This extravagant luxury cruise ship is built for the world’s most wealthy

Its menus are laden with lobster, caviar, foie gras and escargot. The main dining room is lit by a US$200,000 chandelier of hand-blown glass; its walls are decked with US$7 million in art. And the entire front of Deck 14 aboard the Regent Seven Seas Explorer is taken up by a US$10,000-a-night suite with its own spa and designer piano.

There’s no shame in wealth, says Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Regent’s parent company, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings. His new luxury cruise ship, recently arrived in Miami for the winter cruising season, flaunts it.

The wait staff refills wine glasses like a waitress in a diner fills a bottomless cup of coffee. The vast majority of suites — it’s an all-suite ship — have both a shower stall and a tub, and balconies deep enough for a chaise longue. Nearly an acre of marble — half of it quarried in Carrara, Italy — decorates bathrooms and other spaces on the 750-passenger ship. A crew of 542 serves 750 guests, for a plush ratio of one crew member for every 1.4 guests.

“This ship was built for the 1-percenters,” said Del Rio, talking to reporters on a two-night cruise to Nassau last month to show off the ship to travel agents, media and VIPs. “Wealth is not something to hide, especially in the Trump era. The instructions I gave them were ‘Money is no object. Bring me your best idea and let me decide what I can afford.’

“This ship is a trophy. Every detail was meant to create wows.”

And there are plenty of wows on the ship, which exceeded its budgeted cost of $450 million, although Del Rio won’t say by how much. A dramatic double staircase in the atrium with an inlaid marble floor topped by an enormous chandelier hung with 6,000 pieces of crystal. A US$500,000, 3-ton Tibetan-style prayer wheel at the entrance to the Pacific Rim restaurant that is so heavy the deck had to be reinforced with extra steel. More than 2,400 works of art.

To indulge in those wows will cost a couple about US$1,200 a night for the smallest stateroom on a Caribbean cruise in February, close to US$1,800 a night for a Mediterranean cruise in May, according to the company’s website. Unlike a cruise on Holland America or Royal Caribbean or other non-luxury cruise lines, though, those prices include drinks, gratuities, most shore excursions and airfare.

Seven Seas Explorer debuted in Monaco in June and spent the summer and early fall sailing in Europe. It will cruise the Caribbean and the Panama Canal out of PortMiami, then head for the Mediterranean in early spring.

The luxury cruise business, like the rest of the cruise business, is booming. Every luxury ocean cruise line — Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn, Crystal and Silversea — has at least one new ship on order. Regent’s second Explorer-class ship is due in 2020.