The World, Residence Ship, Also Lays Up.

The World cruise ship.

The World, Residences at Sea, the world's only residential cruise ship, has been taken out of service with immediate effect from March 17 to approximately May 30 2020.

According to a statement, the company said that all residents and guests has disembarked and crew manning will be reduced to a minimum staff. 

The vessel is privately owned and home to approximately 150 families from 19 countries and has an average resident and guest occupancy of 150 to 200 people. 

"This decision was not an easy one, however protecting the health and safety of our residents, guests and crew is our number one priority. We will continue to remain aggressive in our proactive approach and in maintaining our high standards," the statement said.

Cruise Lay Up Best Practices: Be Ready to Enter Service

The key to laying up a cruise ship may be in the preparation to quickly enter revenue service again, according to Per Bjornsen, director, V.Ships Leisure.

“The only option right now is a hot lay-up,” he told Cruise Industry News. “That means the ship runs on its own power, its own systems and there is a crew; a proper crew onboard maintaining the vessel.”

That is a full deck and engine crew and some hotel crew to cater, clean and run various hotel systems.

The ship will thus be ready to resume regular passenger service on short notice.

“You need to make sure the systems are running, going into cabins every day and running the water for example,” said Bjornsen.

Overseeing multiple cruise ships for various brands, Bjornsen said the company was ready to support industry players with a wide network of offices.

“If you want to support your vessel from a shore-based organization, the vessel should be laid up where you have an office,” he said, noting most borders in Europe were closed. “We have the offices, the network and our operation are more resilient.”

V. Ships Leisure is also looking at synergies among its clients and talking to other cruise lines he said, considering putting ships in one place or port, for best practices.

“We are discussing these synergies as they relate to operating costs to see how we can be looking after ships together in the best possible way.”