Jacksonville Yacht Charter president writes tribute song for city
Jax Yacht Charter President Lezlee Bellanich wrote a catchy song about Jacksonville as the company launches dinner and brunch cruises on the river.
- A couple is bringing charter dinner cruises back to downtown Jacksonville after a life-saving liver transplant at Mayo Clinic.
- Rob and Lezlee Bellanich will operate their Royal Princess yacht on the St. Johns River, filling a void for dinner cruises.
- Rob Bellanich received a liver transplant in Jacksonville in 2020 after a rare autoimmune disease diagnosis.
- The 125-foot yacht will offer brunch, dinner, and themed cruises, with its debut voyage scheduled for Sept. 19.
The green band on Rob Bellanich’s wrist honoring organ donors is one way he keeps close the life-saving gift that brought him to Jacksonville for a liver transplant at Mayo Clinic and put him on the path that’s bringing charter dinner cruises back to downtown.
Five years after his health was on the brink, he and his wife, Lezlee, are picking up where they left off. He’s once again a captain of the Royal Princess yacht taking passengers on trips, though it’s the downtown Jacksonville skyline instead of New York City that the boat sails past now.
Lezlee is handling the off-the-boat side of the business. She’s even recorded a song titled “Relax in Jax” that celebrates the connection between the city and the St. Johns River.
They’ve come a long way since Rob’s health was on the brink and he was on the waiting list for months until Mayo surgeons successfully operated on him. The green wristband with “Donate Life” imprinted on it fits snugly on his wrist now, but he can remember when his body was slipping away from him.
“I started fading pretty fast,” he said of that time. “Jaundice, fatigue. I got down to 135 pounds. My wrists were like a 10-year-old.”
The transplant at Mayo in September 2020 gave Rob and Lezlee a fresh start. They might have returned for good to New York where they had been operating charter cruises for years on the Royal Princess before Rob needed the liver transplant.
But the charm of St. Augustine won them over so they made it their home. After taking a break from running the charter business themselves, the chance to operate the Royal Princess on the St. Johns River pulled them back into action. The 18-passenger yacht is scheduled to have its maiden voyage from downtown Sept. 19 for an evening dinner cruise.
The couple’s business, Jax Yacht Charter, will try to fill a void for cruises that mix the sights of the St. Johns River with onboard brunches and dinners.
At one point, downtown had three of those boats plying the river: the Jacksonville Princess that sailed from the Hilton Hotel on the Southbank, the Annabelle Lee and the Lady St. Johns.
Currently, St. Johns River Taxi & Tours offers regular rides between several downtown stops and also does special sunset and sightseeing tours on the river for longer trips.
The Royal Princess takes that up a notch by serving meals as part of its river cruises on a 125-foot boat that has three levels of options for enjoying the view from inside the boat or from the open deck on top.
“There’s dolphins right there every day,” Lezlee said. “There’s manatees that come in here. At night, it’s gorgeous here and you wouldn’t know that unless you’re in the middle of the St. Johns River — the lights, the buildings, the bridges.”
Progressive illness was like having ‘this grenade in your pocket’
Rob and Lezlee sometimes finish each other’s sentences as they recount the journey that took them to Jacksonville from the New York area where they previously operated the Royal Princess out of Weehawken, N.J., for cruises.
In 2003, doctors couldn’t figure out why Rob wasn’t feeling well until a doctor at a Veterans Administration hospital diagnosed him with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a rare autoimmune disease that scars the bile ducts and progressively weakens the liver.
“It’s a slow drip. It’s not like you need a transplant tomorrow,” Lezlee said. “You’ll be fine for 15 years and then you’re going to start getting really tired and you’re going to start getting jaundice. You have this grenade in your pocket.”
They knew in 2019 his condition had worsened enough to need a liver transplant. Their research lead them to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, which required Rob to established residency in the vicinity of the clinic.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, adding another complication because he couldn’t get a liver from a donor who had been infected by the virus.
Getting a ‘Second Chance’ at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville
Focusing on Rob’s health, Lezlee joined the Second Chance Support Group at Mayo Clinic that helps patients and caregivers during the wait for liver and kidney/liver transplants.
“When you’re needing an organ, it’s scary,” Rob said. “You don’t know if it will work, not work, and if you’ll ever see your family again.”
“It was a very difficult time,” Lezlee said. “He got called three times and the organ was not good.”
On Sept. 10, 2020, the call came about a liver from a donor they know only as Damon. Surgeons at Mayo transplanted it.
“The body was ripped apart, but then I noticed the difference immediately once that liver started working,” Lezlee said. “It was like, ‘Oh, my God. He went into surgery and six hours later, he was a different person.”
The family moved back to New York. But in a trading places switch, the Royal Princess went south to Miami where a business associate operated it for cruises. In August 2023, the couple reached a “done with New York” point and moved to St. Augustine with their two children.
The charter business in Miami ran into business challenges, prompting the couple to moved the boat yet again, this time to Jacksonville. The Royal Princess arrived in downtown the same day Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s mega-yacht happened to be departing.
Lezlee said when the yacht was in New Jersey, its dock was near a Chart House restaurant and a Ruth’s Chris Steak House. The Jacksonville dock on the Southbank is next to a Chart House restaurant and just down the riverwalk from Ruth’s Chris.
“What are the chances?” Lezlee said.
She said in addition to building a following for the Royal Princess, she wants to join forces with other businesses for a waterfront alliance because “you can’t have an active waterfront without an active waterway.”
“We may be the first but we’re not the last,” she said. “I welcome more yachts here. I want to see a Riviera in downtown Jacksonville.”
She said that hope is rooted in Jacksonville being the place where Rob got his liver transplant.
“Jacksonville saved our lives five years ago and we want to breathe new life into Jacksonville,” she said.
How to book a spot on Royal Princess cruises in Jacksonville
The Royal Princess will operate brunch, dinner and specially themed cruises that the general public can go on by making reservations in advance.
The dinner cruises cost $125 per person and the brunch cruises cost $105.
Upcoming cruises scheduled for the Royal Princess are a dinner cruise from 6-9 p.m. on Sept. 19, a “tailgate brunch” cruise from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 21 before the Jaguars home game, and a brunch cruise from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 28.
For information and to make reservations, go to jaxyacht.com. The boat also will do private charters for weddings and corporate events.
The yacht is docked at 1501 Riverplace Blvd. on the Southbank but it cannot currently do commercial pickups and drop-offs at that location so Jax Yacht Charter is using a floating dock on the Northbank near the Main Street bridge for cruise departures.