Cruise liners to turn into floating hotels for Sochi Winter Olympics

Cruise liners have already been used as floaters at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Athens and London. Source: PhotoXPress

The General Director of Svoi TT Sergei Voitovich announced plans for the conversion of seven cruisers with a one thousand-passenger capacity into floating hotels for the duration of the Sochi Winter Olympics (5–25  February 2014). Svoy TT is a tour operator that brings foreign tourists to Russia and is a member of the international travel group TUI Travel.

The announcement was given during a news conference at a VGTRK (All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company) press centre.

View the gallery: Discovering pre-Olympic Sochi

“Four of the liners will be docked in the Cruise Harbour of the Bolshoi Sochi Port, and three more at the Sochi Imeretinsky Port. The ships will have three to five star ratings. Some of them, including cruise liners Princess Maria and Princess Anastasia, are currently serving the international St Petersburg – Helsinki – Tallinn – Stockholm route,” Voitovich said.

Voitovich remarked that cruise liners have already been used as floaters at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Athens and London. In such cases, companies that charter liners as floating hotels take the responsibility to hire a crew competent enough to provide a high standard of service in order to ensure a comfortable stay for the guests, as Voitovich put it.

The cabin booking service opened on July 1 on the Svoy-SOCHI.ru website and is also available through a network of partner travel agencies.

According to Voitovich, the price of accommodation on board will range from 4300 roubles (110 euros) a day for a three-star rated double cabin (breakfast included) to 12500 roubles (320 euros) for a five-star suite measuring 150–300 square meters.

Additional services will be also available, including insurance cover, transfers, sightseeing tours, as well as a full range of amenities on board: bars and restaurants (three to ten on each liner), children’s playgrounds and entertainment programs.

Furthermore, the project's organisers promise that it should not take their guests more than an hour to get to sports venues from the ships.

First published in Russian in RIA Novosti.

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