those scale-backs was to reduce their 100,000gt Diamong-class ships to a more manageable 60,000gt and reduce passenger count to around 800, while dropping many of the extravagant features. Despite these efforts, the Diamond-class ships were ultimately never built due to mounting financial pressures.
Here’s what she was going to look like:
A few renders have leaked out of Germany for this resized Diamond-class. This should be the closest we have to what the ship, called Crystal Diamond, will now look like.
Financial Crisis and Liquidation
Genting Hong Kong’s aggressive expansion strained its finances, and the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a final blow. Following the bankruptcy of Genting Hong Kong and the collapse of Crystal Cruises in early 2022, the brand was acquired by the A&K Travel Group, which relaunched Crystal with its two original ocean ships, Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony. Both vessels underwent extensive, multi-million-dollar refurbishments before returning to service in 2023. The rest of the former Crystal fleet-including the expedition ship Crystal Endeavor and the river and yacht vessels-were sold to other operators and now sail under different brands. As for the SS United States since they also owned the vessel, well we all know what happened there.