MS Grand Celebration

The Grand Celebration is a Holiday class cruise ship, originally built for Carnival Cruise Lines. It entered service with Bahamas Paradise Cruise Lines on February 3, 2015 to replace the ill fated MS Bahamas Celebration.

The Grand Celebration has 2 sister ships. The Magellan, which is operated by Cruise & Maritime Voyages , and the Henna, which is operated by HNA Tourism.

Unlike her sister "Henna", the trademark whale tail funnel on Grand Celebration was painted over but not altered or removed.

History

The ship was built as the Celebration in 1986 by Kockums Varv in Malmö, Sweden for Carnival Cruise Lines. The Celebration was retired from the Carnival fleet in April 2008 and underwent an extensive refit before re-entering service with Iberocruceros as the Grand Celebration that summer. The refit included new hull artwork and updated interiors.

In May 2014, it was announced that the ship would be renamed Costa Celebration and transferred to Costa Cruises in November 2014. After service with Iberocruceros had ended, the ship underwent refurbishment and was renamed the Costa Celebration. On November 21, 2014, on the day before the ship was scheduled to depart on its inaugural voyage, it was announced that the vessel had been sold to an unnamed buyer. The next day, the Costa Celebration was removed from Costa's fleet and all bookings were cancelled. Passengers who had booked on Costa Celebration's future cruises were refunded.

Baha Mar

Baha Mar is a resort under construction on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, owned by Baha Mar Resorts Ltd. and managed by CEO Sarkis Izmirlian. Planned amenities include four hotels – Baha Mar Casino & Hotel, Grand Hyatt at Baha Mar, SLS LUX, Rosewood at Baha Mar – with 2,200 rooms, 284 private residences, a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m²) casino, a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m²) spa, and the Tournament Players Club at Baha Mar golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

On 30 March 2010 an agreement on the redevelopment of the resort was announced. The project will be financed by China Exim Bank while construction will be performed by China Construction of America CCA. Groundbreaking for the redevelopment took place on 21 February 2011 with the resort opening expected on March 27, 2015. The whole project will cost around US$3.5 billion.

The flagship of the project is the Baha Mar Casino & Hotel, which will have 1,000 rooms and more than 1,100 slot machines and 150 table games. Global Gaming Asset Management was selected to operate the casino-hotel.

Hyatt

Hyatt Hotels Corporation is an American international company and operator of hotels. The Hyatt Corporation came into being upon purchase of the Hyatt House, at Los Angeles International Airport, on September 27, 1957. In 2015, Fortune magazine listed Hyatt as the 78th-best U.S. company to work for.

History

The original owners were entrepreneurs Hyatt Robert von Dehn and Jack Dyer Crouch; after a few years, Von Dehn sold his share in the hotel to entrepreneur Jay Pritzker. Jay's younger brother Donald Pritzker also took on an important role in the company.

Over the following decade, acquisitions were made, and Hyatt became the fastest-growing hotel chain in the United States. Donald died in 1972; Jay continued to run the company.

In 1969, Hyatt opened its first hotel outside the United States, the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong. In 1980 the Grand Hyatt and Park Hyatt brands were introduced. Hyatt runs resort hotels, starting with the Hyatt Regency Maui in 1980.As of 30 November 2015 Hyatt had over 627 hotels worldwide.

The Bahamas

Coordinates: 24°15′N 76°00′W / 24.250°N 76.000°W / 24.250; -76.000

The Bahamas ⁱ/bəˈhɑːməz/, officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an island country of the Lucayan Archipelago consisting of more than 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean; north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic); northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands; southeast of the US state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. Its capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The designation of "Bahamas" can refer to either the country or the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. As stated in the mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas territory encompasses 470,000 km² (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.

Originally inhabited by the Lucayan, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people, the Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.

Grand

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