According to a reliable industry source, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has formally withdrawn from negotiations with several major European shipyards to build new ships for its Azamara Cruises brand. The poor financial performance of the Azamara brand was cited as the reason.
Azamara was started in 2007 to compete with Oceania Cruises and operates two 694-berth, 30,277 GT ships built in 2000, Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest, built for Renaissance Cruises as R Six and R Seven respectively. While these ships are sisters to Oceania’s current trio, they will not be able to compete with the new 1,252-berth, 65,000 GT ships being built by Oceania to enter service in 2010 and 2011. Azamara was known to be considering new ships similar in design to Oceania’s coming newbuilds.
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