Singapore-based Resorts World Cruises (RWC) is expanding its fleet to three ships with the acquisition of a cruise vessel from Carnival Corp’s soon to be closed P&O Cruises Australia subsidiary.
The Genting Group-affiliated company revealed on Friday that it has bought P&O Australia’s 77,400-gt Pacific Explorer (built 1997) and will put it into service as the Star Scorpio in March 2025.
The 1.950-berth cruise ship will be given a $50m makeover in Singapore prior to entering service.
RWC did not disclose the purchase price of the Pacific Explorer, which is scheduled to terminate its P&O Australia career in Singapore 18 February 2025 after completing an 11-day cruise from Fremantle.
The intended disposal of the ship has been on the cards since Carnival announced in June that it was disbanding the P&O Australia brand.
The cruise giant's Australian cruise operations to continue under its flagship Carnival Cruise Line, which will retains two of the outgoing brand’s larger ships.
RWC was launched in June 2022 by Malaysian tycoon Lim Kok Thay, who heads the Genting Group and was the majority shareholder in cruise operator Genting Hong Kong at the time of its shutdown earlier that year.
Lim took on the role of the company’s executive chairman, and he was joined by many other familiar faces from the Genting HK executive suite.
The company’s first two ships previously operated under Genting HK’s Dream Cruises brand.
The 150,700-gt Genting Dream (built 2016) is leased from China’s Bank of Communications Financial Leasing, while the 75,300-gt Resorts World One (built 1999) is chartered from BVI-registered Paradise Cove Holdings.
RWC’s cruising playground is Southeast Asia, although the company has recently ventured into the Middle East on a seasonal basis.
The Star Scorpio will initially be based in Singapore when it enters service next March.
The vessel is one of four identical sister ships that were ordered in the mid-1990s at Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri by Princess Cruises, then a subsidiary of UK-based P&O Group.
The ship was delivered under the name Dawn Princess.
Carnival Corp, which became the owner of Princess after buying over P&O's cruise operations in the early 2000s, filtered the quartet across various brands as they became older, and then began selling them after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since then, the four sister ships have been scattered far and wide.
The 1996-built Sun Princess is with Japan’s Peace Boat as the Pacific World, 1998-built Sea Princess is with a Chinese cruise operator sailing as the Charming, and the 2000-built Ocean Princess has been laid up in Greece under the name Queen of the Oceans since being acquired by Greek ferry mogul Marios Iliopoulos in August 2020.
