It wasn’t a good end for the 700 plus passengers aboard the Crystal Symphony. Instead of docking back in Miami, they were detoured and delayed 24 hours and ended up in the Bahamas.
It turns out that the parent company out of Hong Kong (Genting Hong Kong) filed for bankruptcy. That immediately had the fuel supplier going to court over their outstanding $4.6 million in fuel charges (over $1.2 million for the Symphony alone). A judge issued an arrest warrant on Friday to seize the vessel upon entering US waters. When the company became aware of the warrant, it caused them to (of course) make sure they weren’t going to get into the US jurisdiction, but find another place to disembark the passengers – far away from US authorities.
While the company has suspended operations until at least April, two of their ships are still out at sea. However, those passengers may be a little “safer” since on will end in Aruba on January 30th and the other in Argentina on February 4th.
Here’s the full story in today’s USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2022/01/22/crystal-cruises-arrest-warrant-unpaid-bills/6621793001/
Or the video from this mornings’ CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/crystal-symphony-cruise-ship-arrest-warrant-unpaid-fuel-bahamas/