117 Crystal Symphony and Crystal Serenity Extensive refurbishments have been carried out onboard Crystal Symphony and Crystal Serenity at Fincantieri’s Arsenale Triestino San Marco shipyard in Trieste, Italy. The €150 million ($164 million) project, which started in January 2023, took about eight months to complete. The refurbishment was carried out by the luxury brand’s new owner, A&K Travel Group, which saved Crystal Cruises from liquidation in June 2022. One of the biggest tasks was to combine a number of staterooms to create more butler suites on each vessel, which has reduced overall guest capacity. Many other works have been carried out onboard both vessels, including an extensive refurbishment of the technical plants. Overall, the project took approximately 800,000 hours to complete with an average of 250 to 270 employees working per vessel per day. “The considerable experience gained with major naval projects undertaken over recent years, and the Crystal project that we have recently completed, consolidates Fincantieri Services position as the reference point worldwide for these highly complex operations,” said Andrew Toso, senior vice president, Fincantieri Services. “We are very proud that Crystal, a prestigious new client, has chosen us for these strategic works, which require a high level of engineering competence and project management.” Crystal Serenity returned to operations on 31 July, sailing from Marseille, France, while Crystal Symphony re-entered service on 1 September when it departed on its inaugural sailing from Athens in Greece. Photo: Fincantieri Celestyal Journey During May and June 2023, Malta’s Palumbo shipyard carried out an extensive dry dock on Celestyal Cruises’ Celestyal Journey, completing technical work, hydro blasting and hull repainting. Following this, the ship was moved to Talos shipyard in Elefsis, Greece, where upgrades were made to passenger areas. Celestyal Cruises opted to use mainly local Greek firms for the interior outfitting works, partnering with architecture and design office of AMK and MNS, D-Group and Tselekos group. Introducing Celestyal Journey to the Celestyal Cruises fleet has cost over €20 million ($21.8 million) and involved approximately 250,000 labour hours. Celestyal Journey resumed operations on 2 September 2023 when it took over sailing the ‘Idyllic Aegean’ itinerary from Celestyal Crystal. Photo: Celestyal Cruises
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