ALMACO Group has delivered 36 new luxurious Seabreeze Penthouses and two new spacious Seabreeze Penthouse Suites to Crystal Cruises’ ‘Crystal Serenity’.
The project, which was part of an extensive redesign of the ship, started during the drydock at Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremehaven, Germany, in mid-October and the suites were delivered on the 10thof November in Lisbon, Portugal, from where the ship sailed towards Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
ALMACO’s involvement included demolishing the existing 58 standard staterooms on deck 10 and building two new Seabreeze Penthouse Suites and 36 Seabreeze Penthouses in their place, significantly increasing the space and decreasing the guest count to provide a more exclusive guest experience.
Juha Suominen, ALMACO’s Project Manager responsible for this project, said; “This was a successful project for ALMACO not only because we were able to work closely with Crystal’s and Lloyd Werft’s teams, but also because we were able to make our own project team more agile and lean, with thorough risk analysis and prevention plans.”
Tommi Virta, ALMACO’s Project Manager who was also involved in the project, added, “I am proud of our team of professionals with the mentality, fortitude and agility to know that everything is constantly changing and who are ready to work to overcome any challenge.”
As for the Viking Line contract, after working with the ferry company during the pre-contractual phase, ALMACO secured the order to build 1,121 passenger and crew cabins, plus all the galleys, bars, pantries and provision stores, including cold rooms, freezers and walk-ins.
The new ferry is being built at Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry (XSI) shipyard in China.
For the accommodations, ALMACO’s contract included visual turnkey with some background work for all passenger and crew cabins, as well as crew public areas.
The catering areas delivery involved visual turnkey installation, including flooring and wall and ceiling stainless steel panels for around 800 sq m of galleys, 380 sq m of provision stores.
According to Viking Line, the newbuilding will be one of the most climate-smart ships in the world and will feature ALMACO’s latest energy-saving Galley Energy Management system GEM 2.0.
Jan Hanses, Viking Line President and CEO, said; “Optimised energy efficiency and environmentally-friendly solutions have been focal points for the project, and the new vessel will be among the most energy efficient ships in the world. ALMACO’s GEM 2.0 system not only brings up to 20% savings in energy consumption in the galley, but will also help manage the galley operations to minimise energy waste.”
Viking Line and ALMACO pioneered energy efficiency for catering solutions in 2013 with ‘Viking Grace’, which was the first vessel to use ALMACO’s GEM system and the first LNG-powered large passenger ship.
The project is expected to be completed in 2020 and the vessel will be delivered in early 2021 on the Turku/Åland/Stockholm route.
In these past 20 years, ALMACO has built and modernised over 25,000 cabins and public spaces, the company said.
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