Seven Seas Splendor

Seven Seas Splendor is the second of Regent’s three Explorer-class ships and the one with the worst timing in the fleet. Fincantieri handed her over at Ancona on January 30, 2020. She sailed a transatlantic from Barcelona to Miami a week later, and then the world closed. She spent most of two years in layup and did not restart her inaugural season until September 2021, in Europe. Her first five years of service contain about three and a half years of sailing.

What Regent changed between Explorer and Splendor

Structurally, almost nothing: she is the same 735-foot hull with the same 373 suites and the same restaurants, and if two sisters differ in little but name, it is honest to say so rather than invent a distinction. Where she genuinely diverges is at the top of the ship.

Explorer’s Regent Suite is 3,875 square feet. Splendor’s is 4,443, and the extra area went almost entirely into the bathroom and the spa: Regent enlarged that section by about thirty percent over Explorer’s and added a floor-to-ceiling shower with an ocean view, which is the sort of thing that sounds absurd until you notice nobody had built one. The wraparound veranda runs 1,300 square feet across the bow with a custom Treesse minipool on it, there is a glass solarium above the bridge, and the bed is a Hästens Vividus, pine frame, steel springs, flax and horsetail hair and wool, built by four Swedish artisans over roughly 300 hours of labor, and priced at about $200,000. The suite sleeps six and lists at $11,000 a night. It was close to sold out for a 2020 season that then did not happen.

Below that, Tillberg Design of Sweden did the suites, the atrium, Compass Rose, the casino, the Splendor Lounge, the Meridian Lounge and the pool deck; Studio DADO did much of the rest. The result is lighter than Explorer (whites, beiges and a lot of gold), where the older ship is darker and more theatrical.

The space, and the fare

The number that matters is the same one that matters on all three sisters: 55,498 gross tons for 746 guests, roughly seventy-four tons of ship per person, which is among the highest ratios afloat. A little over five hundred crew serve those 746. Every suite has a balcony; the smallest is a little over 300 square feet, which is worth saying because “all-suite” and “large” are not the same claim.

The fare covers unlimited shore excursions, every restaurant aboard including the specialty rooms, wines and spirits, WiFi and gratuities. Flights are the one thing it does not cover: since July 2024 air belongs to the dearer Ultimate All-Inclusive Fare. That bundle is the reason a Regent night costs what it does. It favors travelers who would buy all of those things anyway and it penalizes anyone who would not; if you skip ship tours and do not drink, you are subsidizing people who do. Excursions outside the included list, spa treatments and the shops are still charged.

The cheapest way to see what a Regent night actually costs is her world cruise: spread across 133 nights, with the tours and the drinks in it, the per-night figure is the lowest anywhere on her calendar. Short sailings cost considerably more per night than that, and the Regent Suite costs many times it.

Where she actually sails

Asia and Alaska, and the long stuff. Tokyo is her main winter base, with eight- to nineteen-night Japan and Southeast Asia itineraries and a secondary turn at Singapore; in the northern summer she runs Alaska from Vancouver and Whittier, a region she takes on properly for the first time with a full new program in 2028. A fortnight is the typical voyage.

Two long voyages sit inside that pattern. On January 5, 2028, she leaves Los Angeles on Legends of the Pacific, a 133-night circumnavigation of the Pacific by way of Hawaii, the South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Alaska, finishing in San Francisco with up to 409 shore excursions included. Then in November 2028 she runs the 61-night Grand Silk Seas Passage, Tokyo to Hong Kong through Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. She is, at the moment, the ship Regent hands its most ambitious itineraries to.

She also goes first into the class-wide suite rebuild, in November 2027: bigger Veranda Suites, new Horizon Penthouse and Distinctive categories, and the suite count cut from 373 to no more than 344. Sail her before that and you are on the 2020 ship.

Who she suits

Long-voyage travelers. Her schedule is built around fourteen-night and longer itineraries and a world cruise, and the all-inclusive fare gets better value the more ports there are to spend it in.

She does not suit anyone shopping on price; she is among the most expensive ships per night on this site and the honest comparison is against a bundled tour, not against another cruise. She does not suit families; there is no standing children’s program. She does not suit anyone who wants a spectacle in the evening. And if you are choosing between the three sisters purely on the ship, the differences are small enough that the itinerary should decide it, which, given what she sails, is usually an argument in her favor.