Celebration Cruises, the dad or mum firm that owns and operates a fleet of boats and the Santa Barbara staple Lil’ Toot water taxi, lately bought the vast majority of its enterprise, based on Director of Operations Rebecca Buel. The deal consists of luxurious yachts Azure Seas and Whisper, which have been acquired in 2014 and 2017, respectively.
The administration group, captains, and crew of Celebration Cruises will keep the identical, except Buel, who will dedicate herself solely to proceed working with Lil’ Toot.
Buel’s dad and mom, Captain Fred Hershman and Kathy Hershman, based the corporate in 2003 after they found Lil’ Toot sitting in a entrance yard in Newbury Port, Massachusetts, and grew it into the famously beloved water taxi docked at Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf. The 20-year lifetime of the boat even impressed the youngsters’s guide How Lil’ Toot Obtained His Smile, whose creator, Camarilllo native Madeline Gabor, needed to seize the transformation of Lil’ Toot, beforehand named Captain Crimson.
The household will retain possession of Lil’ Toot and proceed to supply personal and public cruises.
“It’s not a goodbye, however see you on Lil’ Toot quickly,” wrote Buel, who will full her final day at Celebration Cruises on August 31 earlier than following in her dad and mom’ footsteps operating “the happiest boat within the harbor.”
For the crew on the Lil’ Toot, it is going to be enterprise as typical regardless of the latest transition away from Celebration Cruises, and personal and each day public charters will proceed to be provided within the Santa Barbara Harbor. The waterfront taxi provides 25-minute cruises from the harbor dock to Stearns Wharf for $5 an individual, whereas costs for his or her personal 60- or 90-minute charters may be discovered on their web site liltootsb.com.
