Interesting announcement that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd is paying $1B to acquire a controlling interest in Silversea. Silversea was the largest luxury line not owned by a larger umbrella corporation. With the acquisition adds RCCL a supposedly ultra-luxury line and a small fleet of expedition ships to their Celebrity, Royal Caribbean International, and Azamara lines. Naturally there is a bit of angst among Silversea loyalists as they worry about that this might mean in terms of potential degradation of the Silversea experience now controlled by a larger bottom line driven corporation. Likewise Azamara loyalists are concerned about what this might mean to the long term survival of Azamara. While not exactly the same level product there are a lot of similarities between Silversea and Azamara and Azamara up until now has been pushed as RCCL’s luxury line. Some point to the fact that the three Azamara ships are older rehabbed ships and RCCL has not seen fit to program or plan replacements or additional ships. Time will tell.