Pearl Seas forced to cancel 2009 programme

Pearl Seas Cruises, a new cruise company based in the US, has cancelled its cruise programme for the remainder of the 2009 touring season in the Atlantic region for a luxury cruise ship building at the Halifax Shipyard in Canada.

The company announced that it was forced to cancel the rest of the 2009 Eastern Canadian and St. Lawrence Seaway cruises due to a series of deficiencies recently discovered during sea trials, which included quality issues and construction delays.

Although Pearl Seas Cruises has recently been having problems with Irving Shipbuilding over the construction of the vessel, the company stated that it would not elaborate on the dispute.

Pearl Sea Cruises has previously cancelled a Caribbean tour with the same, Halifax- built vessel. The company had expected the newbuilding to be ready for service by May 2008, but construction delays caused the date to be consistently pushed back.

In the past, Irving Shipping had indicated that the cause behind the construction delays was problems with engineering and design instructions.