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New Condo Venture Seeks to Set Sail? Even as the housing market continues to cool in the United States, approaching the mythical popping of the "housing bubble," a Florida company - Condo Cruise Lines - is suggesting that cruise ships could serve as the new vogue in waterfront property ownership. "With nearly eighty million baby boomers starting to retire this year, and a large number of them wanting to live where it's warm, someone needed to come up with a solution, so I thought of assembling a group of investors to purchase a cruise ship and convert the cab- ins to condominiums," Pensacola native Mark Boyd said. Boyd reportedly has developed a formula to produce the typical $15 million annually it takes to operate a mid-size luxury cruise ship. As a result, the condo owners will only pay a standard condo fee of between $7,000 to $10,000 per year for a suite costing from $349,000 to $529,000. Boyd won't divulge the formu- la, but says a portion of the fee is derived from the ongoing casino and nightclub operations on the ship. The plan? "We will take a retired cruise ship and con- vert every two to three cabins into luxury suites and sell them to investors," Boyd said. "Our condo suites will rent from $3,000 a week for our basic single-suite, to $6,000 a week for our largest three-room penthouse suite, thus making luxury cruis- ing a little more affordable, while at the same time pro- viding a tremendous return on our condo owners' investments," said Thomas Blackburn, Boyd's partner and Executive Vice President. Condo Cruise' first ship is already being reserved by prospective condo pur- chasers in the same manner a real estate condo devel- opment sells its units pre-construction. The reserva- tion process requires the purchaser to provide a $10,000 deposit that is refundable with interest for any reason by either the purchaser or Condo Cruise Lines. AIDA Celebrates Record Year AIDA Cruises achieved an exceptional increase in its annual results for the business year 2005. With a turnover of $455.8 million and a total of 233,000 pas- sengers, AIDA Cruises has had its most successful year since the company was founded. AIDA Cruises has initiated a number of major investment projects during the last financial year with, for example, three new AIDA vessels being built at the Meyer Shipyard in Papenburg at a cost of $1.1 billion. The steelwork has already commenced in October of this year and the first ship will be laid down in March 2006. The new AIDA vessels will be delivered in the spring of 2007, 2008 and 2009, ensuring an 80 percent expansion in the capacity of the AIDA fleet by the year 2009. Schat-Harding Wins Contract Schat-Harding, won a contract to supply lifeboats, tenders and davits for a cruise ship order to be placed at France's Chantiers de l'Atlantique yard. Schat- Harding will supply six CTL38 tenders, 20 MPC32 150 person lifeboats and 2 MCB24 combined life / res- cue boats and davits to the two vessels, ordered by MSC Cruises. The 1093 ft. (333 m) long vessels will carry 3,887 passengers and more than 1,300 crew members. The first ship will be delivered in spring 2008 and the second in spring 2009. 22 Cruise Shipping Carnival Expands With Fincantieri Carnival Corporation late last year reached an agreement with Fincantieri for the construction of four new cruise ships worth more than $2 billion, one each for Holland America Line, Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises and Costa Crociere, along with options for two additional vessels, one each for Carnival Cruise Lines and Holland America Line. The four new ships will add a collective 11,756 lower berths to the cruise opera- tor's fleet. According to Carnival Corporation & plc Chairman and CEO Micky Arison, "Fincantieri constructs some of the world's most beautiful and technically advanced ships and this agreement enables us to expand our core North American and European brands at very competitive prices considering today's unfavorable U.S. dol- lar/euro ratio," he said. The new ships and options include: • An 86,000-ton, 2,044-passenger, $450-million ship which will be the largest ever constructed for Holland America Line. It will be built at Fincantieri's Marghera shipyard and is expected to enter service in summer 2008. There is also an option for a sister ship scheduled to debut in spring 2010. A 3,100-passenger ship for Princess Cruises, a sister to the 116,000-ton Emerald Princess, will be built at Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard for $570 million and will debut in fall 2008. A 130,000-ton, 3,608-passenger cruise ship for Carnival Cruise Lines - representing the largest vessel ever constructed for the operator - will be built at Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard at an estimated all-in cost of $680 million, and is expected to enter service in fall 2009. There is also an option for a sister ship. A 3,004-passenger ship for Genoa, Italy-based Costa Crociere expected to debut in summer 2009. A sister ship to the Costa Concordia, the 112,000-ton vessel will have an estimated all-in cost of $589 million and will be built at Fincantieri's Sestri shipyard. Carnival Corporation's orderbook now includes 16 new ships, 13 of which are being constructed by Fincantieri. MR FEBRUARY2006 #3 (17-24).qxd 2/1/2006 7:34 PM Page 22
