Cruise Ship Jobs - African Safari Club Cruises (this company is out of business)

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For over 34 years African Safari Club, a Swiss group has specialized in arranging quality, good value holidays to Kenya and today proudly used to boast an excellent reputation as international market leader. In 1990 the company became owner of the 5,600 tons cruise ship Royal Star. This charming yacht-like cruise ship used to offer a year round program of cruises to the idyllic and relatively not commercialized islands of the Indian Ocean. These cruises, which ranged in duration from 4 to 18 nights, offered a greater variety than ever before with itineraries which not only included the coral reef encircled Seychelles islands, but also the fascinating Mascarene islands of Mauritius, with its diverse cultures and the French influenced island of La Reunion.

The founder of African Safari Club, Karl Jacob Rudin, a Swiss national born in 1939, started tour operating and hotel operations in Kenya in 1967, with the erection of his first hotel, the Watamu Beach Hotel.At the height of it's business activities, the company owned/operated the following ships:

- MS Royal Star- 5,600 Tons, auctioned in 2009

- MS Star of Luxor- Egypt Based

- MS Da Vinci – Egypt Based

- MS Fleurette- Egypt Based

In 1995 the down fall of African Safari Club Cruises started slowly but steadily. The company operated constantly with loss balances, and could no longer pay regular salaries of their 3000 employees as from 2002. On 16 March 2011, African Safari Club UK, the main provider of tourists for the Kenya operation became insolvent and ceased trading, thus dragging down the remaining operations.

Cruise ship and itineraries:

MS Royal Star: Panama registered; built 1956; refitted 1994; 5.600 gross tons; 255 passengers, 130 crew members. Itineraries: Indian Ocean-Seychelles, Zanzibar, Mauritius, Comoros Islands, Madagascar out of Mombassa - Kenya; Mozambique/South Africa out of Mombassa - Kenya.