Port-to-port savings on a no-frills cruise

Your cabin will be the smallest and most sparsely furnished you’ve ever seen. Your meals will cost extra and the price will vary according to what you order in the ship’s restaurant. Most of your shipmates will be in their 20s and 30s. But if those conditions are agreeable to you, you can cruise the Mediterranean for as little as $53 per person per day.

The creator of this unusual formula for a cruise is “serial entrepreneur” Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the young Greek businessman in Britain who usually just goes by the name Stelios. His claim to fame are the “easy” enterprises he has launched, such as EasyJet, EasyCar, EasyInternetCafe and many others. Whatever he sells, be it airfares or auto rentals, his prices are low. His first EasyHotel, slated to open next year in London, will charge as little as $9 per person per night for cubicle-style accommodations.

When Haji-Ioannou discovered that one of the small cruise ships formerly operated by the now-defunct Renaissance Cruises was for sale, he snagged the once-luxurious vessel and sent it to a dry dock in Singapore for replacement of its former suites with tiny, closet-like, double-occupancy cabins and minimalist furnishings (such as shelves).

The ship, called EasyCruise, will emerge from Singapore in March, sail several one-week Asian itineraries and then move to the western Mediterranean for continuous cruising from then on.

Reservations will be taken on www.easycruise.com, starting in mid-January. You can check the ship’s amenities on the site and read cocky prophesies by Haji-Ioannou.

The one-week pattern of most cruises (you board the ship on one fixed date and the cruise ends seven days later) is suitable only for older fuddy-duddies, Haji-Ioannou says.

On EasyCruise, you board the ship on any day (possibly having flown to a Mediterranean port on one of the many cheap, cut-rate airlines like EasyJet that serve those cities) and stay for two or more days.

The ship becomes a vehicle of transportation from one Mediterranean port to another; rather than hitchhiking, driving or going by train, you take EasyCruise. A reference is made in the literature to backpackers as one potential source of passengers.

Haji-Ioannou says his method of cruising is “city hopping by sea” on a “floating hotel.” Each room will have a shower, toilet and wash basin and will “have the look and feel adopted by many of the current, fashionable minimalist hotels.”

The daily schedule of EasyCruise is also unusual. Instead of sailing overnight and remaining in ports during the day, the ship will leave its port city early in the morning, sail for no more than six hours to the next port and arrive in early afternoon.

The ship will then stay docked throughout the afternoon and much of the ensuing night, enabling passengers to enjoy the discos and other nightlife of the Mediterranean cities at which it stops.

In the absence thus far of restaurant prices, it’s hard to know what the total cost of an EasyCruise will be. Vague references are made to the per-person cabin price -- about $53 -- a rate that will probably increase as the sailing date approaches.

Because summer is peak high season in the Mediterranean, when ship fares are rarely discounted, EasyCruise’s low base price seems attractive indeed. How the ship will do in winter is a different question, and some thought is being given to returning it to Singapore for the cold-weather months, for a series of Asian cruises.

Knowing the strength of the student market, I’m optimistic about EasyCruise. You can never overestimate the demand for low-cost travel.