Small(er) Is Beautiful With New Regent Cruise Ship Grandeur

22.01.2024 - 05:37 / forbes.com / Royal Caribbean

Can small be beautiful when it comes to cruise ships? Regent Seven Seas launched the Grandeur in December, a luxury cruise ship designed for just 746 people. Yet many are focused on the coming ‘city at sea,’ Royal Caribbean’s 20-deck, 248,663 gross tonnage behemoth Icon of the Sean, which can carry up to 7,600 passengers, along with 2,350 crew.

The Regent Grandeur focuses instead on the luxury traveler willing to pay for a superior travel experience. The Grandeur is the sixth ship in Regent’s fleet, each designed for no more than 750 passengers. Regent is a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Lines, NCLH:NYSE.

The ship’s luxury focus is shown with Journey in Jewels, the first Fabergé Egg to permanently reside at sea. The ocean-inspired jeweled egg is just a part of the Grandeur’s 1,600-piece art collection. The multimillion-dollar collection also includes several Picassos and a custom-made bronze and hand-cast glass Bonsai Cherry Tree sculpture which welcomes guests into the Asian-fusion restaurant Pacific Rim.

We caught up with the Grandeur a month after its christening. It had already done several introductory cruises, including sailing through the Panama Canal and arriving at the West Coast. The short two-day familiarization trip was designed to introduce travel professionals to the new ship. While there were many discerning travel consultants evaluating the ship, our short ‘cruise to nowhere” (no port calls) was a re-introduction to cruising for me. It was only my second cruise, as I recall few details of a long-ago Carnival booze cruise from Long Beach to Ensenada.

At its dock at the cruise terminal in San Pedro, CA, the Grandeur looked and felt imposing. The 10-deck Regent Grandeur weighs 55,500 tons and is 735 feet in length with a beam (width) of 102 feet.

While considerably smaller than Icon of the Seas, Grandeur is hardly ‘small.’ When the Grandeur visited Los Angeles, the battleship Iowa was permanently moored a couple of berths away. It too had a displacement of 55,000 tons, and carried nearly 2800 officers and men, albeit in far less comfort than the Grandeur.

The Grandeur has a crew of 548 staff for only 746 guests, one of the highest staff-to-guest ratios in the industry. The personal service and all-inclusive billing (no liquor charges, no gratuities, etc.) are also integral parts of the ship’s luxury focus.

The Grandeur has 15 different all-suite, all-balcony, accommodations categories. The top of the line is the Regent Suite, at $11,000 per night for up to six guests. That gets you a suite bigger than most houses, at 4,443 sq. ft. The master bathroom utilizes nine different kinds of marble, and has an in-suite spa, heated loungers, a separate shower and jetted tub. The guest