The most luxurious cruise ship on Earth

To call The World by ResidenSea a cruise ship may be doing it a disservice, because, in the truest sense, The World is not a cruise ship, but the largest privately owned residential yacht on Earth. The World was launched in 2002 and features personalised 110 private luxury apartments and 88 guest suites. Each of these apartments are owned by those known as the Residents,who collectively own the ship, and because of this, every sailing of The World is effectively sold out. The apartments vary in size from 1,106 sq feet to 4,184 sq feet, whereas the guest suites range from 259 sq feet to 648 sq feet. Each room features the following:

Two to six bedrooms each with its own living and dining area
A full equipped state of the art kitchen
Private balcony with Jacuzzi
Huge walk-in wardrobes
Fully-featured entertainment system including an audio system, 32-inch plasma fat-screen television with satellite hook-up and DVD player
Mobile telephone
Personal computer with full time high speed internet connection, anywhere on Earth

So what else is so special about The World? Well, it features concierge and room-service, several high end restaurants, a cinema, a world-class spa and a medical centre. As well as this, it also has two swimming pools, a tennis court, a nightclub, an art gallery, casino, library, travel agency, jewellers, a jogging track, exercise classes and equipment and a retractable marina for water sports. The World also features its own Gold and Country Club with putting and chipping green and a golfing simulator. It also features the only real grass putting green at sea. In 1991, hitting golf balls into the sea was outlawed as it endangered marine life. However, The World uses special golf balls which can be driven into the sea as they will turn into fish food after 48 hours, thus bypassing this law!

The one thing that each of the privileged passengers of The World say that attracted them to parting with a considerable amount of money to purchase part of the ship is the privacy. A ship of its size would usually carry around 1800 passengers, whereas the average occupancy of The World is about 150. Because of this, the ship often feels eerily empty, even when its at full capacity.

You may think that all of the wealth surrounding The World might mean that its detrimental to the environment. This couldnt be further from the truth! The World is one of the greenest cruise ships ever built. The engines of The World dont burn heavy bunker oil like most ocean-going ships. They burn common truck diesel fuel, resulting in far less pollution. The ship also features a waste water cleaning system which results in an entire weeks worth of sewage being treated and turned into drinkable water.

Rather than sticking to set destinations like a regular cruise ship, there is a democratic process that goes into choosing the itinerary each year. Destinations tend to be selected based on world events. For example, it might land in Monaco for the Formula One Grand Prix, Rio de Janeiro for the Carnival, Scotland for the British Open Golf tournament or Cannes for the Film Festival.

Unfortunately, getting your own piece of The World is unlikely unless youre a multi-millionaire. Residences start at $1,450,000 but some are valued at over $5,000,000. There are also annual maintenance fees of up to $250,000.

Maybe in my next life!

Neil Page is the Online Manager at CruiseNation.com.

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The most luxurious cruise ship on Earth is a post from A Luxury Travel Blog