Regent Seven Seas Cruises continues to evolve and innovate its product and offering as part of a two-pronged approach to appeal to the luxury cruise line’s loyal guests and to entice new-to-brand passengers.
Steve Odell, SVP and Chief Sales Officer at Regent Seven Seas Cruises says its becoming increasingly important to “bed down early business to avoid challenges to fill ships closer to departure”.
Speaking with LATTE at Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas earlier this month about the recent launch of Regent’s 2026/27 program, Odell confirmed the program’s roll out in July was earlier than ever. The program features more than 170 sailings, covering departures from April 2026 to May 2027, aboard six ships including the newest vessel, the 746-passenger Seven Seas Grandeur.
Launching that program early is “focused on getting ahead of the booking curve,” Odell explains.
Subscribe to LATTE Cruise’s free eNewsletter to keep up to date with everything in the luxury cruise space.Regent’s dual strategy aims to lure back past passengers by introducing additional US homeport sailings (where the brand has its largest reach) out of Seattle in the Northwest-Pacific where there is a “solid market”, from Galveston in Texas, the state where the luxury cruise brand has a huge market following, and out of Tampa in Florida where there is also robust support.
To encourage new-to-brand, and even more so new-to-cruise guests, Regent Seven Seas Cruises has added a further eight Immersive Overnights itineraries that spend more time in more ports and less time at sea.
“We’ve concentrated on the Med because that’s where we see most uptick with people already booking multi-stop land stays. In Europe, everything is so much closer,” the now Miami-based cruise chief said.
Odell said the inaugural season’s Immersive Overnights cruise in Asia which included Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai
and Kyoto was “highly successful”, but because Regent’s traditional Japan voyages sell out the cruise line has instead added seven cruise departures rather than operating the Immersive Overnights sailing.
While designed to attract landlubbers, Lisa Pile, Vice President Sales & General Manager, Asia Pacific said the Immersive Overnights program have also been a hit with past Regent guests who may have already sailed to featured ports but want to return and spend even more time exploring those key cities.
Pile adds that she believes the Global Hotel Association (GHA) Concierge Collection on a handful of departures in 2025 will be of great appeal to the Asia Pacific market.
“Six sailings and six magnificent hotels in the GHA Collection with bespoke three night stays and private experiences curated by the hotel partners themselves will showcase the best of their city.”
Those properties include Hotel Café Royal, London; Conservatorium, Amsterdam; Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome Hotel; San Clemente Palace Kempinski Venice; Çırağan Palace Kempinski Istanbul; and Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso, Athens.
“Six gorgeous locations paired with six beautiful hotels, matched with six magnificent sailings – they are a winner.”
Odell says having the extra ship, Seven Seas Grandeur “enables us to do more things. It’s an exciting mix of itineraries.”
Looking further ahead
“What’s coming next is the new Prestige class ships in 2026 and 2028 – which is not very far away. Bookings will open for the first of those new builds in the first half of 2025.”
The Prestige class ships will be bigger than Regent’s Explorer class fleet (Seven Seas Explorer, Seven Seas Navigator, Seven Seas Splendor and Seven Seas Grandeur) which are 55,000 tonnes. The new ships will be 77,000 tonnes, and will have another 50 suites (100 guests). “They will be about more space.”
Odell said the re-imagination of Mariner and Voyager – the older ships in the fleet with a “big following” – will involved drydocks and upgrades in the next two years. Mariner at the end of 2025 and Voyager in March/April 2026.
That project will aim to give the ships the “look and feel” of the Explorer class vessels “to make the fleet more consistent”. Those upgrade projects won’t be complete rebuilds, but will concentrate on soft furnishings, bathrooms, new furniture, etc.
Odell confirmed there will be possible reconfigurations of Voyager and Mariner in some places, but specifics are yet to be determined. “We’re looking at two or three options – Explorer class have more options for dining to make the restaurant choice broader. While he emphasised that nothing is set in stone, Odell highlighted that Voyager and Mariner don’t have the Pacific Rim restaurant onboard, however the Pan-Asian dishes from that elegant venue are served in Compass Rose.
“Strategically, we are keeping it fresh for regular guests but it’s also about feeding the funnel of new guests. As we are growing, we also need to introduce fresh blood to the brand,” Odell told LATTE.
“There’s a lot of noise in the luxury space now. There’s newcomers, you’ve got the return of Crystal – it’s a noisy space, particularly in the yacht space and ships they are introducing. We’ve got to make sure that we continue to separate ourselves and innovate and be one step ahead.”
“One thing we are very lucky with is we’ve got loyalty. But for new customers who shop around and don’t know us, it’s a tougher marketplace than it was even two years ago,” Odell admits.
“We take the view that we’re not all offering the same thing. We’re all offering different experiences”.
“Particularly about the yacht space which I think is drawing in a whole new brand of people. They are bringing in hotel loyalty guests and perhaps a bit younger, and for us that’s also very good because it is feeding our funnel as well.”
“Once people have sampled cruise, they are going to come back and do another one,” he added.
LATTE attended Virtuoso Travel Week as a guest of Virtuoso.
