Super Yachts vs Cruise Ships Shortly after the turn of the millennium a colleague suggested that I plan and conduct some of my seminars aboard a super yacht. He even suggested the company: Sea Dream Yacht Club. He explained that our target market consisted of the kind of clientele who could afford such an excursion, and who would be eager to go. After conducting extensive research, I agreed. You will find many people who have enjoyed a vacation aboard a cruise ship. You will also meet a few who have turned to cruise ships for corporate meetings and events. But it is far less common to meet people who have spent similar time, for similar reasons, aboard a super yacht. This is understandable, considering the fact that the biggest difference between super yachts and cruise ships is sticker price: • • • •
Cruise Fare: Low-hundreds per week to low-thousands per week, per person Super yacht Fare: Low-thousands per week to tens of thousands per week, per person Cruise Meetings per 10 Guests: Expect $2,500-$7,500 per week Super yacht Meetings per 10 Guests: Expect $25,000-$500,000 per week
If the sticker price doesn’t scare you, and you are willing to take an honest look at all of the amazingly good reasons to travel on a yacht, then congratulations: you are prepared for a sea-bound adventure that is worth every dollar you will spend. Tours by sea know no equal to that found on a yacht. To be fair to cruise ships, their crews, and to the markets they serve, I will not cast them in a bad light. They are, after all, a satisfactory option for traveling the sea to exotic ports, while enjoying good food, guest services, and entertainment. Nonetheless, the differences between super yacht travel and cruise ship travel are significant. For lack of a better comparison, imagine planning an over-the-road tour from Saint Lewis to Los Angeles, and that you have a choice of venue: train, or super-duper luxury recreational vehicle (with ATV’s, a jeep, and wave runners in-tow). The train will make its scheduled stops along its rails, at each of its stations. Then, according to schedule, it will speed away. If you have the audacity to ask the conductor to spend a little more time at one station, and a little less at another, he will look at you like you’re a naive child. But ask him to jump the tracks, and head over to a little town, with an amazing attraction, just a few miles off course, and he will look at you like you’ve gone “off the rails on a crazy train.” The train is simply not built for such an excursion. Enter the super-duper RV, with all the amazing amenities in tow. While looking at the preplanned tour, you notice that a deviation from course will afford you with a completely unique variation in your trip, and won’t break the overall course and time. Your RV driver (and the RV crew) is amazing. Your quest for little alterations in the preplanned trip sparks an excited twinkle in their eyes. And, when you find that little enclave in middle-America (which is completely inaccessible to the train travelers), you can venture across unknown trails on the ATVs, off-road in the jeep, and even zip around on a lake or two on the wave runners. Did you want to find that little community theatre? That incredible restaurant; that never-before-discovered discovery? Traveling in the super-duper luxury RV makes it all possible. Of course, the train is cool. But no train compares with the super-duper RV (LX edition), with its professional crew of explorers.
And so it is with cruise ships and yachts. Cruise ships will get you there, right on schedule. Yachts, on the other hand, are a true high-sea adventure. About the author: This article was written by Mohit Jain for VEEM Propellers. VEEM are the world's leading marine propeller manufacturers. VEEM’s patented revolutionary Interceptor Propeller™ allows changes to the pitch of the propeller at any time. VEEM manufactures propellers only for mid sized and large yachts and boats.