Crystal Cruises liquidates & CEO jumps ship

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

February 9, 2022 – The Liveship Traders is a novel series penned by Robin Hobb where ships talk and sail themselves while passengers and crew sit back and watch, what an experience!

Passengers on the most recent voyage of the Crystal Serenity, who paid for a cruise stopping at several ports in the Eastern Caribbean and ending in Aruba might not agree. The ship sailed by ports it should have stopped at, taking dismayed passengers on a joyride last week. Tugged along by corporate forces out of their control and eventually ending up in the Bahamas on Monday to avoid US Marshalls, it likely felt like the worst kind of magic.

Crystal Cruises is hoping to avoid the warrant issued by a US federal judge for one of Crystal Cruises ships, the Crystal Symphony. The company behind Crystal Cruises, Genting Hong Kong, is currently indebted about $4.6 million USD for a past due fuel bill.

While passengers and crew were left in the lurch as the parent company faces liquidation, CEO, Lim Kok Thay, jumped ship, not literally but has resigned as CEO from Genting Hong Kong.

Lim isn’t too poorly off though, Forbes reports that Lim still presides over the Genting Group, which own casinos in Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S.as well as palm oil plantations and oil and gas operations.

So regardless of the troubles at the cruise line, and the pandemic, Genting’s casino empire is on its way out of rough waters.