FORT LAUDERDALE -- Eighteen months before its scheduled
debut of the first Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection ship, executives offered the
first clue as to pricing for the luxury brand, saying a representative fare in
the Mediterranean would be about $5,600 for a seven-day itinerary.
That appears to put it squarely in line with what
competitors are charging for a seven-day Med cruise this summer.
CEO Douglas Prothero cited the $5,600 price at a Seatrade
Cruise Global news conference in which he laid out some new details of the
Ritz-Carlton ship, itineraries and its brand marketing strategy.
A rendering of the Marina Lounge.
"In terms of price point, we will be at a slight
premium to the market," Prothero said. "We think because it is an
intimate [ship] by Ritz-Carlton that the market will bear that. Our research
tells us it will. But it's not a surprisingly large number at all. People, when
we tell them, say it's less than they expected it to be."
Competitors of the 298-passenger Ritz-Carlton ship will
include the 112-passenger ships of SeaDream Yacht Club. An online price check
of seven-day SeaDream Med itineraries this summer revealed a midlevel suite
price of $5,699.
Another luxury line, Silversea Cruises, said a suite on its
Silver Spirit, currently being overhauled in drydock in Sicily, will cost
$5,600 on its first seven-day voyage after upgrades are completed in May.
The ship wil have 90 Terrace Suites.
Prothero said the new brand, a joint venture of Marriott
Corp.'s Ritz-Carlton chain and investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, will
begin sailing in November 2019 in the southern Caribbean.
After a series of seven- and 10-day voyages there, it will
move to the Adriatic in the spring of 2020, sail the Mediterranean and up to
northern Europe and the Baltic from July through September before offering
Canada/New England itineraries in the fall of 2020.
A second ship will add itineraries for the St. Lawrence
Seaway and Great Lakes in the summer, while a third will go to Asia, Prothero
said.
A sample itinerary in the Caribbean, he said, might include
St. Lucia, Bequia, Mustique and Tobago Cays. All are small islands within a
leisurely sail of each other and more likely to be visited by yachts than by
cruise ships.
A rendering of the aft pool deck.
Prothero said the features that will differentiate
Ritz-Carlton include service staff trained in the Ritz-Carlton service
tradition ("ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen"), a
higher percentage of larger suites and the sleek look of the ship.
The accommodations include two Owner's suites, 12 Loft
suits, 18 Grand suites, 27 Signature suites and 90 Terrace suites. The Loft
suites are duplexes, with bedrooms on the lower level, built so that the ship
could be all-balcony. The Terrace suites can be combined to reduce the total
number of suites from 149 to 107 for charters.
The five dining venues on the ship will include a main
dining room, as yet unnamed, that seats 140; an Asian fusion restaurant; a
poolside grill; a seafood grill; and Aqua, a restaurant being developed by
three-star Michelin chef Sven Elverfeld, who runs a restaurant by that name at
the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Wolfsburg, Germany.
Prothero said the sales staff is currently marketing
charters, but that will end soon for the 2019/20 season. "Once we go on
sale for FIT, that's it," he said. "We will never walk or bounce FIT
guests for charters."
Michelin-starred chef Sven Elverfeld is behind the Aqua restaurant.
When the fleet reaches three ships, he said, he expects 25%
to 30% of the business will be charter. Voyage sales open in May for Marriott
Rewards program members and in June for all others.
Prothero expects many bookings to come through Marriott
channels. He said the sales staff at the Coconut Grove headquarters is focused
on "that segment that doesn't have contact with the hotel segment."