Luxury Cruising Is Back. But Book Early Or You Could Be Shut Out

No travel industry segment was hit as hard by Covid pandemic shutdowns as cruise lines. However, just a bit more than two years after the U.S. Center for Disease Control dropped its health warning about vacationing on the high seas, times are buoyant. Once again, executives say popular sailings sell out months and, in some cases, more than a year in advance. A new itinerary to Norway’s fjords for 2025 is nearly sold out, an executive with Seadream Yacht Club told travel advisors attending Virtuoso Travel Week, which started Saturday in Las Vegas.

The conference, which draws around 5,000 travel professionals and spans MGM’s Bellagio and Aria hotels, brings together network travel agencies and suppliers vying for their share of the $35 billion in travel Virtuoso advisors sell annually. Ten-minute presentations on the cruise track combine updates on new ships, amenities, and incentives from the lines designed to sway advisors to book their ships.

“We sold virtually no cruises before the pandemic,” says Fernardo Gonzalez, CEO of F1rst In Service Travel. Now, luxury cruises are his fastest-growing segment of travel sales.

He says it is a response to elevated offerings from the lines and that cruising is an easy way to see multiple destinations and travel with groups of family and friends.

For the first six months, cruise sales across Virtuoso’s network were up over 18%, compared to 8% for hotels.

During the sessions, sales executives from the cruise companies tried to cram as much into their limited window.

For example, I learned that despite recent restrictions on cruise ships entering Venice, the Seadream ships are small enough they are under the limit that prohibits others to navigate the Grand Canal, a highlight for visitors. Its newest amenity is a waterslide. But it’s not part of a mega-ship theme park. Instead, it is like what you would find on a superyacht, where you splash down into the warm waters of the Mediterranean in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter.

If you have a group, you can charter an entire vessel, which holds up to 112 guests for five days, for $476,000.

Crystal Cruises, bought and relaunched out of bankruptcy by the former owner of Silversea, has two new ships on tap, the first arriving in the second quarter of 2028. The two legacy ships saw a top-to-bottom renovation, reducing passenger count by 30%. Its new Sapphire Suites combine two cabins, with one now acting as a separate living room. One of the big moves was bringing back top chef Matsuhisa Nobuyuki, better known as Nobu, a favorite who was cut under prior management. Crystal also adds European steakhouse Beefbar to Symphony and Serenity later this year.

Azamara Cruises 2025 will again see AzAmazing evenings on every cruise. The onshore evening events for the entire ship include private concerts and performances. They proved difficult to restore at scale after the cruising restart. Sales executives pitched the advisors on the ability of the line’s smaller ships to dock more centrally and visit ports larger vessels cannot access. Longer, overnight and multi-day stays in ports give more time to explore.

Silver Ray, the second Nova Class ship for Silversea Cruises, launched in June and sister to Silver Nova, new last year, was a key talking point for the Royal Caribbean unit. It’s the sixth vessel added since 2020, and sales executives touted its unique design. Virtually all public spaces face outward, including the main pool, which is positioned amphitheater-style on the side instead of the middle or rear.

Seabourn’s new restaurant concept, Solis, replaces the Thomas Keller Grill on all its ships with modern Mediterranean fare, including 143 new recipes. There is also Zero@Sea, a menu of alcohol-free craft cocktails and sushi menus that have been expanded across the fleet. However, a sales executive stressed for one of the industry’s oldest luxury brands, it’s all about the service. Staff are given photos of guests before they board so they can be welcomed by name. On a recent voyage, a passenger wanted a specific type of olive for his martini that hadn’t been provisioned. The next day in port, said olives were found, and were made available that evening.

Like Seabourn, Cunard is also a unit of Carnival Corp & PLC. While its newest ship, the Queen Anne, has been the center of media coverage, sales executives for the line were anxious to talk about the Queen Elizabeth moving its homeport for Alaska sailings from Vancouver to Seattle in 2025. For American clients, it’s easier to access and airfares are cheaper. After a season cruising the 49th state, the liner will spend the entire winter 2025/26 season sailing the Caribbean from Miami, apparently a first.

Ponant, owned by the same family that controls luxury fashion brands such as Gucci and Brioni and best known for luxury yacht expeditions mixing adventure with a French flair, will add the 30-guest Paspaley Pearl beginning next year, with itineraries to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Northern Australia. A sales rep assured advisors that despite its European ownership, the crew is fluent in English, and the kitchen benefits from the guidance of Michelin chef Alain Ducasse via his Ducasse Conseil.

Frontier Travel’s Roland Howlett, a former Qantas Airways Boeing 747 pilot turned travel advisor, says the vessel is already in high demand as clients seek new destinations.

Not all of the action is on the high seas. Uniworld Boutique River Cruises, sold last month to Apollo Funds, has two new river vessels joining its fleet next year. After a successful start this year, it is also expanding its rail and cruise program. It promoted a 50-day Great Rivers of the World journey, which entails five different vessels starting in the Netherlands before concluding nearly two months later in Egypt. Transportation between voyages is included, and the second sector of five is a mystery, something the line has done before successfully.

For MSC’s Explora Journeys, its second ship, Explora II, will launch next month. The line will have six vessels by 2028, and in space that can accommodate up to 2,100 passengers, it hosts just 900 guests who have at their disposal seven restaurants, 12 bars and lounges, a quarter of entertainment venues, as well as four pools, including one with a retractable roof. Executives say at 377 square feet, it has the largest entry-level luxury cruise cabins, while the largest suite spans over 3,000 square feet.

According to the presentation, it also has the first Rolex boutique at sea. That’s partly due to a longtime relationship between the two companies, each based in Geneva, Switzerland. The salesperson for Explora told the advisors that at least one customer had booked a cruise specifically so he could buy a hard-to-get model timepiece.

Not all the sessions were product-focused. A salesperson from Oceania Cruises gave the advisors tips on how they could convert clients from mega-ships to luxury vessels, which offer more inclusions and higher price tags, which means more commissions. She assisted her pitch by offering the advisors a flight of raw juices and smoothies, both of which seemed well received.

While consumers may view the “book early before space is sold out” pitch as more of a come-on, sales data from Virtuoso shows that the percentage of clients booking their trips more than a year in advance was up 38% compared to last year. Momenti Travel’s Cathy Holler says some destinations run out of English-speaking tour guides during peak season.