The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
All the style of a superyacht (on a cruise ship budget)
The new Explora promises sophisticated ocean journeys worthy of the one per cent – will Rick Jordan be impressed?
The Port of Hamburg isn’t, perhaps, the setting you imagine for a superyacht. The late summer sun dazzled the water every bit as convincingly as it does in the Adriatic, but on the dockside were herds of cranes, their silhouettes like marching giraffes. From my vantage point in a hot tub, I watched container ships being loaded, then threw on a towelling robe and returned to my cabana for a glass of Moët.
As the ship slowly sailed up the Elbe, people gathered on the balcony of the Elbphilharmonie – the Herzog and de Meuron-designed concert hall with its show-stopping mirrored facade – waved across at me.
While it might resemble a superyacht from a distance (its aquiline profile was crafted by veteran yacht designer Martin Francis), Explora I isn’t (spoiler alert) a superyacht. During my three-night cruise from Hamburg to Southampton, I didn’t stumble across Bella Hadid feeding slot machines in the boutique casino, or feel the need to send a helicopter to fetch more caviar. But it is trying to steer the cruise experience into more sophisticated, more exclusive waters and, in doing so, flying the flag for European creativity on a scene dominated by big-splash American names.
Launched this summer, Explora I is the first ship in the Explora Journeys fleet, an offshoot from the much larger MSC Cruises, founded by Italian shipping family Aponte Vago. Another five ships will follow in its wake by 2028. But while MSC launches such as the World Europa are mega-ships with almost 7,000 passengers, the Explora fits less than 1,000 people in suites that are some of the largest at sea right now, all with their own terrace. Note the use of “suite” rather than cabin; the crew are hosts, and I wasn’t on a cruise but an ocean journey. It’s a terminology designed to set Explora apart from other lines, but how did that translate to the actual experience?
Well, if ships like World Europa are floating cities, the Explora is more of a floating five-star hotel or resort. There’s an extensive spa, where a mindful massage using cryotherapy and breathwork sent me into a trance, though not deep enough to consider an impulse buy at the Rolex boutique – the very first one at sea. And there are numerous hot tubs and pools set on various decks, with the Astern one most popular. Loungers are set around an infinity pool just above the ship’s wake – a scene deserving of a Slim Aarons photograph. I paused by an art installation by Yinka Shonibare, who has wrapped books in butterfly-bright batik fabric, before sprawling on a Gio Ponti chair in one of the lounges.
The European labels continued both in the concept store, where limited-editions included handmade LGR sunglasses, and in my suite – dressed in a subdued urban uniform of mushroomy brown and taupe – with a Dyson hairdryer and Swarovski binoculars, all the better for zooming in on the wind farms that dot the North Sea coast.
Explora’s design team looked to landlubbing groups such as Belmond and Cheval Blanc for inspiration, and it shows. The atrium lounge – set across the fourth and fifth decks – felt like the buzzy lobby of a luxury hotel in Barcelona or Paris, a glittering white-andgold space with steps leading down to a cocktail bar while a pianist tinkled Mozart on a Steinway. Despite more than 900 guests afloat, there was a real sense of space and privacy – it never felt crowded. In fact, sometimes I wished for a few more people around, especially in the whisky bar after hours.
“We’re not trying to attract passengers from other cruise lines,” Antonio Paradiso, the Explora boss told me over breakfast one morning. “We’re trying to draw in people who normally stay in hotels.” This was especially apparent at dinner. Instead of a main restaurant and captain’s table invitations (Serena Melani, one of a handful of female cruise captains, has quite enough on her plate), the ship has several atmospheric spaces that would feel at home in Mayfair. At Marble & Co, my 30-day-aged Bavarian rib-eye was deftly sliced table-side; at the pan-Asian Sakura, I grazed on exquisite Galician cod gyoza and softshell crab tempura. The only pay-extra restaurant is Anthology, where I ate a brilliant, occasionally challenging dinner (marrowbone with codfish tripe, anyone?) concocted by guest chef Mauro Uliassi, whose restaurant on the Adriatic Coast has three Michelin stars.
Of course, Explora isn’t the only cruise line with an appetite for fine food – both Regent and Silversea have stellar reputations, the latter for its Sea and Land Taste (Salt) programme that changes with each port of call (something Explora does to some extent with its kitchen school). And I’ve had a lot of fun trying the street food and chef ’s table experiences on Virgin’s Valiant Lady, though they were a little hit and miss. Explora’s food was consistently excellent; the best I’ve tasted at sea.
We sailed in and out of Rotterdam, with enough time to explore modern architecture, such as Piet Blom’s hexagonal cube houses, then arrived in Zeebrugge the next day for a shore excursion – or “experience” as Explora’s phrasebook has it. Again, the cruise line is trying to go off the beaten track. In Zeebrugge, this meant a coach ride to Zwin Nature Reserve, where we walked to dunes and salt flats near the Dutch border and foraged for samphire and sea aster, geese honking overhead, before returning to the visitor centre for a hands-on cooking class making prawn bisque and barley risotto.
It was a brief, interesting snapshot of a region I’d never been to, but the short cruise I took wasn’t really the best showcase for Explora’s experiences, which depend on longer stays and more dramatic landscapes. A surprise concert with polyphonic singers on Sardinia is on offer, for example, or for those with the budget, a helicopter ride to a private Swedish island for the night. On Iceland, grizzled South African explorer Mike Horn – a man whose handshake, one passenger reliably informed me, is so firm it could break your fingers – will be leading small groups into the wilderness (and hopefully back out again).
But then, during the few times I was actually onshore, I often wished myself back on the ship – idling in the spa’s Himalayan salt chamber, ordering just one more toasted almond ice cream from the gelato counter, or catching one of the admirably niche seminars (the future of AI, pollution in French Impressionism and, on my voyage, the legendary Hilary Bradt on authenticity in travel). Like the best hotels – and presumably superyachts, though I can only imagine – you find yourself rarely wanting to step outside.