EasyCruise (styled as easyCruise) was a cruise line of Greek ferry operator

Hellenic Seaways Hellenic Seaways is member of Attica Group, which is engaged in passenger shipping through SUPERFAST FERRIES, BLUE STAR FERRIES, HELLENIC SEAWAYS and AFRICA MOROCCO LINK operating 35 vessels providing modern, high-quality transportation service ...

. It was sold to them in August 2009 for £9 million by founder and Cypriot/

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

business man,

Stelios Haji-Ioannou Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou ( el, Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου, translit=Stelios Hatziioannou; born 14 February 1967) is a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur. Born into a wealthy ship-owning family, he is best known for founding the low-cost ai ...

. They launched their first

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as ...

EasyCruiseOne in 2005. Unlike other cruise lines, EasyCruise's business model offered passengers an inexpensive no-frills vacation with a la carte pricing for on board food and services. EasyCruise ended operations in early 2010.

Development

Stelios, who has a family background in shipping, decided to form a budget cruise line which he hoped would mirror the success of his budget travel airline,

easyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airli ...

. In April 2004, the initial ship was acquired for an approach to cruising that was aimed at attracting younger customers who wished to spend the majority of their time on shore rather than on board a megaship. The ship would offer the barest of amenities, allowing very cheap prices to be advertised. Value would be added by charging separately for each service aboard which is normally included in the quoted price of other cruise liners. Given the minimal facilities on board, the ship would position from port to port at night or in the early morning as the passengers slept, in order to allow the maximum time in each port ashore. After a few months of negotiation and refurbishment, the ship, formerly known as ''Neptune 2'', was renamed ''EasyCruiseOne''. On 9 May 2005, the ship finally left for her maiden voyage.

Itinerary

The service began by operating night-time departures cruising in the Mediterranean. For the winter season EasyCruise cruised in the Caribbean. Until 17 August 2007, a second boat, ''EasyCruiseTwo'', a converted river freighter, had a route around the

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and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, visiting the cities of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

, Antwerp and

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Television series

The fortunes of EasyCruise were tracked by a three series observational documentary called " Cruise with Stelios" produced by the British company

Twofour Twofour is a British television and digital media group founded in 1989 by Charles Wace, a former BBC news producer, and Christopher Slade, a BBC presenter. With its headquarters in Plymouth, Twofour has offices in London and Los Angeles. In ...

, which was screened on Sky3 in the UK on Friday nights and in the US on The Travel Channel. The programme was also broadcast in Belgium (Flanders) as 'Cruiseline' on the public broadcaster ' één'

Reduction of service

In February 2008 EasyCruise made public their plans to sell the ''EasyCruise One'' due to "not having enough space", and replacing her with a ship of similar size to the ''EasyCruise Life''.

Demise

In August 2009 the single-ship cruise line was sold to Greek ferry operator

for £9 million. EasyCruise's operations were quietly discontinued sometime in early 2010. Passengers who were booked on future cruises were refunded. Later that year, their sole ship was moved to Blue Ocean Cruises and briefly operated as the ''Ocean Life''. It was later sold for scrap. The cruise line's website was totally abandoned with no mention of its discontinuation. Sometime around 2014, the abandoned website was removed and now redirects to the easy.com homepage.

Former fleet

References

External links

via the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Easycruise EasyGroup Transport companies established in 2004 Transport companies disestablished in 2010 Travel and holiday companies of the United Kingdom Defunct cruise lines