Fred Olsen announces plan to restart cruises
A small silver lining for the cruise industry as Fred Olsen Cruise Lines announces that three of its cruise liners will be back in the water over the next six months
Announced as August came to a close, Bolette and Borealis, Fred Olsen’s two new ships, are due to be back in operation in March and April 2021 – they will take on the existing itineraries for Boudicca and Black Watch, and guests will be automatically transferred onto the new sailings. Balmoral is expected to sail even sooner, although no official date has yet been announced.
Fred Olsen declared that Sailings on Bolette will be available to book from 7 September while sailings on Borealis will be available to book from 15 September. More information on Balmoral is due to surface in the upcoming weeks. All three ships will be based with the rest of Fred Olsen’s fleet in Babcock’s Rosyth Facilities in Scotland.
“We are so pleased to be able to share our ‘back in the water’ plans with our guests. When they join us back on board, they will do so aboard a refreshed fleet,” said Peter Deer, Fred Olsen Managing Director. “We have been working hard to add that ‘Fred Olsen touch’ to our two new ships, Bolette and Borealis, so they are ready to offer the Fred Olsen experience that our returning guests know and love, and enchant those joining us for the very first time.”
In some less palatable news, travel insurance experts have warned guests of the soon-to-collapse Crystal Cruises that they will now have trouble getting any travel insurance for the shutdown of the cruise company as its parent company Genting Hong Kong has officially stopped making payments to creditors.
Squaremouth’s Kasara Barto told The Points Guy: “As Crystal Cruises’ parent company has announced they are having financial difficulties, some travel insurance providers consider it to be a foreseen event and have excluded it from coverage.”
Barto went on to explain that in order for travellers to receive compensation for the travel supplier going out of business, they would need to have bought their travel insurance policy, complete with its standard ‘financial default’ coverage, before the financial circumstances that led to the suspension of operations were known. “In order for the financial default benefit to apply, a policy must have been purchased before the business was impacted or financial issues became known, so coverage may be limited if a travel supplier has already declared financial hardship,” she said.
Barto added that some travel insurance providers may still be providing coverage on new policies for the financial default of Genting Hong Kong-owned cruise lines. “If travellers are specifically looking for coverage for Crystal Cruises, they should contact their travel insurance provider directly to confirm coverage is still available,” she said.