In Bali, the spiritual land of gods, you first make your way to its cruise terminal where monolithic stone edifices remind you of the island’s reverence for nature and the supernatural. There, standing proud and tall, is the 10-decked Seven Seas Explorer cruise ship—resplendent in white and polished glass, one of six ultra-luxury ships from Regent Seven Seas Cruises.
Regent Seven Seas Cruises is the pinnacle offering from Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, the world’s third-largest cruise line operator. And the Seven Seas Explorer—which debuted in 2016—was the first of the Explorer-class category of cruise ships launched by Regent to complement its relatively smaller trio of Navigator cruise ships. Upon the Seven Seas Explorer’s launch, she was christened by her godmother Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene of Monaco, and dubbed by the cruise community as ‘the most luxurious ship ever built’—and for good reason.
Boarding the Seven Seas Explorer leads to a gleaming ambience of warm lights, ebony flourishes and lavish charm, from plush leather couches to wood-panelled interiors. The ship’s reception is impressively outfitted with a twin circular stairway, under a sumptuous chandelier that cascades into the atrium, each facet of light contributing to its twinkling welcome. In total, 473 chandeliers adorn the entire ship, as does 4,262 sq ft of marble and US$7 million worth of art, including masterpieces by Chagall and Picasso.
This attention to luxe fitouts is also what makes the Seven Seas Explorer’s staterooms a home away from home, with one particular couple that I met having already surpassed 200 days of sailing and enjoying themselves immensely. On the cruise, it’s not rare to find guests who remain onboard for months on end, and on this particular cruise, there were 82 guests on the 63-night Grand Voyages starting from Tokyo to Sydney.
Staterooms start from suites and above, all of which are equipped with balconies, marbled bathrooms, and a multitude of premium touches, including walk-in wardrobe, customisable complimentary minibar, welcome champagne on ice, and refreshed floral arrangements. The top-of-range Regent Suite offers more than 4,000 sq ft of space, including a Steinway piano, two bedrooms with private balconies, and an in-suite spa retreat.
Daniela Espejo, who has spent a total of 12 years with Regent, including the past six as a cruise consultant, explains that the Seven Seas Explorer, as the first of the Explorer class ships, was conceived to be the masculine sibling to its two sister ships that came after. Since the Explorer’s launch, it has been joined by the Seven Seas Splendour and, in 2023, the Seven Seas Grandeur. Come 2026, the Seven Seas Prestige—the first of the Prestige class—enters the Regent family of ultra-luxury six-star cruise ships boasting one of the highest guest-to-space ratios on water.
Central to the premise of Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ all-inclusive offering is how it truly embraces the concept, with the inclusion of all dining venues and even the specialty restaurants, spa facilities, valet laundry service, staff gratuities, and most wines, spirits, and specialty drinks onboard, as well as a significant number of shore excursions. Walk into any bar or lounge and you’re covered, with the perceptive wait staff frequently remembering your favourite drink, snack and even choice of pastry and fruit.
Most of all, Regent makes good of two key metrics that distinguishes its six-star experience from most other cruise offerings. First, its crew-to-passenger ratio, which clocks in at one crew member to 1.4 guests, and, secondly, the aforementioned guest-to-space acreage, translating to approximately 74 tonnes to each passenger. All of this is to ensure that, even at its full capacity of 746 guests, the ambience remains leisurely, with an unhurried pace of being onboard to sample the many onboard delights. In a casual conversation with a regular cruiser and Sydneysider, she remarks that the ship never feels too busy, and that “it’s nice to always get a table at the restaurants”.
For meals, room service is 24 hours and inclusive, while options on the decks are plentiful and refreshed with daily specials. From Swedish pancakes with lingonberries for breakfast to a delicious ossobuco for dinner at Sette Mari, the ship’s Italian restaurant, the gastronomic scene onboard makes every meal an intriguing escapade.
At the Art Deco-inspired French restaurant Chartreuse, waiters expertly offer recommendations and specials ranging from lobster bisque and dover sole, to a veal rack of loin with grape chutney and escargots swimming in a rich cream. To wash it down, the inclusive house wines are complemented by a stellar wine list, from Napa’s Opus One and Harlan Estate, to Super Tuscans and Château d’Yquem.
Compass Rose, with its dramatic overhanging glass installation, is where one would head to for Regent’s famous Sunday brunches, with the kitchen team rolling out an opulent spread of caviar, seafood and roasts, served alongside sushi and all manner of Bloody Marys. For dinners, the restaurant’s degustation menu allows for samplers of the kitchen’s highlights, so you may return for the courses you liked best.
Prime 7, the ship’s steakhouse, offers a tantalising selection of steaks, as well as seafood such as a whole Maine lobster and creole-style jumbo shrimp. Pacific Rim—with its Asian-inflected menu, all-female front of house team, and mood-inducing Tibetan prayer wheel—unveils a smorgasbord of Asian cuisine: dim sum, sashimi, pad thai, miso cod, seafood laksa, South Korean-styled barbecued lamb chops, and duck with hoisin sauce and Szechuan pepper.
In the evenings, there is a smooth, ritualistic quality of looking forward to a freshly turned-down room, with the reservation card for specialty restaurants, chocolates and the daily Passages—a concise newsletter highlighting the entire day’s programme for the day ahead, including the evening dress code. This dress code suggestion is where Regent really shows its chops, with its crowd of well-heeled gentlemen dressed for Formal Optional evenings with dinner jackets, waving away the service to have the privilege of pulling out chairs for their wives in cocktail dresses and gowns.
Cruise director and crooner David Nevin moved from the Canadian prairies to the country’s east for the arts, and has since continued on a journey within the cruise industry; he has since amassed two decades of working cruise lines under his belt (nine with Regent). “What makes our onboard entertainment so special is that we source world-class talent as guest entertainers,” he says.
Among the names are musician and vocalist Nathan Foley, who was part of the popular and long-running children’s television show Hi-5, and songbird Emily Anne Garth, who counts the Sydney Opera House as one of her stages. The Explorer Vocalists, the in-house entertainers who also regularly conduct enrichment activities on board, are just as consummate with their reproduction of Broadway in Concert, earning standing ovations from the packed theatre.
Beyond the highlight shows of each evening, wellness has also been a growing part of Regent’s offerings. With the Seven Seas Explorer, you’ll find gym and spa facilities that outdo many country clubs on land. On sea days especially, to counter the soporific afternoons, head on to the Technogym-equipped workout space and fire up that metabolism with Jackie Brown’s Higher and Higher over the speakers. A cold room, experience shower by Grohe, aromatic suite, and sauna take it down a notch, as does an array of massages and treatments by the trained therapists.
Up on the top deck, you find table-tennis, miniature golf, bocce ball, pickleball, and a jogging track, while more leisurely pursuits include a games room, library, the Observation Lounge, and the smoking-friendly Connoisseur Club with a tempting selection of Cohibas, aged Macallans, and Louis XIII cognac.
The idea of onboard enrichment is such that the Culinary Arts Kitchen provisions for 18 individual cooking stations with Kathryn Kelly, its executive chef and director of culinary & enrichment. In here, guests learn to produce brunch staples, seafood dishes, Arabesque cuisine and how to achieve tender perfection on grilled meats.
Along the way, and during sea days, the Constellation Theatre hosts expert talks, including raconteur and self-coined ‘destinationalogist’ Patrick O’Brien. “It’s almost like a mental spa,” O’Brien says of his talks, which both educate and entertain. For him and his wife Maureen Kay, their involvement as onboard experts began in 2011, when the cruise lines to Asia started becoming more popular. “People who go on cruises are at different parts of their life, and they want to learn stuff so they can be engaged, anchored to an intention to discover new experiences at upcoming shore excursions and to walk out with something.”
View more of the entertainment on board the ship
Perhaps, and of course most interestingly, sailing on a ship named Explorer would invariably indicate the proximity of adventure. On the 16-night cruise from Bali to Sydney, plenty of adventures can be had, starting with the cultural and spiritual depth of Bali, where a reverence for the supernatural dominates daily life. Then, to Gili Mas for its salt-of-the-earth markets, and further on to the unearthly landscape of Komodo, where pristine waters wash onto a volcanic beach, with its parched terrain and the largest habitat of the fabled Komodo Dragons.
As the cruise wends its way across the Arafura Sea, you settle into the cosseting, calm rhythm of the ship and its daily attractions. The cruise eventually makes landfall in Darwin, with its equatorial climate, militaristic past and jumping crocodiles. From here, the cruise takes you through Torres Strait, between New Guinea and Australia, before arriving in Cooktown (population 2,941), so named after the British explorer who made the first recorded European contact with Australia’s eastern coastline.
Onward to Cairns, where you meet all manner of Australian wildlife at the Kuranda Rainforest Village, which includes a butterfly sanctuary, and the Koala Gardens, where you will spot the endangered cassowary, a rare tree kangaroo, a pair of Alpine Dingoes named Ned and Kelly, and a 5m Estuarine crocodile weighing in at more than 600kg named Jack. It is also one of the few places where you can cuddle a koala.
The seaside idyll of Townsville, with its quaint boutiques and cafes, yields fascinating discoveries, from family-run restaurants to three-storey street art. And then to Airlie Beach, with the unmissable Great Barrier Reef awaiting via a two-hour catamaran ride. From the pontoon located just above the reef, one just has to stroll into the underwater viewing gallery or take a ride in the glass-windowed submersible to view the teeming sea life around and within this natural wonder of the world.
With so many options of shore excursions, including a deep dive into Australia’s gold mines, cattle ranches and wine country, it’s inevitable that you would form a richer understanding of the entire continent—its diverse geography and extensive biodiversity that give rise to unique ways of living.
Along the way, the people whom you encounter on board and on land offer an even deeper insight into their unique existence, from a native Hong Konger who made Los Angeles his home, enjoying the cruise with his Friday lunch friends, to a German air stewardess, who married her Australian pilot boyfriend and made Cairns their home, running tours for cruise passengers. She has since forgone Teutonic efficiency for a gentler style of living, saying that though the buses don’t always run on time, they are prepared to wait for those running to catch it.
By the time the Explorer sails past the iconic Sydney Opera House to dock at the White Bay cruise terminal, there is a palpable sense of all that has come before as a big adventure made up of many episodes. And in a review of the cruise experience, many highlights appear: the affability of the crew, the comfort of your favourite brew at Coffee Connection, lip-smacking meals all throughout the day, the increasing familiarity and friendships with other cruise passengers, an always refreshing change of programming, from karaoke nights to swinging big band sounds, over late-night cocktails, and the prospect that the next morning would offer new adventures, and, with it, an appreciation of a life less ordinary.
Starting from 14 May 2025, the Regent Seven Seas Explorer will cruise Alaska to begin her 2025-26 Voyage Collection, returning to Asia in Tokyo by October for three round-trip immersions into Japanese culture, before making her way down to Australia and New Zealand by way of Southeast Asia.
Photos courtesy of Regent Seven Seas Cruises
