During my time covering the mass-market cruise lines sailing from Florida, I’ve heard many envy-inciting stories about their ultra-luxury siblings, where everything from gourmet meals and top-shelf drinks to shore excursions is covered in the (admittedly steep) all-inclusive rate. However, I’d never thought much about the entertainment offerings on these exclusive vessels — especially in light of the licensed Broadway shows and Cirque-style spectacles staged aboard the floating theme parks operated by their more affordable sister brands — until my recent visit to Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Creative Studio in Tampa for a media preview of the live shows launching late next month in Miami with the Regent Seven Seas Prestige.
As the inaugural member of Regent Seven Seas’ first new ship class in 10 years, the Prestige represents a response to two trends that Regent Seven Seas Cruises president Wesley D’Silva says he sees “for all luxury travelers, regardless of demographic [or] psychographic: When luxury travelers are looking to travel, they’re looking for more space, and they’re looking for more personalization.” To that end, Prestige is 40% larger than Regent’s previous designs, but will only carry 10% more guests inside its 409 balcony suites, which include a two-story, 8,794-square-foot Skyview Regent suite that D’Silva calls “underpriced” at $25,000 per night.
To lure guests out of those luxurious accommodations, D’Silva credits the entertainment team led by vice president Bryan White with “raising the bar, not just with the shows themselves, but how we can really make entertainment more ubiquitous throughout the entire guest experience.” Prestige’s primary performance space might not support the flying effects and sliding seating seen aboard Norwegian’s Aqua and Luna (which White also oversaw) but White boasts, “Regent has some of the most beautiful theaters, [and] I’ve worked at theaters all around the world. … Guests are going to walk in before we even put anything on the stage, and they’re going to say, ‘Wow, this is a gorgeous space to be in.’”
Once settled in that theater, Prestige guests will get to see four original mainstage productions, portions of which we were able to sample in the rehearsal stage sans the sets, costumes and live musicians (including string players and the line’s first-ever DJ) that will ultimately accompany them. Even in their raw form, I was impressed by the world-class talent both on-stage and behind the scenes: Rewind, a 1980s celebration, features costumes by Tony-winning Lost Boys designer Ryan Park; Emmy nominee James Alonzo White choreographed the operatic Broadway retrospective Allegro; and Viva Vedette, a tribute to vintage Vegas showgirls, is directed by original Book of Mormon cast member Kevin Duda, to name-drop only a few of many top creatives involved.
“The Regent traveler, they’re curious, they’re well-traveled; they have a clear sense of style, a clear sense of taste,” says White. “They’ve seen every possible iteration of what a what a cruise ship show can be, so we don’t just sort of throw together a 45-minute production revue. We really are thoughtful in curating a bespoke entertainment program, and I think that what we’ve created for Prestige is going to be the pinnacle of that type of thinking for this brand.”
That Prestige difference was perhaps most evident during my tour of the shops where 781 individual costume and accessory pieces are being meticulously prepared. I’d been amazed by the sheer scale of NCL’s 112,000-square-foot facility during my previous visits for Norwegian Cruise Line, but this time I was truly wowed by the exquisite attention to detail: seeing costumer Emily Wilson spending upwards of eight hours laboriously hand-gluing rhinestones onto a single item under the watchful eye of workroom supervisor Jessi Winter; hearing supervisor of theatrical costume development and production Jack Maisenbach proudly describe sourcing custom-dyed silk chiffon from a 380-year-old vendor.
“Our goal is always to produce costumes that our guests want to have but can’t figure out where to get them from,” says Maisenbach. “It is my favorite thing to irritate our guests, where they ask, ‘I want that, where can I get it?’ and I say, ‘When you find it, you come let me know.’”
Thankfully, despite embracing modern technology in the forms of Tukatech pattern-digitizing software, automated embroidery machines and AI-assisted bookkeeping, Maisenbach is adamant that Regent’s creative teams “really respect and push the classic art form of the drawing,” when asked if they’re using generative artificial intelligence. “We love a pencil drawing, we love to find the artists who can still watercolor, we love an oil painting. We do support the technology, but we find its places within our art form.”
“I think our guests have such a level of taste and such an eye and such a curiosity that that stuff matters to them,” adds White. “We’re not trying to be — and we never will be — all things to all people in the luxury space, but we do want to create thoughtfully in a way that is going to have the widest appeal. … If you give people a fantastic experience, they will show up for that fantastic experience, whether they’re 8 or they’re 80, whether their net worth is $10 or $10 million.”
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This article appears in Nov. 11-17, 2026.