EasyPeople

EasyCruise has finally come out with another ship, EasyCruise Life. She started sailing last month. The concept of easy cruise is .. well, easy. Minimalist cabins, pay for the cruise passage only, pay for everything else onboard from food to housekeeping services. Also, they maximize the port time sailing for only a few hours at a time. Basically it’s an express bus service to a series of destinations so you can enjoy the time ashore, not onboard. It’s for those people who don’t really cruise for the ship but for the destination. But still… are the prices that great? I randomly chose a cruise from their website;

Port of embarkation
10/07/2008 Thu
Depart 19:00 Marina Zea, PiraeusAegina 21:00 - 03:00
11/07/2008 Fri
Mykonos Town, Mykonos 12:00 - 08:00
12/07/2008 Sat
Parikia, Paros 11:00 - 08:00
13/07/2008 Sun
Kamares, Sifnos 12:00 - 02:00
14/07/2008 Mon
Embark from 14:00 Marina Zea, PiraeusDepart 03:00
15/07/2008 Tue
Itea (for Delphi) 12:00 - 04:00
16/07/2008 Wed
Vathy, Ithaki 12:00 - 06:00
17/07/2008 Thu
Gaios, Paxos 12:00 - 07:00
18/07/2008 Fri
Agioi Saranta (for Butrint) 12:00 - 08:00
19/07/2008 Sat
Corfu Town, Corfu 10:00 - 05:00
20/07/2008 Sun
Preveza, Greece 12:00 - 05:00
21/07/2008 Mon
Argostoli, Kefallonia 12:00 - 08:00
22/07/2008 Tue
Zakynthos Town, Zakynthos 12:00-02:00
23/07/2008 Wed
Kiato (Mycenae, Corinth, Nemea) 09:30 - 02:30
Port of disembarkation
24/07/2008 Thu
Arrive 07:00 Marina Zea, PiraeusDisembark 09:00

This cruise would cost me an astonishing $1800.00 USD per person! For that price I get one Standard cabin with window that has twin beds with duvet and en-suite bathroom with shower. Approx 12 sqm. ( see picture) Sleeps up to 2 people. Considering it is not much more than a bus service, isn’t that price pretty close to a normal budget cruise? I mean I found 14 day Mediterranean cruise on Fred Olsen for the exact same price, but that includes food, housekeeping and other standard services so in reality the Fred Olsen cruise would be cheaper! So, what exactly is the benefit to EasyCruise these days? Of course EasyCruise tends to be in port more, but the other lines have real ships. Then again, this EasyCruise Life actually looks like an ok ship on the inside… comparing it to a real cruise ship might be like the difference between a hotel and a motel I suppose.

I don’t know. To each his own. I have never worked for them and never cruised them so I have no first hand experience. I was just interested to see a new ship and amazed to see the price of a Greek Island cruise. I thought EasyCruise was supposed to be a super cheap minimalist cruise focused on maximized port time. Didn’t they used to sell cruise transport for around 20 euro’s a day or something? I found a web posting from last year where a fellow says he got a week of Greek island cruising in this same category cabin for 200 euro. Maybe the Sky TV “cruising with Stelios” made them popular and raised the prices. Or, maybe it’s because like Stelios says himself in this video.. now they have to figure out how to make money from it”.


All in all it DOES look like fun…. Actually, the party scenes remind me of P&O Australia cruises. That's is another REAL cruise line you can go on for the same price or less, and they seem to party the same way and also have the younger demographic.

I once applied for a job with EasyCruise, back when the EasyCruise line was just being talked about. I thought it sounded exciting. I am glad I didn’t get the job because the line did not grow as predicted. I remember during the initial telephone interview the fellow I was talking to said to me “ So your from Princess, I normally don’t hire Princess people, they all have something about them which I don’t like…” To which I replied “ You mean training, quality and intelligence?”. I never got a call back. I can see now from this video and others like it on YouTube, they were never looking for quality experienced people. They were looking for EasyPeople.. I’m not quite sure what that is… but I know it’s not me.

UPDATE: As of end of 2009 EasyCruise was sold. Guess it was a REALLY good thing I did not get the job!!