Cruises ship “World Dream” finished hosting gamblers with its former brand as the new owner decided to call it “Manara” and assignment to work into a new line.
One of collapsed cruise ship operator Genting Hong Kong’s leading Asia-based cruise ships has been sold by liquidators in Singapore for US$330 million.
World Dream, which came into line in 2017 to host the Asian market and with a capacity for 5,000 passengers, was snapped up in late February by Cruise Saudi – a relatively new arrival to the worldwide cruising industry and money-wise funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. By now the ship was given a new name “Manara” and will now experience a renovation, Cruise Saudi confirmed.
The ship is well known especially when three passengers aboard World Dream during 19–24 January 2020 were confirmed to have been infected by COVID-19, according to Washington Post.
World Dream, which had before navigated under the Dream Cruises mark, was at the beginning listed for auction in December subsequent to the collapse of Genting Hong Kong prior in the year. With debts of just about US$3 billion, many of Genting Hong Kong’s assets have already been sold off as well as two ships in the Caribbean under its old Crystal Cruises brand to new owners and others under the Star Cruises brand for scrap.
Disney Cruise Line correspondingly confirmed freshly the purchase of Global Dream – an incomplete 9,000-capacity ship that was being made by Genting Hong Kong at its Germany shipyards prior to its collapse.
Genting Hong Kong’s joint provisional liquidators are anticipated to approve the sale of the company’s stake in Travellers International Hotel Group – operator of Manila’s Newport World Resorts – in the approaching months.
In the past few days, Genting HK noted that its core remaining assets outside of cruise ship operations are its equity interest in Resorts World Manila and its interests in residential and hotel properties in China.
Nevertheless, none of this has stopped the majority holder of Genting Hong Kong, Genting Group Chairman and CEO Lim Kok Thay, from maintaining an interest in the cruise biz.
Former Dream Cruises ship World Dream sold to new Saudi-backed cruise line for US$330 million
Having since launched a brand-new cruise line named Resorts World Cruises (RWC), Lim exposed in January strategies to start sailings out of Hong Kong using one of Genting Hong Kong’s former cruise ships, Explorer Dream, since rebranded as Resorts World One.
- Suggested read: China Eyes on Cross-Border Gambling.
This is the second ship beforehand operated by Genting Hong Kong to have been leased back by RWC, with Genting Dream having begun sailings from Singapore and Malaysia in June 2022.
Genting Group patriarch Lim Kok Thay has wasted no time in resurrecting his cruise ship ambitions following confirmation that his new cruise brand, Resorts World Cruises Pte, will begin sailings from 15 June.
Despite the crossover, Resorts World Cruises CEO and Executive Director Colin Au – also a former Deputy CEO of Genting Hong Kong – moved to distance the two companies from one another.
