Explora Journeys Marks Triple Shipyard Milestone as Six-Ship Ultra-Luxury Fleet Takes Shape

When the world’s travel orbit shows up to your shipyard, why just have one event when you can do three?

Explora Journeys, residing in the stratosphere of the MSC Group portfolio, is the toast of the ever-expanding world of ultra-luxury cruises (or “ocean travel,” as the house of Explora likes to call it). But the relatively new brand, founded in 2021, isn’t resting on its lofty reputation. The company hosted a triple ceremony — the float out of Explora IV, a coin ceremony for Explora V, and the steel cutting of Explora VI — at Fincantieri’s Sestri Ponente shipyard Monday in Genoa, Italy.

The event was the third triple ceremony the company has held in the last 18 months amid a plan to grow to a six-ship fleet. Explora Journeys currently has two ships in service while the third, Explora III, is slated to deliver in July — ahead of schedule, the company noted — with a naming ceremony set for August 1 at MSC’s new cruise terminal in Barcelona.

“Today is the moment when all of our ships simultaneously are in some form of their life cycle,” said Anna Nash, president of Explora Journeys, who spoke to travel media at a breakfast ahead of the ceremony.

For Nash, the milestone is as much philosophical as logistical: the brand’s entire vision, she argues, now physically exists in the world, even if half of it still needs finishing.

The six-ship fleet represents a €3.5 billion (~$4 million) investment by MSC Group — part of a roughly €7 billion (~$8 million) total commitment to Fincantieri when MSC Cruises vessels are included — and is on track for completion by 2028. Pierfrancesco Vago, the executive chairman of the cruise division at MSC Group, noted at the ceremony that the decision to build a significant portion of the Explora fleet at the Sestri Ponente yard, which was navigating a difficult period when the partnership began, helped secure its future.

Each successive ship has evolved incrementally rather than dramatically. The fleet has grown slightly in physical size — Explora III is two meters longer than its predecessors — but the suite count has barely budged, with only two additional suites added per vessel. That restraint is by design.

“We’ve got one of the largest space-to-guest ratios in the industry,” Nash said. “There’s always a sun bed, always a nook that is your own.”

What has shifted is the mix of suites: Guest feedback showed repeat travelers trading up to higher categories, so Explora III features fewer entry-level suites and more premium ones than its elder siblings, a telling product evolution.

“It’s really important to stay close to our guests and to evolve with them, because without our guests, we are nothing,” Nash added.

On the environmental front, Explora III will be the first ship in the fleet with LNG-powered capabilities, with Explora IV, V, and VI following suit. The brand is also piloting fuel cell technology: Explora V will be built to allow for a potential future retrofit, while Explora VI will be delivered with a fuel cell onboard. All ships across the fleet are equipped with shore power connectivity, allowing engines to be switched off entirely while in port.

The ceremony also honored Captain Serena Melani, who served as Master of both Explora I and Explora II and will command Explora III — and who holds the distinction of being the first Italian woman to command a cruise ship and the first female captain to bring a cruise ship out of a shipyard. She was appointed as one of two godmothers for Explora V’s coin ceremony, alongside Alice Gallo of Fincantieri’s Sestri Ponente shipyard.

Nash, who noted the company took a deliberate year off from new ship launches in 2024 to analyze guest feedback and rebuild internally, said the brand is entering its next growth phase with sharper clarity.

“We’ve got to continue that listening, and I think, being a family-owned brand, we don’t have layers and layers of approvals and boards to go through if we want to change something,” she said. “We change things quite quickly, which I think puts us at an advantage to some of those bigger brands that are publicly listed: the nimbleness and agility.”

Over 30 percent of Explora’s guests are first-time cruisers — a number that keeps climbing, Nash noted — and North America ranks among the brand’s top markets. The recently launched global campaign, Explore the Ocean State of Mind, developed by McCann Paris, is aimed squarely at that land-based luxury traveler who has never considered ocean travel.

Asked about competition from hotel brands now entering the ocean space — the Ritz-Carltons and Four Seasons of the world setting sail (not to mention Amangati, Aman at Sea’s first yacht currently under construction at the other side of Genoa — Nash wasn’t shying away from more occupants in the Explora Journeys swim lane. She welcomes them, she said, as market educators who will grow the category and further introduce ocean travel to those who may have never considered it previously.

But there is a differentiating factor between Explora and some of its burgeoning competition.

“They’re much smaller, very intimate ships, which I think is right for a certain clientele,” Nash said. “But I know that our guests, that sophisticated travelers, want choice, and you can only get choice if you’re on a larger ship.”

With Explora IV and V scheduled to enter service in 2027 and Explora VI in 2028, the brand’s sprint to six is very much on.

Whether the pace continues beyond that (Nash acknowledged there is, in fact, a vision for what comes after ship six) remains a story for another ceremony.