Regent Seven Seas Explorer review: luxury to the ends of the Earth

All-suite and all-inclusive – the Explorer is up there with the world’s best cruise ships

Regent Seven Seas Mariner off the coast of Alaska
A Regent Seven Seas cruise ship at the Hubbard Glacier, off the coast of Alaska

The world of high-end cruising is no stranger to superlatives. Each new ship takes to the seas flanked by an armada of adjectives hailing the finest dining, glitziest entertainment and fanciest suites – but the Regent Seven Seas Explorer outdid them all. When she made her debut in 2016, she was proclaimed by her creators “the most luxurious cruise ship ever built”.

Six years later, how does the claim hold up? The facts and figures certainly provide some justification: the ship’s complement of 548 crew lavish their attention on the residents of just 373 suites – an enviable ratio even at the top end of the cruising market – and each cabin comes with a private balcony. The bathrooms are, collectively, clad in more than an acre of marble, more than 500 chandeliers adorn the ship’s ceilings and the walls are lined with 2,500 works of art, one of them an original Picasso.

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Holden Frith is The Week’s digital director. He also makes regular appearances on “The Week Unwrapped”, speaking about subjects as diverse as vaccine development and bionic bomb-sniffing locusts. He joined The Week in 2013, spending five years editing the magazine’s website. Before that, he was deputy digital editor at The Sunday Times. He has also been TheTimes.co.uk’s technology editor and the launch editor of Wired magazine’s UK website. Holden has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, having started his professional career while completing an English literature degree at Cambridge University. He followed that with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. A keen photographer, he also writes travel features whenever he gets the chance.