Windstar Cruises plans to relocate from Seattle to Miami

'With time and space away from our Seattle office, we’ve thought about our location and other possibilities once our two-year lease is up,' Windstar President Chris Prelog said. 'Although we have all adapted to working remotely with great success, we have been working on a plan for a new office location. A long timeline is needed to facilitate a smooth transition.'

Some roles at Xanterra in Denver

The Miami office will accommodate mostly cruise operation functions and some direct supporting teams to operations. Other functions such as marketing, revenue, accounting and IT will have the opportunity to move to parent company Xanterra’s Denver office to collaborate with team members there.

Windstar is owned by Denver-based Xanterra Travel Collection.

'Our expert team is nimble and adaptable with many years of experience. We are looking forward to the advantages of a new Miami office, combining teams in Denver and collaborating remotely as we have done this past year,' said Andrew Todd, CEO of Windstar and Xanterra Travel Collection.

Windstar plans to open the new Miami office and transition shared/support services to Denver in June next year. The line expects some employees will choose to work remotely from the Seattle area and others to relocate to Miami or Denver depending on job function.

Reasons why

Prelog said that having an office in the center of the cruise industry will be beneficial for building industry relationships and attracting new talent. It also will enable operations employees in Miami to be closer to the line’s ships and crew as they pass through Florida and shorten flight times to the ships in Europe and the Caribbean.