A cruise ship that would have ranked as one of the world’s largest is going straight from the shipyard building ways to the scrappers.
Cruise and resort business operator, Genting HK, contracted with its own shipyard in 2016 to build two 9,000-passenger cruise ships. The ships were to be the world’s largest, by number of passengers if not quite in tonnage.
The first ship, the Global Dream was about 80% complete when Genting HK collapsed into bankruptcy last February. The shipyard, MV Werften, owned by Genting, also filed for bankruptcy.
The second vessel, unnamed but often referred to as the Global Dream II, was roughly half-finished when work stopped. Most of the ship’s machinery and equipment had already been delivered to the shipyard.
An bord, a German maritime publication, reports that insolvency administrator, Christoph Morgen, recently announced at a press conference that attempts are now being made to resell some of the systems and engines. The half-finished Global Dream II hull is then to be sold at scrap prices.
The shipyard’s new owner wants the building ways cleared. ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems purchased the shipyard and ants to build submarines, corvettes and frigates in the yard in Wismar.
The disposition of the Golden Dream has yet to be determined.
The idea of a cruise is to get away from it all which doesn’t actually pan out with 8,999 other passengers. The cruise industry lost its way through greed. The pandemic only helped to burst the bubble.
Excellent comment with which I entirely agree.
Having spent nearly three decades in the cruise industry from 1968 onwards I was involved from the beginning of development. Never once did Management ever listen to us seamen operating their ships. Once the “hotel managers” began the overexpansion it got out of control. In addition the USCG became the “yes service” to the industry and cruise ships became floating resorts.
I had contact with Genting during their planning to operate from Miami to Bimini but never followed up as it was time for me to retire after 50 years
As I have said and written many times before sadly one day there is going to be a dreadful tragedy when one of these vessels is lost at sea. It is quite impossible to evacuate all the thousands of multi-national personnel on board to prevent this happening.
Good Watch
Further to my first comment after further research I found , to my horror, that these vessels MS Global Dream & Global Dream 2 were planned for 9000 passengers. To mann them they would most likely need at a ratio of 1 to 3 so 3000 crew. No problem for the PRC as they would operate from China and around South-East Asia. One can only imagine being on a ship with 12,000 persons.
Further thinking led me to the possibility that the PRC will acquire these vessels and follow their example of acquiring and building aircraft carriers use them for some PRC purpose.
Good Watch