The most-awarded luxury cruise line in the industry, Crystal Cruises, unceremoniously shuttered its doors without a word to consumers and travel agents. Its parent company, Genting Hong Kong, abandoned it leaving a trail of debt—to travelers, agents, employees, and vendors. Although $4.6 million in outstanding fuel bills were central to Crystal’s demise, the signs of trouble appeared weeks earlier in a string of dominoes triggered by the insolvency of a German shipyard. Through it all — a petition to wind up the company, layoffs, a halt to future sailings — Hong Kong was still assuring Crystal employees that the brand was not in jeopardy.
In fact, passengers were still on ships. By early February, when the line’s new 200-passenger expedition ship, the Crystal Endeavor, disembarked its final passengers in Ushuaia, Argentina, the cash had run dry. “Genting HK effectively washed their hands of Crystal when they filed liquidation in Bermuda,” says Jack Anderson, who served as president of Crystal Cruises until the company dissolved its operations on Feb. 11. “At that point our relationship with Genting was effectively severed, and we were cut loose to fend for ourselves,” he told Bloomberg.
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