On board a Ritz-Carlton yacht, I learned how the other half cruises

Globe and Mail

4 days ago

After a night sailing the Caribbean, I wake up to still waters: We've reached colourful Soufrière in St. Lucia.
It's a February morning and snowstorms pummel our home in Toronto. I wipe the image from my mind.
Home, for now, is a floating grand suite aboard Evrima, a sleek superyacht that sets the Ritz-Carlton luxury hotel brand to sea. After abluting in a cavernous marble bathroom, I pull a robe from one of two walk-in closets.
I open the curtains to a wall of green. We've anchored by the Pitons, St. Lucia's iconic volcanic spires rising from the ocean. I can see a beach with sand the colour of brown sugar, a tangle of rainforest beyond. In one of the mountainous valleys, a small rainbow appears.
It's our last day aboard Evrima and reality is painfully setting in.
For a week, we've been sailing this jewel through the Windward Islands: Dominica, Grenada, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – the journey beginning and ending in Barbados. The crew has navigated unseasonably high winds and waves, keeping guests contented like royalty with top-shelf service and a steady stream of Moët.
Since launching The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection in October, 2022, Evrima has served as a model of the anti-cruise. In every way, it's the reverse of a megaship experience, where water slides and sea coasters lure 8,000-plus tourists who are then disgorged on port towns.
With capacity for just 298 passengers, Evrima treads more lightly. More than half the guests – median age 54 – have never been on a cruise. They might walk the plank before ever setting foot on a 'cruisezilla.'
Evrima feels like a five-star hotel, with excesses to match. Sit back for a two-hour barber treatment at the spa, or splurge on a red Bordeaux tasting from the celebrated 2000 vintage (US$2,300). Visit the boutique for an Hermes showcase, or get your bling polished at a 'diamond revitalizing service.'
'Sometimes we lose track of reality,' hotel manager Jose Fernandez laughs as we tour the yacht's decks.
Evrima's 149 suites are spacious, each with a private balcony. There are lofts spanning two floors, view suites with bathtubs peeking out over the ocean, and at the top tier, 1,091-square-foot owner's suites with wraparound terraces and private whirlpools. Our grand suite feels like a luxury apartment – as it should for US$15,400 per guest over seven nights, for our itinerary.
With approximately 250 crew, the staff-to-guest ratio is high. Fresh-faced and eager to talk, the ship's onboard staff (or 'ladies and gentlemen' as they're called) make sure guests are comfortable, tropical cocktail in hand.
As we settle into our room on Day 1, the doorbell rings. It's William, our 'suite ambassador,' offering us the unpacking service. The notion of someone else emptying my luggage feels alien to me. We come back from lunch to find our toiletries lined up on the double vanity, clothes hung and folded with care. That includes my partner's favourite pyjama, a tattered Mark's Work Wearhouse sweatshirt that William tucks away on a high shelf, as if to say, 'Please don't wear this outside.'
The dress code is 'yacht casual'– lots of linen on men, floral caftans on women. For evenings, we move into 'yacht sophisticated': ixnay on the shorts, ball caps and flip flops.
People-watching is part of the pleasure aboard a superyacht. Several Americans talk incessantly about money: hedge funds and wealth portfolios and inheritances. A small contingent of Germans is elegant and athletic; a warm Iranian family celebrates a wedding on the upper deck.
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The Brits are the most lively. One mischievous group spends the week playing celebrity look-alike, pairing passengers with their Hollywood doppelgangers (my partner gets Liam Neeson, I Sigourney Weaver). We share a toast at The Living Room, a gathering spot on Deck 4, and meet again for a late night dance-off at the Observatory Lounge on Deck 10.
But cuisine is the real focal point, with five distinct à-la-carte restaurants on-board. We embark on a 'culinary journey' at S.E.A., from chef Sven Everland of Aqua, a three Michelin-starred restaurant at Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg in Germany.
The menu is a series of intricately plated delicacies. Scallops with mango and paspierre algae. A sliver of Japanese Wagyu beef with pine-shoot glaze. Sorbet spooned from the hollow of a Ruinart Rosé champagne bottle. For US$285, including paired wines, the execution is flawless. It's only a shame that the room feels so funereal – windowless and adorned with calla lilies. We're sailing the tropics, not attending a wake.
The trip's most sublime dish comes from a more casual onboard restaurant, The Pool House. It's a morsel of torched miso king salmon, bathed in a citrus pop of yuzu marinade. Second place: crispy Vietnamese-style spring rolls at Talaat Nam, the ship's popular Southeast Asian spot. Here we meet Dadan, our favourite gentleman of the ship. 'Can you do me a favour?' Dadan asks, intensely. 'Enjoy,' he says, his smile widening.
Staff talk often about Evrima's unique feel: less cruise ship, more luxe resort on land. The ocean begs to differ. Winds howl and waves swell three to four metres high some nights. I lie flat on the bed, listening to the roar outside – a humbling experience. All week, rough conditions shutter the ship's marina, which normally gives passengers entry into the ocean to swim, kayak and paddleboard while at anchor.
Captain Chris Pugh and a crew of navigators and lookouts have been working to smooth out the voyage, sheltering between islands. Some well-heeled guests don't come on the ship for it to feel like a ship, the captain explains.
Thanks to Evrima's compact size (190 metres end to end), we've been anchoring in secluded spots not easily accessible to ginormous cruise liners.
On Day 3, we take the ship's bright yellow tenders into Bequia, a yachting town in the Grenadines. Leathery, tussle-haired couples stroll Princess Margaret Beach. The strip's lined with huts hawking rum punch and wisdom: 'Slow down today,' reads the chalkboard sign at Shelley's Bar.
We sail on to Canouan, a chichi Grenadines island with its own airstrip and marinas fit for oligarchs. Here, the Ritz-Carlton takes over a beach club for a barbecue. Looking out at turquoise waters, we feast on lobster tails, sip rum-filled coconuts and bounce to a soundtrack of Whitney and Mariah.
After departing Canouan, our captain reveals that Amazon czar Jeff Bezos snapped up his favourite parking spot in the bay. Indeed, Koru, Bezo's US$500-million superyacht was anchored nearby, its figurehead bearing a striking resemblance to his fiancée Lauren Sánchez.
The next day brings our first port stop, St. George's, Grenada. A small group heads inland for a trek through Grand Étang National Park, a rainforest framing a crater lake. Danny, our seasoned guide, is spry along slick jungle paths in his jelly shoes – red, green and yellow like his country's flag.
Grenada is also known as Spice Island, and our hike winds through verdant plantations. Well-versed in herbal medicine, Danny rattles off various treatments: clove leaves for impotence, nutmeg for menstrual cramps.
After two exciting river crossings, the trek ends at a waterfall shrouded in misty rain forest. A few swimmers clamber in. As water beats down our shoulders, we all lock eyes, awestruck.
By the time we reach St. Lucia, my partner and I have morphed into serene yachting people, nothing like our harried-troll versions in Toronto.
The finale is a private catamaran voyage along St. Lucia's western coast. We snorkel, spotting octopus, moray eels and schools of iridescent blue chromis. The onboard chef calls us out for lunch, curried mahi mahi.
It's the kind of curated experience that passengers expect on this voyage. There seems to be less appetite for the real world. Several guests voice displeasure with some of the port stops, including St. George's, where feral cats roam laneways and young men gun their cars at high speed the afternoon we tour around. A few guests chafe at the grittiness, saying they'd prefer more anchored time at luxe tourist hideaways like St. Barts and Mustique.
The complaints get more precious from there. One woman wonders why tokens of chocolate were left in her suite some days but not every day. And why are the breakfast jam jars so hard to open, another queries her husband. The Ritz-Carlton could bend over backward, but really, the rich like to complain.
Happily, our British shipmates maintain their high spirits. It's the last night and instead of packing their suitcases, they hold court around the sushi bar at Talaat Nam. The waves swell and everyone's bobbing and laughing, drawing out the moment before it's time to set foot back on land.
The writer was a guest of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. It did not review or approve the story before publication.