Kyma Ship ManagementOur Background: Prior to Kyma's extremely successful turnaround of Cunard, our team was largely responsible for the creation and development of Dolphin Cruise Line and Majesty Cruise Line. The former was created in 1984, but actually goes back to the late 1970's as an operator named Ulysses Cruises. Our team began with a one-ship operation consisting of the "Dolphin IV". This vessel was without a doubt one of the most successful cruise ships - on a "pound for pound" basis - to have ever operated in the three- and four-night cruise market out of Miami. Between 1982 and 1989 our team also provided deck, engine and hotel management to Premier Cruise Line. The outsourcing of these functions to our team enabled the start-up Premier at that time to attain the highest in marine, technical and hotel operation standards while being allowed the time to "get on its feet". In 1989, the Dolphin operation grew to two ships with the addition of the 842-passenger vessel, "SeaBreeze I." This vessel was purchased from Premier Cruise Line, and was therefore well known to our team. Dolphin Cruise Line grew to a three-ship fleet in 1992 with the addition of the "OceanBreeze," a 776-passenger cruise ship that was purchased from Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. This increased the total amount of lower berths in the operation to 2,198. Also in 1992, our team took delivery of its first new building, the "Royal Majesty;" a magnificent 1,050 berth capacity vessel that was to become the flagship of a new premium market cruise line, Majesty Cruise Line. Our team conceived of the idea and market positioning of the new cruise line, and designed and oversaw every step of the building of the vessel at Kvaerner Masa Yard in Finland. The vessel was extremely popular as a three- and four-night ship from Miami - becoming the first four-night ship to include Mexico as a port of call and thereby opening the eyes of the major cruise operators to this exciting opportunity. It later developed and built a highly successful seven-night business from Boston to Bermuda during the Bermuda summer season. In 1994, the Kyma team spearheaded the start of a strategic alliance with Epirotiki Cruise Line and Carnival Corporation. Ultimately, the parties intended to set up a new company that would initially consist of the entire Dolphin and Epirotiki operations plus two of Carnival's ships. The focus would be to establish a new worldwide (non-North America) cruising company. Even though the parties could not eventually come to terms as to a new company as envisioned, the Kyma team was successful in negotiating a contract with Epirotiki to represent the latter as to selling and marketing its products in North America in 1994, and also to provide deck and engine management for one of Epirotiki's ships, the "Star of Texas," during part of 1994 and all of 1995. 1996 witnessed the addition of the "IslandBreeze" to the Dolphin Cruise Line fleet. The Carnival Cruise Line-owned vessel (ex. "Festivale") began operating in April of that year for Dolphin under the full management agreement with Carnival. In 1997, this 1,140-passenger vessel underwent a major facelift under the watchful eye of the Kyma team before embarking on a full charter to Thomson Holidays in the Mediterranean in May of that year. This profitable, long-term charter with Thomson was negotiated by the Kyma team. In 1997, Majesty Cruise Line grew to a two-ship fleet with the introduction of the "Crown Majesty" via a management arrangement with Cunard Line, the bareboat charterer of the vessel. The vessel was places into the Alaska trade in order to complement and round out the Majesty Cruise Line product offering. At this point the Kyma team was managing five cruise vessels under two diverse product headings with a total of 4,608 lower berths. In 1997 the Dolphin Cruise Line ships and operation were sold to Cruise Holdings and are now operated by Premier Cruises. The "Royal Majesty" was sold for a nice profit to NCL and the "Crown Majesty" was also given to this company to manage. |
|
|