The roughly 300 guests remained aboard the ship an extra day, disembarked in Bimini and were offered a ride to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., via ferry — a journey the company later acknowledged was “uncomfortable due to inclement weather.” (One Crystal Symphony passenger described getting up during the two-hour ferry ride to throw up, only to find “nine or ten” other seasick passengers doing the same.)
“This end to the cruise was not the conclusion to our guests’ vacation we originally planned for,” a Crystal spokeswoman, Susan Robison, said in a statement.
The company declined to discuss the lawsuit it faces in federal court from the marine fuel supplier Peninsula Petroleum.
Elio Pace, a musician who was contracted to perform aboard the Crystal Symphony for the next month, called the situation “surreal” in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday.
“Who’s ever heard of a ship being arrested?” Pace said. “It’s like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ They say, ‘We’re going to seize the ship’ and the ship goes, ‘No you’re not!’ and it turns around and escapes to Bimini.”
Although Sunday marked the end of the Crystal Symphony’s latest voyage, the embattled cruise line and hundreds of the ship’s crew members still are navigating uncertain waters.
According to a stock exchange filing released Monday, Lim Kok Thay, the chief executive of Crystal Cruise’s parent company, Genting Hong Kong, resigned Friday. Genting Hong Kong and its subsidiaries have been in financial trouble since 2020 when it first halted payments on outstanding debts, in part because of the collapse of the cruise industry amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The resignation came just days after Peninsula Petroleum sued Crystal Cruises and its sister line in the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida, alleging the companies had defaulted on nearly $4.6 million of fuel payments.
Last week, Crystal Cruises announced it would suspend its ocean cruises until April 29 and suspend river cruises through the end of May to “provide Crystal’s management team with an opportunity to evaluate the current state of business and examine various options moving forward.”
Crystal Cruises’ last voyages will end in Aruba on Sunday and in Argentina on Feb. 4.
Pace, the musician, said the first sign something was amiss came Wednesday, just one day after he linked up with the ship in the Caribbean island of Dominica: The captain announced over the loudspeaker that Crystal’s parent company, Genting Hong Kong, had liquidated the company and that the current voyage would be the Symphony’s last until further notice.
Pace said that when he saw crew members at breakfast Thursday, they were visibly upset.
“One guy said, ‘I’ve been here for 12 years, and I just don’t know what’s going to happen now,’ ” Pace said. “They were despondent, really deflated.”
Later that day, the captain announced that the ship was no longer bound for Miami as scheduled, for “nontechnical reasons.” By Friday, the crew and guests had learned via news reports that the ship had changed course because of an arrest warrant and seizure order.
Pace praised the Crystal Symphony crew for its professionalism and hospitality, and the guests for keeping their cool amid the changing plans.
The course change did rankle some guests, with some on social media and the travel forum Cruise Critic likening the experience to a luxury kidnapping on the high seas.
“It’s provocative to say that, but no one is going to sue a luxury cruise line if they went on a voluntary cruise,” said Jim Walker, a maritime lawyer and cruise industry legal expert who said the course change was perfectly legal. “There are a lot of ships missing ports and rescheduling. The fact that the Crystal Symphony took the passengers to Bimini instead of Miami? They have the legal right to do that.”
Guests may have legal claims to reimbursement for unexpected travel expenses incurred because a ship changed course, but Walker said the terms and conditions travelers sign tend to favor the cruise companies.
The case of Crystal Symphony is little more than a cruise line that didn’t meet its financial obligations and was guided by its attorneys on its best options, Walker said. He added that cruise lines can incur hefty fees for security and other expenses when their vessels are seized by U.S. marshals, similar to car owners being charged storage fees for impounded vehicles.
Separately, Walker and Pace said the company’s troubles will fall hardest on the crew members, who come from all over the world.
“I’ll be okay; I have my land gigs,” said Pace, whose contract was cut short by Crystal Cruises’ announcement last week. “It’s those beautiful, brilliant international friends of mine that I’m worried about. Are they out of a job? Will they get another job? How will they get through the next few months if they do lose their job?”
Pace stressed that the ship’s crew members had done their best and were working at the mercy of the line’s parent company, Genting Hong Kong. He blamed Lim, the now-former chief executive, who has a net worth of an estimated $2.6 billion, according to Forbes, for the workers’ predicament.
“It’s the gazillionaires who don’t care about squashing the ants beneath their feet as they traipse off to their next venture,” Pace said.
How long Crystal Symphony workers will have to wait to learn their fate is unclear. Pace said that between 30 and 50 crew members who were at the end of their contracts disembarked with the guests in Bimini on Sunday; the remaining estimated 350 presumably are aboard the ship.
As of late Monday, a cruise vessel tracking service showed the Crystal Symphony was still in Bahamian waters.
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