Ritz-Carlton may be an American-owned brand, but the Ritz-Carlton Ocean Yacht Collection, which opened for bookings late last month, is a Canadian project.
Doug Prothero, from Port Stanley, Ont., conceived the idea and is in charge of the new Ritz-Carlton Ocean Yachts cruise experience to bring the brand’s service to a yachting lifestyle.
Prothero has had a 35-year career built around the water. He owned several tall ships, including the Silva, which under new owners still offers day tours in Halifax Harbour. Most recently, he was chairman of Sail Training International, the 32-country organization that trains young people to sail and hosts tall ships gatherings.
Here, he reveals the routes, onboard amenities and the difference between cruising and yachting.
A project that will be a hybrid between yachting and cruising, Ritz-Carlton aims for casual luxury at a comfortable pace.R-C Ocean Yacht Collection
How did the project come about?
I was at Capital Canada [a Toronto boutique investment firm] doing maritime transactions on the financing/consulting side. During the course of that, I came to know the guys at Marriott in business development. Marriott has been looking at a cruise for about 25 years. We got to know one another, and they said ‘if you wanted to take a run at being the developer, we would be very interested.’ I thought about it and started building a team and a project. That was 5 1/2 years ago.
What do the yachts offer? What makes them different?
A key differentiator is demographics. Our research shows we are skewing slightly younger than luxury cruise does today. We know we will attract the Ritz-Carlton guest, as well as the luxury guests across all nine Marriott brands. Interestingly, we are seeing in the research people who say they have never taken a cruise, but would take this because it’s a yachting lifestyle product.
This is a hybrid between yachting and cruising. We aren’t trying to get to seven ports in seven days. It’s casual luxury at a comfortable pace.
Where and when will they sail?
There are three yachts in the collection coming into service in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Each yacht will offer seven- and 10-day itineraries designed to allow guests to book double experiences without doing any port repeats.
For Yacht One, we’re doing Caribbean and Latin America, Mediterranean, we have a Northern Europe program into the Baltic to St. Petersburg, then we do an Oslo-Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and Labrador to Halifax. Then, fall in Canada and New England before going back to the Caribbean. Again, it’s yacht-paced so we will be doing fewer ports, at a slower pace, more overnights and focusing on smaller, more intimate ports.
Yacht Two is designed to fit through the [St. Lawrence] Seaway, so we’re going to be able to do a Great Lakes summer, Montreal to Chicago. We’re very excited about it. We think it’s a great alternative to the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. Yacht Two will probably do an extended Caribbean season in winter, some Canada-New England in the fall and summer further up the St. Lawrence into the Great Lakes. The third yacht will be based in the Pacific.
What’s on-board?
The yachts are 191 metres long and have 149 terrace suites that range from 29 to 100 sq. metres. We have two owners’ suites at the top. Each is 100 sq. metres with a 50 sq. metre terrace and a plunge pool. These yachts are designed so that most of these smaller suites can be interconnected with the one beside them.
And they are very residential, more like a resort at sea. There’s a beach [the aft deck], with a swim platform that can be lowered into the sea and an ocean marina with all kinds of paddle boards, kayaks, sailboats, loads of zodiacs. We’ve got some high-speed limousine tenders that are very James Bondy looking.
There is a champagne bar, a main lounge, which has indoor and outdoor space that can be a nightclub in the evening. On the dining slide, there are five venues for less than 300 guests. Sven Elverfeld, a three-star Michelin chef at the Ritz-Carlton Wolfsburg, Germany, is doing a 30-seat concept restaurant called Aqua. And there is 24-hour in-room dining.
And, the crew-guest ratio is the highest in the business [236 crew for 298 guests].