Corazul Cruceros is in the final preparation stages ahead of its inaugural season in Brazil, according to Chief Commercial Officer Camille Appeldoorn.
Introduced earlier this year in Spain, the startup company will launch service with the Buenavista in late October.
Speaking to Cruise Industry News earlier this month, Appeldoorn said that the ship’s repositioning voyage to South America is taking place as scheduled.
“We departed Hong Kong some time ago; we just had a technical stop in Singapore, where we did the painting of the hull and some technical maintenance,” Appeldoorn said.
Corazul took delivery of the former Piano Land in late September, as part of a deal with Astro Ocean Cruises.
Following the stop in Singapore, the vessel set sail for Mauritius with over 300 crew members already onboard handling preparations.
“We had more crew boarding in Mauritius,” he continued, adding the company also did a significant amount of provisioning in Port Louis.
“From Mauritius, it’s straight on to Santos to arrive there around the 20th or 21st of October to start our inaugural sailing on the 26th, which is the most important thing that we’re looking for now.”
The Buenavista is also scheduled to operate a shakedown cruise on October 23, according to the company’s published plans.
Following the inaugural sailings, the 1,806-passenger vessel is scheduled to offer a series of short cruises to Brazilian destinations departing from Santos and Rio de Janeiro.
“The ship itself doesn’t need that much uplifting because it was very well maintained and in good shape,” Appeldoorn added.
“The primary thing to do is to transform it from being a Chinese vessel, as it was very much catered to that market, and bring it to the Corazul style,,” Appeldoorn noted.
Part of the transition includes reconfiguring certain public spaces back to their original layouts and updating all onboard signage.
“Where the Chinese would have made a shop somewhere, we say, ‘No, we want to bring this back to what it was originally designed for,'” Appeldoorn said.
“All the signage will be in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In addition, the chef is onboard with the galley staff, starting the preparations, finalizing the menus, doing the test cooking, and doing the tasting onboard.”
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) is overseeing the vessel’s technical management, he continued.
“They’re very professional, they came o board and did a very smooth handover, also with the authorities,” Appeldoorn noted. “We set out that plan and we didn’t miss a single deadline, so that was actually a very good thing.”
Originally in service for P&O Cruises as the Oriana, the Buenavista was built at the Meyer Werft shipyard and debuted in 1995.
The 69,000-ton ship was acquired by Astro Ocean Cruises in 2019, repositioning to Asia for cruises aimd at the Chinese national market.
