Seven Seas Grandeur

Seven Seas Grandeur is the youngest and last of Regent’s three Explorer-class ships, delivered from Fincantieri’s Ancona yard on November 13, 2023. She is also the only cruise ship in the world with a Fabergé egg permanently aboard, which is a strange enough fact to be worth leading with, and a more useful one than it sounds: it tells you exactly what this ship is trying to be.

Journey in Jewels

The egg is called Journey in Jewels. Fabergé designed it for this hull (Liisa Tallgren, the house’s head of design, drew it from the 1913 Winter Egg), and it took artisans roughly forty-eight months to build before it was installed in November 2023. The outer shell is ombré enamel with seven blades, one for each of the seven seas. It sits in the atrium, which means you walk past it several times a day rather than making an appointment to see it, and it is the centerpiece of an art collection of about 1,600 pieces, the largest Regent has commissioned for a single ship.

Sarah Fabergé, great-granddaughter of Peter Carl Fabergé and a member of the Fabergé Heritage Council, was godmother at the christening in Miami on December 10, 2023.

What she has that her sisters do not

Below the atrium she is very close to Seven Seas Splendor, the same 735-foot Fincantieri hull, the same restaurants, the same 372 all-balcony suites. Regent did not reinvent the class for the third ship and there is no point pretending otherwise.

The differences are at the top. Her Regent Suite is 4,443 square feet, the same footprint as Splendor’s, but the layout changed: the 270-degree wraparound veranda over the bow measures 1,227 square feet, and Regent added a glass-enclosed room called the Parlor, skylit, which does not exist on either sister. The master bathroom uses nine different marbles around a glass “jewel-box” shower, with a jetted tub, sauna, steam room, treatment area and heated loungers, and the spa services in it are complimentary and unmetered. The bed is a Hästens Vividus. It sleeps six, it lists at about $11,000 a night, and it comes with a butler, a car and driver in port, unlimited laundry and first-class air.

The space ratio is the reason any of this reads as spacious rather than crowded: 55,500 gross tons for 744 guests is about seventy-five tons of ship per person, among the highest figures afloat, with a little over five hundred crew aboard to serve them.

The fare, and what it does not cover

Regent’s price includes unlimited shore excursions, every restaurant on the ship (Compass Rose, Prime 7, Chartreuse, Pacific Rim and Sette Mari, none with a cover charge) wines and spirits, WiFi, gratuities and transfers. Flights are not in it; since July 2024 roundtrip air is what separates the base fare from the Ultimate All-Inclusive one. There is very little left to pay for, which is the whole proposition and also the whole problem: you buy the bundle whether or not you want it.

Work the math honestly. Two people who would book flights, take a guided tour in every port, drink wine at dinner and tip the staff are comparing Regent against the cost of assembling that themselves, and it comes out closer than the sticker suggests. Two people who prefer to wander a port on foot, do not drink and have airline miles to burn are paying a premium for things they will leave on the table. Excursions above the included list carry a surcharge; the spa, boutiques and casino are cash.

Where she actually sails

The Atlantic, in both directions. Her year is a Mediterranean summer working out of Civitavecchia, Barcelona and Venice, a Caribbean and Panama Canal winter out of Miami, transatlantic repositionings at each end, and a short fall foliage season of eleven-night runs in Canada and New England. Ten nights is the median sailing and the range runs from a week to about four.

That makes her the most conventional of the three sisters by deployment. Explorer and Splendor are in the Pacific with world cruises attached; Grandeur does the classic circuit, which is easy to get to and easy to fly home from. In October 2028 she goes in for the class-wide suite rebuild (larger Veranda Suites, new categories, and the suite count cut to no more than 344), so she sails as built for another two years.

Who she suits

People who want a new ship and a familiar map. Rome, Barcelona, Venice, Miami and a fall run up to Quebec are not adventurous itineraries and she is not trying to be an adventurous ship; she is trying to be a very comfortable one on routes with good flights at both ends.

She does not suit anyone with a budget. Per night she is at the top of this site, and the entry-level suite is a little over 300 square feet; you are buying service, space per head and the included extras, not a large room. She does not suit families with children, and she does not suit anyone who wants a nightlife beyond a lounge singer and a small casino. If you are weighing her against her sisters, the ship is nearly identical and the egg is a curiosity; choose on the itinerary.