Status: 11/17/2022 8:26 am
Walt Disney takes over the cruise ship “Global Dream” from the bankrupt MV shipyards in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The US entertainment giant is one of the beneficiaries of the newly flared cruise boom.
The Disney group buys the cruise ship previously known under the name “Global Dream” from the insolvent MV shipyard group in Wismar. The US entertainment giant announced this in a blog entry. The in-house shipping company Disney Cruise Line wants to have the cruise ship completed at the MV Werften site in Wismar under their direction by experts from Meyer Werft. A purchase price was not mentioned.
Disney plans “only” with 6000 passengers
The cruise giant, also known as “Global One”, was originally intended to accommodate around 9,500 people. It should be the world’s largest ship in terms of passenger numbers. Disney is now planning with a capacity of around 6000 passengers with around 2300 crew members.
The ship, which is 75 percent complete, was originally intended for the Asian market by the former MV shipyard owner – the now insolvent cruise company Genting Hong Kong.
MV shipyards – a victim of the corona pandemic
The MV shipyards with around 2000 employees at the locations in Wismar, Rostock and Stralsund filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of January. No solution for further financing had previously been found in negotiations with the Asian owner Genting.
The Hong Kong-based group specializing in cruises got into trouble during the corona pandemic. In the meantime, however, the situation in the industry has eased, and cruises are experiencing a renewed boom.
As the cruise association CLIA announced at the end of September based on a market analysis, demand has again exceeded the level of 2019. Back in April, CLIA President Kelly Craighead forecast that passenger numbers would rise above pre-crisis levels by the end of 2023.
Disney benefits from new cruise boom
The renewed cruise boom is also reflected in the Disney Group’s latest quarterly figures. Walt Disney summarizes the business with its Disney Cruise Line shipping company in the “Parks, Experiences and Products” division: Revenues in this segment soared by 35 percent to $7.4 billion in the past quarter.
The operating result even improved by 150 percent to 1.5 billion dollars. In the same quarter of the previous year, restrictions resulting from the corona pandemic had made business with amusement parks and cruise ships more difficult.
Hope for former MV employees?
The purchase of the “Global Dream” by the Disney group also means hope for the remaining employees of the former MV shipyards. These could find work in the Disney project, the news agency reports Reuters.
After the insolvency of the MV shipyard group, 900 former shipyard employees are still in a transfer company. This was last extended until the end of November. Now, with the planned prefabricated building by the Papenburg Meyer shipyard at the Wismar site, there is a medium-term perspective.
The insolvency administrator of MV Werften had sold several MV Werften locations to investors in the past few months, thereby opening up employment opportunities for former employees. Most recently, the federal government took over the shipyard site in Rostock-Warnemünde. The Navy wants to expand its capacities for the maintenance and repair of warships there.