stelios easy cruise

What Happened to Easy Cruise? – The Rise and Fall of Budget Cruising

EasyCruise were a cruise line formed in 2005 by EasyJet founder Stelios.

They focused on low cost cruises for an audience of people who otherwise wouldn’t take a cruise.

It was possible to take an EasyCruise for as little as $10 (£7) per person per night.

EasyCruise sailed in both Europe and from the US. The Provided Mediterranean itineraries in the summer and Caribbean itineraries during the winter.

What Happened to EasyCruise?

The cruise line EasyCruise stopped sailing in 2010 after 5 years in business.

EasyCruise focused on low-cost budget cruising and had 3 ships, the EasyCruise One, EasyCruise Two, and EasyCruise Life.

EasyCruise tried something DRAMATICALLY different when they launched. No cruise line before, or since has managed to offer cruises on such a limited budget.

The Maiden Voyage of EasyCruise

The Maiden Voyage of EasyCruise’s first cruise ship the EasyCruise One was in 2005.

The ship was built originally for Renaissance Cruises in 1990. She then spent some time as a gambling ship operating in Singapore.

EasyCruise purchased the ship, refitted her entirely, and then launched.

The EasyCruise Color Scheme Had to be Changed

When initially launching the cruise line EasyCruise painted the hulls of their cruise ship and most things inside the cruise ship Easy’s signature bright orange colour.

Some passengers said that they struggled to deal with the ‘Unremitting orange.

They also had problems with the bathrooms of the cabins leaking into the main cabin. This was fixed on later voyages.

EasyCruise One Had Many Successful Voyages

EasyCruise One started sailing in 2005 and sailed until 2008 when she was retired from the fleet.

In this time she sailed the Mediterranean and Greek Islands. She also sailed in the Caribbean during the winters of 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The cabins onboard EasyCruise One were incredibly basic.

The mattresses were very low down, almost on the floor and most cabins were around 110 square feet.

Some cabins held up to 4 passengers.

In comparison, the average inside cabin is 167 square feet.

To learn more about the size of cabins, including how much bigger oceanview cabins are than inside cabins on average, check out this post:

How Big Are Cruise Ship Cabins? 27 Examples, All Cabin Types.

EasyCruiseOne retired from the fleet in 2008, EasyCruise felt that she was too small – but had been a good test for the budget cruise model. She was sold and renamed Cruise One.

EasyCruise Two Joins The Fleet

In 2007 EasyCruise added a second ship to the fleet, a riverboat.

EasyCruise franchised the ship but operations didn’t last very long due to financial issues.

EasyCruise Life Joins The Fleet

Following the sale of EasyCruise One EasyCruise decided to add a new ship to the fleet.

The new ship would be called EasyCruise Life and would be considerably larger than EasyCruise One.

EasyCruise Life had a passenger capacity of 550 passengers.

The ship was built in 1981 as a ferry for a Polish company.

She was the third in a series of seven almost identical ferries which were built for the Soviet Union.

She had a number of different names and owners before EasyCruise bought her in 2007.

In 2009 the ship was sold to Hellenic Seaways but it was business as usual for the customers.

Cruises continued operating under the EasyCruise brand and nothing really changed. Hellenic Seaways paid 9 million pounds for the company.

In 2010 EasyCruise ended operations completely. An official reason wasn’t given but the company likely struggled to make the business model profitable due to the low entry price for cruisers and limited opportunity for guests to spend more onboard.

EasyCruise sold the ship to Blue Open Cruise Lines who renamed her Ocean Life.

On her maiden voyage as Ocean Life the ship developed a crack in her side, the ship took on so much water that it listed five degrees to the side!

She was taken to a shipyard for repairs.

The EasyCruise Life ship was sold for scrap in 2014.

How was EasyCruise Different From Other Cruise Lines?

One of the main selling points of an EasyCruise was the long time spent in port.

The idea of the cruise was that it was simply a way to get guests from destination to destination, the ship would sometimes be in port until 4 am allowing guests to have dinner ashore and party into the evening.

When cruising the Caribbean the sail away time was usually earlier than this, around midnight.

It was said that this was because the nightlife ended sooner in the Caribbean but it may also have to do with the fact that the ship had further to travel between destinations.

EasyCruise Didn’t Include Food as Standard

The EasyCruise fare included VERY little.

Food was not included and was served on a la carte basis.

There was a dining package you could buy that would allow you to have breakfast on the ship and either lunch or dinner.

Most guests purchased food in port and just paid for meals onboard if they wanted them.

The cruise fare also didn’t include any housekeeping services. These cost extra if required.

Guests Could Organise Their Own Schedules

On the majority of EasyCruise sailings, guests were able to embark and disembark at any point in the cruise.

A minimum of two nights had to be booked, but this was a great selling point for the company as it made itineraries more flexible.

I haven’t managed to find anybody who took an EasyCruise but didn’t take the full voyages, but they must exist!

The Majority of Passengers on an EasyCruise Were British

EasyCruise were marketed heavily at the British market.

A cruise director onboard called Neil said that up to 75% of the passengers were British at any time, followed by Americans, Australians, and Canadians.

The average age of passengers onboard was 33 – much lower than the industry average.

EasyCruise Had a Television Series

In 2005 a TV show was launched called “Cruise With Stelios.”

It was called ‘CruiseLine’ internationally, and shown in a number of countries.

The show was an observational documentary which followed the passengers and crew on an EasyCruise.

The show was broadcast in the UK, US, and other countries around the world.

This was great free advertising for Easy Cruise.

Episode One of Cruise With Stelios

The first episode showed the start up of the business, through from the initial idea to buying the ship, renovating the ship and setting sail for the first time.

The documentary provided a behind the scenes look at Stelios’s motivations for creating the cruise line.

Series One of Cruise With Stelios

The rest of the series was shown throughout 2005 and took place in the French and Italian Riviera.

It follows the ship as she launches with a big party in the port of Cannes before moving on to St Tropez, Monaco, Genoa, Portofino and Imperia.

Due to the ship’s small size, she was able to visit smaller ports than most other mainstream cruise ships.

Series Two of Cruise With Stelios

The second series followed the ship to the Caribbean, launching from Barbados with help from Richard Branson.

Here the company bought onboard two members of crew from the US, and tried to attract the US market.

Series Three of Cruise With Stelios

In the third series of Cruise With Stelios, the documentary was back in the French and Italian Riviera.

In the series, the documentary shows EasyCruise launching the EasyCruiseTwo, the riverboat that would cruise from Amsterdam to Brussels.

End of EasyCruise

At one point EasyCruise had plans to add up to 7 ships to their fleet. They were planning to build these new ships – but the plan was quickly shelved.

EasyCruise’s operations were quietly discontinued sometime in early 2010.

Some passengers did have cruises booked beyond this date, they were cancelled and refunded.

The EasyCruise brand is now run by VarietyCruises, offering private yacht experiences. Very different from the original brand.

Below is the easy cruise timeline:

Before You Go

Unsurprisingly, no one else has been able to offer cruises as cheaply as EasyCruise! To find out when cruise prices are at their cheapest so you can get the best deal possible deal here:

When Are Cruise Prices At Their Cheapest? Hints and Tips To Help You Book At The Right Time

Find out how to book cheap cruises from as little as £50 a night here:

Cheap Cruises: Cruise For £50pp Per Night?!

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DISCOVER THE WORLD

in partnership with Variety Cruises

Worldwide Cruise Destinations with easyCruise

easyCruise Overview

easyCruise offers a great yacht cruise experience with its 11 fully owned vessels with capacity ranging from 5 to 36 cabins. The cruise itineraries are carefully selected and curated showcasing the best of each destination by visiting loving and unfrequented ports.

Whats Different

• Private Yacht Cruise Experience, with up to 72 fellow passengers
• Boutique-size yachts that dock right in the heart of destinations that large ships cannot reach
• Carefully crafted itineraries focused on the destination
• Ample leisure time in each port including overnights
• Mediterranean fusion cuisine with a strong local influence depending on the destination
• Personalised service on board provided by experienced and finely trained crew
• Small group shore excursions
• Swimming platforms allowing guests to swim, snorkel, kayak and more
• Yacht Deck Barbecues & Private Events on shore

Top easyCruise destinations

• Greece & the Greek Islands
• The Greek Isles & Turkey
• The Adriatic Sea: Croatia, Montenegro, Albania & Greece
• Costa Rica & the Panama, including a Panama Canal transit
• The Seychelles
• Madagascar & Mozambique Islands
• The Canary Islands
• Cape Verde Archipelago

Awards & Accolades

easyCruise is operated by Variety Cruise which has won several industry nomination and award:

• USA TODAY READER'S CHOICE AWARDS: "Best Boutique Cruise Line" worldwide
• CruiseCritic.Com: Top 15 small ship cruise lines and "Best for Yacht Cruises" category
• Tourism Awards: Gold Award in "Small Ship Cruising in Greece" category
• CruiseCritic.com: No1 small ship cruise line in the Scenic Nature category
• Conde Nast Traveler Greece: Best Small Ship Cruise Line in Greece

So what are you waiting for?

Book your next cruise via easyCruise for a team of local experts and worldwide partners to walk you through your next yacht cruise adventure. Customise the experience to your personal preference. Drop your anchors and book today

Cruise And Ferry

Ship that launched Sir Stelios’ EasyCruise dream gets cut up for scrap in Dubai

Former EasyCruiseOne is one of two failed cruise to yacht conversions that are being recycled in the Middle East business hub

Rain could not dampen the enthusiasm of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou back in 2005 when the Greek serial entrepreneur showed off the first what was intended to be the first of many cruise ships for his EasyCruise venture that applied the principles of his EasyJet low cost airline to bring ultra-cheap cruising to the masses.

Today that cruise ship, the 4,100-gt EasyCruiseOne (built 1990, renamed Cruise One) is being cut down for scrap on the dry berth it has been sitting on for over decade waiting for its conversion into a luxury mega-yacht.

Another long abandoned partly converted mega-yacht sitting next to the Cruise One, the former 3,400-gt former Greek cruise ship Maria Kosmas (1981) has already been dismantled, Dubai shipyard sources told TradeWinds.

Sir Stelios’ big cruise ambitions did not last long.

The EasyCruiseOne, which was built for high-end operator Renaissance Cruises, had spent several years in Asian waters as a run-down casino ship before Sir Stelios became its owner.

Stripped of its faded luxury trappings for 140 passengers, the ship was fitted with bare-bones accommodation for double that number. Always intended as a pathfinder vessel, it was replaced by a larger ship within three years, although the EasyCruise venture did not last much longer.

The EasyCruiseOne was sold in 2008 to a shipowning vehicle linked to Platinum Yacht Management, a company best known for looking after the yachts belonging to Dubai’s ruling family.

The plan was to strip out the EasyCruise orange decor and fill the ship with all the luxury trappings required by royalty. But, with the world in a financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, the project stalled before it began.

According to cruise brokers, the untouched ship was put back on the sales market, but buyers baulked at the high asking price, especially since they would need to spend huge amounts of cash to rebuild the interior of the ship to an acceptable standard for the cruising public. EasyCruise passengers had made do with matrasses on the floor of their miniscule cabins.

And so the Cruise One sat baking in the hot sun as the years passed.

Keeping the ship company on the dry berth at Dubai Maritime City’s common user shipyard facility was the former Vergina Cruises ship Maria Kosmas.

A former Australian navy hydrographic survey vessel, it was converted into a cruise vessel by the Greek cruise operator in 1993. The Maria Kosmas was not a successful ship for Vergina. It had been laid up near Piraeus for several years by the time was it purchased by a Middle Eastern buyer in 2002.

Soon after it was moved to Dubai for conversion into the yacht Cosmos. Extensive steel work was done, and all that was left was for the interior to be installed.

But then the project was called off and the partially rebuilt ship was shunted off into lay-up.

Rumours circulated by yachting industry sources at the time the project stalled suggested that the owner’s eye had turned to another mega-yacht that he decided to buy instead.

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ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR: STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU

Entrepreneur of the Year: Stelios Haji-Ioannou

By Jennifer Conlin

• Jan. 22, 2006

STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU is the son of a Greek shipping tycoon and the founder of easyJet P.L.C., a budget airline he started in 1995 at the age of 28. Last year, easyJet flew 30 million passengers, making it one of the largest short-haul airlines in Europe. Since then, Mr. Haji-Ioannou has started 14 other ventures through his private investment venture, easyGroup, and licenses the "easy" brand name to ventures like easyHotel and easyInternet Cafe. His most recent project, easyCruise, was started last summer on the French and Italian Rivieras and is now offering cruises in the Caribbean, operating out of Barbados and with stops in St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Grenada, St. Lucia and Martinique. The average age of easyCruise customers in its first season was 32. This conversation took place on Jan. 10 in London.

When you think of your target easyCruise customer, what type of person are you picturing?

Someone young. My research showed their biggest objection to cruising was that it was a lot of old people. So I thought, "Give them their own ship." The younger people are not willing to spend $5,000 on a cruise. And they do not want to be held captive on the ship, so we have a two-night minimum stay. By not making the ship a floating resort, we have been able to keep the price low. Instead, it is a floating hotel that we keep in port at night so people can eat onboard if they wish or go ashore. And everything is a la carte so they can choose what services they want.

In the same way you took on British Airways when you started easyJet, you seem more than happy to go up against Carnival Cruise Lines. Do you like controversy?

I said that Carnival's ships have tacky ballrooms and are full of old folks, which made Micky Arison pretty angry. [Mr. Arison is chief executive of Carnival Cruise Lines.] I am a great believer that to make a difference in people's lives you are probably going to have to ruffle some feathers. One of our brand models is to take on the big boys.

Someone once said that you look at traditional industries and then blow them to pieces by figuring out a way to do them cheaper and more efficiently? Do you think that is a fair assessment of your business philosophy?

I can't promise to blow all of them apart. But I think it is a compliment when the big boys are taking notice. It is also a convenient way of differentiating our product from the more traditional products.

How do your best ideas originate?

It is a lot of trial and error, observing, traveling and using my personal experience from other industries. With the cruise line, I came up with the idea of staying in port at night from my personal experience and memories of private yachting. I grew up being on boats because my father had a yacht. What do you do with a yacht? You sail during the day and go into port at night, which is not the itinerary of traditional cruises. Cruising in the middle of the night is not pleasant. You look out at a dark sea. Sailing during daylight and arriving in the afternoon is better. You actually see views.

You emphasize low cost. When do you think luxury should not be sacrificed?

Everyone is different, but for me I would feel embarrassed within Europe on short-haul flights to be in business class. But when I fly to Miami from London I want business class because I want to sleep. If you are going to spend one night in a city and have business meetings, then a budget easyHotel is fine, but I don't think you should spend your honeymoon in an easyHotel. What a scary thought!

Would you bring the easyHotels to America?

Yes. I am thinking of franchising it in New York, where we are in negotiations, and perhaps Miami.

You are often mentioned in the same breath as Richard Branson, who is now also going into the cruise market. What do you think you have in common, and how do you think you are different?

There is no doubt in my mind that I have been inspired by him. I wanted to start an airline because I thought that Branson was having fun running an airline. But the business model came from Southwest -- so I think that Herb Kelleher is more of a hero there. Taking the brand bigger is something I learned from Branson. But Virgin is more of a luxury brand and easyGroup is more of the money-for-value brand. He is saying that his cruise product is for people in their forties who are too old to rock 'n' roll and too young to tango. Hopefully, they are too young for Carnival and too old for easyCruise.

You once said you wanted to paint the whole world orange, your company's signature color. Do you ever grow weary of that bold orange color?

I know where you are coming from about the color. Let me give you a hint. Maybe the next ship will have less orange. I am not saying there is anything wrong with orange, but we can debate the quantity of orange. Maybe not every square foot has to be orange. But we want to be faithful to the brand, and the color is part of that. It tells people we are about value for money and fun. ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR: STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU

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Is easyCruise as cheap and easy as it claims?

Erica Silverstein

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It’s “the perfect holiday for independently minded people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s,” boasts the easyCruise website . The cabins may be small and the frills nonexistent, but the base price is low and the cruise ship will drop you off at a [% 328989 | | different island %] each day with plenty of time to see the sights and enjoy the nightlife. And when the ship sails, the outdoor bar on Deck 5 is supposed to be hopping with a hot-tubbing, drinking, and dancing young crowd.

Sound good? I thought so, so I signed up for seven days of sailing the Caribbean during easyCruise’s first ever winter season. But when I stepped into the sports bar on my first day onboard and saw a sea of white hair, and then paid almost $20 for a disappointing meal, I began to have some doubts. Was the Caribbean easyCruise experience as cheap, easy, and fun as the website promised?

What they promised and what I got

For a very low per-day rate, easyCruise offers a place to sleep, access to the ship’s onboard amenities, and transportation between [% 328989 | | Barbados, St. Vincent, Martinique, Bequia (a Grenadine island), Grenada, and St. Lucia %] for a minimum of two and a maximum of 14 days. Onboard amenities include a coffee shop, a sundries shop, a sports-themed restaurant, an outdoor bar with hot tub, a sun deck (though I never saw anyone up there), and a gym (ditto for the gym). The cruise line also operates a couple of shore excursions in each port for an additional charge, and these occasionally get canceled, mostly due to lack of interest.

From all that I read about other travelers’ experiences on easyCruise, I was expecting a minimalist cabin, long days on shore, and nonstop partying on Deck 5 (the outdoor bar) in the evenings. My expectations were only somewhat correct. Here’s a rundown of what easyCruise promises on its website, and what I found on my Caribbean cruise.

‘ easyCruiseOne features a unique minimalist chic orange colored cabin design with frosted glass fittings.’

The cruise line’s description is pretty much accurate. Most cabins feature two twin mattresses on a raised platform with about a hand’s width of space in between them, two hooks and eight hangers for clothing and towels, a high shelf, and a ledge along the headboard. Luggage must be stored on the shelf (for small bags) and along the narrow hallway (for suitcases). The mattresses and duvets are relatively comfortable, though the pillows are flat. And, of course, some of the walls, the headboard, and the platform are bright orange. Most rooms have no window, but you can pay more for doubles with a window, windowless quads, or suites with balconies.

An en suite bathroom is enclosed in mostly translucent glass (the tops and bottoms are transparent so you can see your roommate’s feet when she showers) and hold a towel rack, a toilet, sink, mirror, and shower with no curtain. When you shower, most of the bathroom gets wet, and any noise you make in the bathroom can be heard throughout the cabin. Clearly, easyCruise is not the place for modest people.

I found the bathrooms frustrating, especially as ours had a stick instead of a lock and our toilet stopped working on two separate occasions. But, I’ve stayed in hostels that offered much less. In the end, the cabins were more or less as expected, though a few design modifications could make them more user-friendly.

‘The ship stays in port every night until 4:00 a.m. in the Riviera and 11:00 p.m. in the Caribbean, allowing you to enjoy the life on shore—the beach, sightseeing, shopping, dining, and clubbing.’

The above statement is quite misleading. With the exceptions of Barbados and Bequia, we had to be onboard by 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. every night. Not only was there no chance to experience any nightlife, but we often had to rush through dinner in order to get back to the ship on time. Our early departures could have been due to the fact that the ship was down to only one working engine, but I don’t really want to think about that. One of easyCruise’s biggest selling points for me was its long hours in port, so I felt a bit shortchanged.

‘The idea is to offer a unique holiday experience to independently minded travelers in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.’

I read that the average age on easyCruise in the Mediterranean is 32, and was expecting a similarly young crowd in the Caribbean that would spend the evenings mingling and reveling at the outdoor bar. Later I learned the average age in the Caribbean is 38. That means there should be as many 20-year-olds as 60-year-olds onboard, but I would bet the average age on my sailing leaned more toward 60 than 20.

My travel companion and I hung out with seven other travelers who were our age (20s and 30s); we saw a few more, but they only spoke French. Most of the other passengers were older—many significantly older—and the Deck 5 bar was usually not well attended in the evening. I witnessed no hot tub hijinks or drunken bumping and grinding, which was fine with me, but I would have preferred a little more socializing after 10:00 p.m. With nothing else to do onboard but go to bed, I was hoping the other guests would provide some late-night entertainment.

I learned from some of the crew that prior to Christmas, evening events such as karaoke, salsa lessons, and The Newlywed Game brought the crowds to the bar. But those events had stopped, and on nights when people happened to dance I could count the revelers on one hand. I was disappointed with this change, but it does mean you’ll never have trouble getting a spot in the hot tub.

Is EasyCruise cheap?

Yes and no. Your cruise fare is ridiculously cheap; we paid $372 for seven nights’ double occupancy (that’s roughly $27 per person per day) in a windowless cabin. Four people sharing a quad can pay even less. And, if you book early, you can often find easyCruise specials for still less. However, prices are going up. A suite on a Mediterranean sailing that cost $1,320 last October would be closer to $2,000 by this October.

Airfare is also a significant expense. You’ll need to shell out at least $500, likely more, to get to any of the islands in the winter high season. You might be able to find deals on November and early-December airfare, but in January, February, and March, plane ticket prices go sky high. For the Mediterranean sailings, Europeans can find cheap tickets on sister company easyJet or another low-fare airline, making an easyCruise an all-round discount option. In the Caribbean, everyone is coming from afar and paying for the privilege.

Onboard, we saved by ordering the discounted drink of the day at the bar and the discounted room cleaning on Wednesday in Bequia. I had hoped to make it through the week without a towel change or room cleaning, but when you take most of St. Vincent’s black sand beaches home with you in your bathing suit, it becomes imperative to clean your bathroom. On the flip side, we found the onboard meals at the sports bar to be overpriced for the low quality of the food; the vegetarian options were plentiful but rarely lived up to expectations. Maybe the burgers were better.

Plus, at the end of the cruise, we learned that though all onboard prices were listed in dollars, easyCruise will charge your credit card in euros. When your bank then converts the euros to U.S. dollars, you’ll have lost money through two currency exchanges, rather than one. So everything onboard is more expensive than it seems.

Onshore, I figured we could save a lot by eating locally rather than returning to the ship for meals; on many of the islands, food did come cheap. We often bought fruit and bread from local markets or grocery stores and took advantage of the favorable exchange rate with the Eastern Caribbean dollar. Travelers who like street food can save big with local specialties.

But unless we were willing to take our chances with local public transport, such as shared vans, we found transportation costs on the islands could snap our travel budget in two. If you’re traveling in a group of four or can hook up with other passengers, you can save a lot by splitting the cost of cabs or car rentals. You probably do not want to spend a lot of time in most of the port towns, and you’ll need some sort of transportation even if you’re just headed for a nearby beach, let alone if you want to explore the island. If you’re a single traveler, you might get more for your money if you opt for easyCruise’s shore excursions. You can potentially save by booking your excursions independently of easyCruise, but you’ll need to do this in advance, before you know what time the ship will dock at each island.

In this respect, the Mediterranean itineraries seem superior. “When you have ports that are 2,000 years old,” says Bob Blake of Fodor’s, who sailed easyCruise in the Mediterranean in October, “everything is built close to the water.” From the ship, you can walk to restaurants and shops or take public transportation if you’re going far. Europe is much more suited to independent travelers than the Caribbean, where there’s less of an infrastructure for a kind of travel that isn’t dependent on taxi rides and tours.

When you add up what I spent on airfare, cruise fare, meals, and cabin cleaning, I paid just over $1,000. I could certainly pay about the same price for a seven-day Caribbean cruise out of Florida on Carnival and have a nicer cabin and better onboard facilities. On the other hand, I might not get to experience local cuisine or the intimacy of a small ship where I got to know other passengers and crewmembers.

Is it easy?

Not in the Caribbean. Well, it’s certainly an easy way to see six islands in so many days. If you tried to arrange interisland transportation on your own, you would spend a lot of time in very small airports and would probably end up exhausted.

I contend that easyCruise isn’t so easy because in order to have a good time, you have to do a lot of legwork. Before our cruise, my travel companion and I read everything we could about easyCruise and the islands we were visiting. Every night, we’d pull out our two guidebooks and various travel brochures and try to figure out what to do the next day. But both of us love planning trips, so for us, this was fun.

The real problem was that often we’d find that we’d be interested in seeing a certain attraction but in order to do that we’d either have to pay through the nose for a taxi or car rental (or find other travelers to join us), book a tour (which we couldn’t do onboard), or play bus roulette and risk getting stranded if we couldn’t find a bus back. If all you want to do is pay for a cab to take you to the beach, easyCruise can be fairly easy. If you are an “independently minded” traveler on a tight budget who wants to explore the islands, easyCruise can present a bit of a challenge.

The easyCruise staff occasionally provided a port map but couldn’t answer logistical questions about getting around the islands. Usually, a tourist office was located at the pier so you could get a map, but sometimes there wasn’t even that. In St. Lucia, we were dropped off at a sketchy ferry port far from the main cruise terminal with no signs pointing our way to town or a tourist office. Luckily, I had been to the island before and managed to head in the right direction.

Once we got to the beach or restaurant on each island, I really enjoyed my experience. We saw baby turtles at a turtle sanctuary, sipped cocktails at an outdoor bar while watching the sunset, and swam under a waterfall. But, I felt that I had to put a lot of effort into getting to that point, more than I ever had to in my rambles through Europe.

Was it worth it?

The Caribbean easyCruise experience does not live up to the high expectations set by its more popular Mediterranean counterpart. This failing may be the unofficial reason why company-head Stelios is thinking about sending the easyCruiseOne to Florida next winter to sail Bahamas itineraries. Cheaper airfare to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale could attract the young socializers who livened up the Mediterranean (and made easyCruise a profit with sold-out ships and a booming cocktail service).

If you don’t mind no-frills cabins, can travel in a group of four or more, and like to do advance planning, you can probably have a fabulous time seeing some less-touristed Caribbean islands on a tight budget. The itinerary is certainly the best thing about the experience. Or, if you just want to get some sun and turn in early, easyCruise can also be an economical option.

However, if you’re an explorer with a limited expense account, easyCruise may be tough going. You can’t easily see a lot of an island without coughing up the cash, and while men can hop into a shared van and let the wind carry them to the next adventure, women travelers are advised to be more cautious.

EasyCruise plies the waters of the Caribbean through April 29, then repositions to the Mediterranean and begins its summer season on May 13. If you’re looking for the best that easyCruise has to offer, I’d recommend skipping the Caribbean and getting a discounted early-bird deal on the Europe sailings.

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News | The ‘easy’ way to cruise Greek Islands

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Stelios Haji-Ioannou — the man behind the low-cost successes of Europe’s easyJet and easyHotel — has been experimenting with a new concept in cruising: easyCruise. This summer, after several seasons of sailing the French and Italian Rivieras, Stelios is repositioning his cost-conscious cruise ship to the waters of his homeland, Greece.

With so many cruise operators plying the Aegean and Mediterranean, why waste time focusing on a single company with only one ship? EasyCruise offers three distinct advantages over its competitors: unique itineraries, incredibly low prices and a daily schedule that allows passengers to spend the bulk of their time ashore rather than at boring buffet dinners aboard the ship.

Stelios, the son of a Greek shipping magnate, explains that he has spent a lifetime “visiting many smaller, unknown Greek Islands — ones with no tourists.” Now he’s ready to share these little-visited gems with the public.

Some of the islands on easyCruise’s itineraries are famous (Mykonos, Paros and Naxos), but others (Spetses, Milos, Amorgos, Folegandros, Serifos and Sifnos) are known only to insiders.

These islands are strung together in three different loops, each leaving out of the Athens port of Piraeus and lasting three, four and seven nights, respectively. This cycle repeats every 14 days, so you could string together a two-week cruise visiting 11 islands by booking all three loops back-to-back.

Essentially, easyCruise offers the opportunity to go island-hopping without the discomfort of milk-run ferries — but almost as inexpensively. Rates for a two-person interior cabin start around 102 euros ($139 U.S.) for the three-night, midweek cruise; from 168 euros ($228) for the four-night, long-weekend cruise; and from 294 euros ($400) for the seven-night itinerary.

Cabins with a window cost a bit more, while suites with balconies often double the per-night rates. These low prices are more common at the end of the season, in September and October, with June to August dates ranging more along the lines of 42 euros to 120 euros ($57 to $163) per cabin per night.

The easyCruise difference goes well beyond unknown islands and laughably low prices. Stelios himself describes easyCruise as “a cruise for people who hate cruising.” It’s designed for those who’d rather spend their time exploring the islands than aboard the ship.

Only one-third of the stops on the full itinerary require a tender boat to get back and forth from the ship; all other stops allow the ship to dock at port, so guests are free to wander on and off.

More importantly, the daily cruising schedule is designed to let passengers tour each destination in full, by day and by night. You arrive at each new port by noon, with plenty of time to get off the ship and explore (the ship offers a variety of adventures ashore).

Then, rather than setting sail at 5 p.m., as on most ships, easyCruise doesn’t leave until between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. the next morning. This allows you to relax all evening on shore and have dinner in a local taverna or restaurant — though there is an a la carte restaurant on board the ship that serves fusion cuisine.

It also means that passengers are free to party the night away at local nightclubs — part of the fabled attraction on some Greek islands, but one that most cruisers miss out on — or simply stroll the sands in the moonlight. The actual sailing from island to island is done during the morning hours while, presumably, most passengers are sleeping off a night of revelry.

You can get more information or make a booking at www.easy cruise.com.

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Stelios changes course for EasyCruise

MR EASY, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, is set to abandon the principles behind all his ventures ranging from easyJet to easyCinema with the launch early next year of easyCruise.

For the first time, he will use and pay intermediaries - in the shape of travel agents - rather than relying solely on customers booking directly through the internet.

Launching his first six test cruises, each a week long, out of Singapore next March and April, Iannou said that travel agents will be able to book with an extra 5% discount over members of the public.

This effectively means that they receive 5 1/4% commission to encourage them to book up and create packages for punters including flights to and from Singapore and extra nights' accommodation before or after the cruise.

He said: 'I think this will be win-win and travel agents will be making money for both themselves and for easyCruise. Punters are more likely to want to use travel agents the more complex their holiday plans are. I also think that they are likely to be going along to their normal travel agents and saying they want to book an easyCruise.'

The cruises, which will be based on the Mediterranean from next May, are aimed at 20 to 40-year-olds with prices starting at £29 a night.

Sailing for a short while early each morning, the easyCruiser will arrive at a new port before lunch each day. The bright orange cabins with basic beds and washing facilities are designed for 'self-cleaning'.

Accessibility Links

The good ship Stelios

He started the craze for no-frills flights; now Stelios is simplifying the Caribbean cruise. Hilary Rose went aboard to meet the man who makes it all look easy

Sitting on the deck of a ship in the Caribbean, is musing on the downside of wealth. Current estimates are that he’s worth around Pounds 1 billion, yet here he is in a Gap shirt, chinos and cheap sunglasses. “I think,” he says, “people generally don’t like rich people. If you’re rich, you’re hated. People are jealous or whatever. So giving them affordable things...”

Selling people affordable things is what Stelios does. It is 11 years since he burst on to the national stage in a cloud of bonhomie and Pantone 021 orange. EasyJet didn’t seem revolutionary

Stelios acquires EasyCruise ship

Stelios Haji-Ioannou has reportedly sold some four million shares in EasyJet to pay for a ‘shopping spree’ – a cruise ship, a hotel and 10 minibuses. Having raised some £14 million from the sale, he assured shareholders: “I have not sold out of EasyJet and do not intend to sell out.” Mr Haji-Ioannou is now aiming his sights firmly on the cruise market with EasyCruise, another “no-frills” company that will charge passengers extra for “luxuries” like bedding and housekeeping. He has acquired the ship Renaissance 2, which had operated for US line Renaissance Cruises, which folded in 2001. Reports today suggest that 14-day cruises, taking in destinations including Nice, Rome and Corsica, could cost as little as £14.50 per night. Passengers will be able to join and leave the ship as they wish from next year. Mr Haji-Ioannou is quoted as saying: “It will be aimed at people in the twenties, thirties and forties who would not normally consider going on a cruise.” Bryony Coulson, general manager of PSARA, the Passenger Shipping Association’s retail agents’ scheme, welcomed the EasyJet founder’s move into the cruise sector. She said: “From an industry perspective it has to be good news because it will open up the market to a new group of passengers. Stelios has obviously seen the growth potential that exists in cruising and is approaching it in an innovative way.” She added that Mr Haji-Ioannou could be the first offer dynamic packaging in the cruise market. “He has been talking about doing this for quite some time by breaking down the package into different components such as paying separately for food, cabin service etc.” Plans are also coming on well for Easyhotel.com, which will reportedly be launched later this year in south-west London. Guests at the hotel, which has rooms “only nine times the size of a phone box”, will have to bring their own sheets and toiletries. Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad and Phil Davies

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