Bahamas Paradise sells cruise ship amid virus economic woes

Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, known for its quick, inexpensive trips to the Bahamas, has sold one of its two cruise ships in yet another indicator of the economic calamity brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Bahamas Paradise sold Grand Celebration, which began sailing out of the Port of Palm Beach in 2015, hoping to trim costs and raise money at a time when it and other cruise lines have all but stopped sailing because of new, strict and expensive safety protocols required by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The cruise line, which has operated two ships at the port since 2018, stopped cruising in March.

More:Coronavirus in Florida: Grand Celebration suspends cruises out of Port of Palm Beach

“When we resume cruising, we will do so with a focus on our core two-night Grand Bahama Island micro-cation cruises onboard one ship, Grand Classica,” the company said in a statement to Cruise Critic, a travel site that first reported the news of the sale of Grand Celebration. “The decision to focus on one ship will make it easier for us to implement all necessary safety protocols and ensure that our business is sustainable long-term, so that we can continue providing a safe and enjoyable vacation to our guests well into the future.”

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While the pandemic has brought economic pain to all cruise lines, Bahamas Paradise’s financial devastation has been particularly acute.

reached an $875,000 settlement for back pay after crew members had been required to work without pay for months.

Many of the 500 crew members of the Grand Celebration, which sails between Port of Palm Beach and Freeport, were kept aboard after the U.S. government halted cruises nationwide in March. Most were denied pay and passage home, while the U.S. or their home countries would not allow them in airports or on commercial flights, or the company resisted more expensive charter flights.

“These workers had no other options than to stay on these ships when the pandemic began,” Michael Winkleman, an attorney for a crew member who filed suit, told The Palm Beach Post in August. “To ask them to stay in their place of business without pay is the equivalent of forced labor.”

More:CEO: Grand Celebration cruise crew is our family, despite COVID money woes

Bahamas Paradise’s travails represent a sharp departure from the stature it enjoyed in September 2019, when it used Grand Celebration to evacuate 1,400 refugees from the Bahamas, which had been devastated by Hurricane Dorian.

“We empathize with their situation,” Bahamas Paradise CEO Oneil Khosa said. “We have spent millions on it so far. We wanted to do the right thing.”

That evacuation did cause some consternation among Palm Beach County officials, who said they used more than $400,000 in taxpayer money to provide transportation, medication and housing for some of the refugees.

Despite those costs, county officials praised the generous impulse of Khosa and Bahamas Paradise.

“They have good hearts,” Deputy County Administrator Jon Van Arnam said at the time. “They’re doing it with the right intentions. You’re seeing the outpouring of support in the community. It’s been fantastic.”

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It’s been anything but fantastic for the cruise industry since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

One early indicator of the rapid spread of both the virus and fear of the virus came in spring when a handful of cruise ships were denied permission to return from sailings because some passenger and crew members had contracted the virus.

Those instances raised questions about the safety of cruise ships in the face of a virus that spreads rapidly and is particularly lethal for seniors, a critical customer base for cruise lines.