The cruise division of the American giant Disney has announced the acquisition of the “Global Dream”, one of the largest cruise ships in the world, still unfinished, which has been waiting for a new owner for months in a hangar in Germany. Asian travel and leisure group Genting HK originally ordered the ship from its German subsidiary MV Werften. But both companies went bankrupt, victims of the Covid-19 pandemic that brought cruise ships to a standstill. The fate of the giant of the seas, three-quarters complete, has been uncertain ever since.
“Its construction will be completed at the former MV Werften shipyard in Wismar under the supervision of the management of Meyer Werft”, a shipyard based in Papenburg in Lower Saxony that has already built three other cruise ships for the group, Disney Cruise Line specifies in a statement. press release published overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. The purchase price was not disclosed. In June, the management of MV Werften had specified that the ship, with a total cost estimated at 1.5 billion euros, still needed 600 million euros to be completed.
The “Global Dream” will be renamed, its exterior redecorated in “Mickey Mouse-inspired colors” and based in the United States. With a capacity for about 6,000 passengers and a crew of 2,300, the building, which uses green methanol as fuel, should come into service from 2025.
6000 passengers
“Everyone is relieved to see that the ship with a new design and an ecological engine will sail the seas instead of being scrapped,” reacted the local representative of the IG Metall union, Daniel Friedrich, for whom the sale should also help to preserve work in shipyards.
Some 2,000 employees worked at the MV Werften shipyard, which filed for bankruptcy in January. They were divided between the ports of Stralsund, Rostock and Wismar, all located in Western Pomerania, a region of the former communist GDR. Now there are only around 900 under the responsibility of a transfer company in charge until January 2023 of taking care of their reorientation, the Economy Minister of this Land, Reinhard Meyer, said Thursday. “In the meantime, prospects have opened up for all three sites,” he stressed.
In June, the manufacturer Thyssenkrupp Marine System announced the acquisition of the Wismar shipyards (north) where it wants to manufacture submarines. The Rostock site has been taken over by the German Navy, while the Stralsund site is in the process of being converted into an industrial and commercial business park for companies active in the maritime sector.
Source: BFM TV
