In 45 days of its operations, MV Aquamarine, the luxury cruise ship decided to stop its services in India. Louis Cruises have signed a five-year operational contract with the Kerala government and was supposed to operate for five months of this cruise season which ends in May 2010.

MV Aquamarine has suffered huge loss in the last 45 days of operation. Excessive port charges, re-fuelling tax, sub-par port infrastructure and uncoordinated embarkation procedures are some of the reasons stated by the company for withdrawing the liner from India.

Louis Cruises India was operated four-days to Colombo/Maldives and one-day high sea cruises out of Kochi from December 2009. Her last sailing in India was ended on 16th January to the high seas at Kochi. The ship returned to Greece by next day on 17th January 2010. The cruise ship, MV Aquamarine has a carrying capacity of 1,200 passengers and comes with all the comforts and amenities.

It was the country's second luxury cruise shipping venture, sailed into losses. The world's third largest cruise liner had launched its luxury ship SuperStar Libra in September 2005 with Mumbai as its homeport in India. SuperStar Libra has withdrawn both the itineraries they introduced in India, four-night destination cruises to Kadmat Island (Lakshadweep) and Goa, the other four-night destination cruises to Kochi and Goa.

The domestic cruise sector is hurting with lack of cruise policy, lack of infrastructure and taxation matters. In 2007 the government had formed a coordination committee of experts from the Defence Ministry, Finance Ministry, Shipping Ministry and Tourism Ministry to formulate a cruising policy in India and submitted its recommendation to the central government but the cabinet is yet to give a final nod to it.

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