EasyCruise (styled as easyCruise) was a

cruise line A cruise line is a company (law), company that operates cruise ships that operate on Cruising (maritime), ocean or River cruise, rivers and which markets cruises to the public. Cruise lines are distinct from Passenger ship, passenger lines whic ...

of Greek ferry operator

Hellenic Seaways Hellenic Seaways is a Greece-based ferry company founded in 1984. Hellenic Seaways is a subsidiary of Attica Group along with Blue Star Ferries and Superfast Ferries. History ''Ceres Hellenic Shipping Enterprises'' owned by the Livanos fam ...

. It was sold to them in August 2009 for £9 million by Cypriot/

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

business man,

Stelios Haji-Ioannou Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou (; born 14 February 1967) is a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur. Born into a wealthy ship-owning family, he is best known for founding the low-cost airline easyJet and the Stelmar shipping line with start-up funds provided by ...

, founder of

easyGroup EasyGroup Ltd (styled as easyGroup, or simply easy) is a British multinational corporation, multinational venture capital conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1998. It is headquartered in London, United Kingdom and privately owned b ...

. They launched their first

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on Tourism, tours k ...

EasyCruiseOne in 2005. Unlike other cruise lines, EasyCruise's business model offered passengers a

no-frills A no-frills or no frills service or product is one for which the non-essential features have been removed to keep the price low. The term " frills" originally refers to a style of fabric decoration. Something offered to customers for no additional ...

vacation. EasyCruise ended operations in early 2010. In December 2024, easyCruise became a cruise selling website.

History

Foundation

, who has a family background in shipping, decided to form a budget cruise line which he hoped would mirror the success of his

low-cost airline A low-cost carrier (LCC) or low-cost airline, also called a budget, or discount carrier or airline, is an airline that is operated with an emphasis on minimizing operating costs. It sacrifices certain traditional airline luxuries for cheaper fa ...

easyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airlin ...

. In April 2004, the initial ship was acquired for an approach to cruising that was aimed at attracting younger customers who wished to spend the majority of their time on shore rather than on board a megaship. The ship would offer the barest of amenities, allowing very cheap prices to be advertised. Value would be added by charging separately for each service aboard which is normally included in the quoted price of other cruise liners. Given the minimal facilities on board, the ship would position from port to port at night or in the early morning as the passengers slept, in order to allow the maximum time in each port ashore. After a few months of negotiation and refurbishment, the ship, formerly known as ''Neptune 2'', was renamed EasyCruiseOne. On 9 May 2005, the ship finally left for her maiden voyage. The service began by operating night-time departures cruising in the Mediterranean. For the winter season EasyCruise cruised in the Caribbean. Until 17 August 2007, a second boat, ''EasyCruiseTwo'', a converted river freighter, had a route around the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, visiting the cities of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

and

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

Demise

In February 2008, EasyCruise made public their plans to sell the ''EasyCruise One'' due to "not having enough space", and replacing her with a ship of similar size to the EasyCruise Life. In August 2009, the single-ship cruise line was sold to Greek ferry operator

for £9 million. EasyCruise's operations were quietly discontinued sometime in early 2010. Passengers who were booked on future cruises were refunded. Later that year, their sole ship was moved to Blue Ocean Cruises and briefly operated as the ''Ocean Life''. It was later sold for scrap. The cruise line's website was totally abandoned with no mention of its discontinuation. Sometime around 2014, the abandoned website was removed and now redirects to the easy.com homepage.

Former fleet

Trivia

*The fortunes of EasyCruise were tracked by a three series observational documentary called "Cruise with Stelios" produced by the British company

Twofour Twofour Broadcast Limited, trading as Twofour, is a British television and digital media group founded in 1989 by Charles Wace, a former BBC news producer, and Christopher Slade, a BBC presenter. With its headquarters in Plymouth, Twofour ha ...

, which was screened on Sky3 in the UK on Friday nights and in the US on The Travel Channel. The programme was also broadcast in Belgium (Flanders) as 'Cruiseline' on the public broadcaster '

één VRT 1 is a public Dutch-language TV station in Belgium, owned by the VRT, which also owns Ketnet, VRT Canvas and several radio stations. Although the channel is commercial-free, short sponsorship messages are broadcast in between some programm ...

References

External links

via the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Easycruise EasyGroup Transport companies established in 2004 Transport companies disestablished in 2010 Travel and holiday companies of the United Kingdom Defunct cruise lines