Whatever happened to the Crystal ships
I am often asked what happened to Crystal Cruises and where have their ships gone. For everyone who has cruised with and loved Crystal, this will be of interest.
Four of the ships of the former Crystal Cruises were snapped up by a variety of companies.
Crystal Endeavor (a luxury expedition ship) was purchased by Silversea Cruises, and she made her debut as the Silver Endeavour in Antarctica this November 2022.
A German company named Riverside Luxury Cruises purchased the Mozart and renamed her (as you may have guessed) the Riverside Mozart or just MS Mozart. Because of her size, MS Mozart will remain on the Danube, still catering for 160 guests. She was completely refurbished six years ago by Crystal and like Crystal’s other 4 river vessels, is luxuriously appointed and elegant in style. The crew are ready to rumble and will be headed by Béla Burján as Captain, Sonja Gruber as Hotel Director, Johannes Bar as Chef de Cuisine and Ulrike Nehls as Director of Land Operations.
Mozart will feature 80 suites, the smallest measuring 219 square feet up to the Owner’s Suite measuring 883 square feet. There’s also a suite to crew ratio of 1:1. The service on board will be exceptional, catering to standards identical to what you would enjoy in any luxury hotel. MS Mozart will offer a variety of sailings from 4nt Passau - Vienna; , 5nt Vienna -Vienna; 7nt Budapest - Budapest; 7nt Vienna – Budapest and 11nt Budapest – Vienna.
As for the four, brand new (identical) river cruise vessels - Crystal Bach, Mahler, Ravel and Debussy—each carrying 120 guests. There are a lot of parties who have flagged an interest; some wanting one; another company (who presently must remain un-named while negotiations continue), willing to purchase all four. Whoever they go to, it will be a big plus for their ship inventory. All four are beautiful vessels; modern, sleek, stylish, arguable the best on any river.
Crystal Cruises will rise again under new ownership and what credentials the new owners have! Manfredi Lefebvre D’Ovidio, the former owner of Silversea Cruises and current majority owner of Abercrombie & Kent and Geoffrey Kent himself who founded A&K many moons ago with one land rover and a dream of offering small group, luxury travel.
They purchased the much-loved ocean ships - Crystal Symphony and Crystal Serenity and now we are all waiting on the release of the new itineraries.
Watch this space!