Canadian company cancels plan to use cruise ship as hotel for Winter Olympics

Company nixes plan to use ship as hotel for Games

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The company planning to use a cruise ship as a floating hotel during the Vancouver Olympics has said it’s scuttling the plan less than two weeks before the games.

Edmonton-based Newwest Special Projects said in a release Tuesday that slow sales and higher than anticipated expenses forced the company to drop plans to moor the Norwegian Star in Vancouver harbor.

Newwest said it would be issuing refunds to those who’d booked rooms on the ship and help find people other accommodations.

The company began cutting prices last fall for its Olympic packages, and also offered a pre-Olympic cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver that was supposed to start on Saturday.

Prices on Newwest’s Web site, which was still displaying an ad for the floating hotel Tuesday night, ranged from $275 to $575 a night.

The company did not say in its release how many people the cancellation had affected but said 1,108 staterooms had been available aboard the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship.