PREMIER CRUISE LINE

'Premier Cruise Line' was a cruise line that operated from 1983 to 2000. It was at one time the official cruise line of Walt Disney World and used the trademark "The Big Red Boat" based on the color scheme of some of its ships.
Premier Cruise Line was formed in 1983 by the Greyhound Bus Company. The ships typically operated 3-day and 4-day Bahamas trips out of Port Canaveral, Florida. The company was earning in excess of $20 million annually on a gross revenue of $100 million during the 1980s.
Premier became the "official Disney cruise line", and marketed cruises as part of a land/sea vacation package including visits to the Disney theme parks in Florida. Disney decided to start its own cruise line business in 1995 and ended its relationship with Premier. Premier then affiliated itself with the Looney Tunes characters to maintain its family friendly image, but Premier suffered without the Disney connection. The company also had an aging fleet of small ships unable to compete with newer and larger liners. The older ships were not designed for the handicapped and Premier was sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act for not making accommodations for people with disabilities. Premier Cruises eventually went into bankruptcy and folded in September, 2000.
Some Premier ships included the ''Majestic'' (the former ''Sun Princess'' of Princess Cruise Lines), the former Home Lines flagship ''Oceanic'', the ''Atlantic'' (another former Home Lines ship), and the ''Royale'', a former Costa liner known then as the ''Frederico C''. The original four ships had the prefix "Star Ship" or S/S before their names. During Premiers' reorganization in the mid 1990s all but the ''Oceanic'' (''Big Red Boat I'') were sold off. Premier then became an amalgamation of Dolphin and Seawind Cruises. Later, the Rembrandt, formerly the ''Rotterdam'' of Holland America Line was added to the line.
The ''Oceanic'' (''Big Red Boat I'') is still sailing today for Spain based Pullmantur Cruises. The ''Big Red Boat II'', formerly ''Eugenio Costa'', was sold for scrap. The ''Big Red Boat III'', formerly Carnival Cruise Line's ''Festivale'' was also sold for scrap. The former ''Frederico C'' (called the Seabreeze I) was to be scrapped at India but instead sank in a storm 220 miles off the Virginia coast. Lastly, the ''Rembrandt'', formerly the ''Rotterdam'', was purchased by the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to be restored and kept as a historic landmark.

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Controversy

Controversy

At the time of its sinking, the ''Seabreeze I'' had been under arrest by creditors in Halifax since September 2000. The investigation into the sinking of the ''Seabreeze I'' caused international concern, based upon numerous suspicious incidents, including the fact that the ship was likely to fetch only between $5 and $6 million for scrap, but had a $20 million insurance policy on it. The cruise ship sank in international waters flying the Panamanian flag, making Panama responsible for the investigation of the sinking of the boat.
The ship's captain told U.S. Coast Guard rescuers that his boat was in imminent danger of sinking as a result of its engine room being flooded in heavy seas. At the time, the Coast Guard rescuers believed that it was highly unlikely for a ship that large to sink that quickly, and were astonished when the Greek captain demanded that he be exfiltrated from his boat, rather than stay aboard it and try to shepherd it to shore and recovery.
At the time of the sinking, Steven Cotton of the International Transport Workers Federation in London stated that he wished that the ship, which went down 225 nautical miles off the Virginia coast, had gone down 25 miles closer to the coast because that would have put the case in the hands of American investigators.
According to Cotton, ''"Panama's track record of carrying out comprehensive investigations into vessel sinkings is not very good."'' Suspicion on the sinking was also cast based upon the fact that ships flying the Panamanian flag had in recent years lost more ships than any other flag-state in the world.
The United States Coast Guard organized interviews with the 34 crew members it rescued from the sinking vessel, but the Greek captain refused to talk to them. Without engaging in an expensive and dangerous deep-sea dive to investigate the wreckage of the ''Seabreeze'', it is highly unlikely that the true reason behind the sinking will ever be discovered.