T+L's Review of Explora Journeys' Explora I

In the old days, a really good worker in Stavanger, Norway, could pack a tin full of spratt in just four seconds. And then another. And another. By the end of her shift, she might’ve stuffed 8,000 cans full of the sardine-sized fish, topped each up with olive oil, and passed them over to the adjuster’s table where they’d get a critical eye before getting clamped shut and shipped off to the labeler.

Of course, she’d have help. Before the spratt reached her table — and it was almost always a woman doing the packing — the fish would be salted and threaded onto racks by children, some no older than eight. The kids would then pass the racks to burly furnacemen, who’d hoist them over the oak-wood coals in between nips of beer. Elsewhere in the packinghouse, printers would whirr and the steam-hiss of sanitizing equipment would drone for 10 hours a day, six days a week and only rest, like the workers, on Sundays.

The whole town, you might say, was wrapped up in the canning of fish, which flourished so mightily in the fjords that crease Norway’s North Sea coast. Back then, they’ll tell you, the fishermen could just scoop spratt right into the boat. Some 70 percent of the city of Stavanger was, at one time in the early 20th century, involved with the business. In a good year, a single worker could send close to 3 million tins out into the world, whether up the coast to Bergen or to the trenches along the Western Front.

Not that I’d expected to learn any of this.

In fact, I’d never even heard of Stavanger until a few weeks before I arrived. But there I was one gunmetal day in August, pulling into port aboard the Explora I, a just-launched cruise ship from the new brand Explora Journeys. We were sailing from Copenhagen to Hamburg, Germany, and along the way docked in the heart of Stavanger. Minutes after stepping off the ship, a small group of passengers and I were scampering through the Old Town’s cobbled streets, snapping photos of the whitewashed wooden buildings and chatting with an affable guide arranged by the cruise line. Soon enough, she was filling us in about the history of fish packing — not to mention the Norwegian oil-and-gas industry, municipal politics, and the pros and cons of living in Scandinavia. She also procured for us several tastes of local foods including pickled herring, the flatbread known as lefse, and fenalår, a salted-and-cured lamb leg that might best be described as Norwegian prosciutto.

It was, unexpectedly, a most delightful way to spend a morning, snacking our way around town and popping into shops like Chili Chocolate, discovering a new record store-slash-pub called Blåveis, and seeing the brutalist building that houses the Sølvberget Library and Culture Centre. (Incidentally, the library is also home to an outpost of Sirkus Renna, a konditori that makes outstanding cardamom buns.)

Not that the other stops along the way lacked for pleasure. In Oslo, the Nordic weather gods looked on us with favor, and visitors and locals alike took to the shoreline for sunbathing, sauna sessions, and, in my case, a two-hour paddling trip around the harbor with Mad Goats, a local outfitter. In Goteborg, Sweden, I wandered blissfully from neighborhood to neighborhood, window shopping in Haga and sniffing out bakeries in Landala. There, too, I took to the water by renting an electric canal cruiser — much like the ones in Amsterdam — from Let’s Boat for an hour-long, self-guided tour of the city’s waterways.

The most impressive vessel of the trip, though, was the Explora I. Built in Italy and officially launched only weeks before I came aboard, the 461-suite ship is the first of a planned six for Explora Journeys. Like many top-tier lines, Explora has countless moments of indulgence, like freely poured Moet & Chandon Imperial and the unlimited raw bar available in the Emporium Marketplace, a dining venue on Deck 11. The extravagance continues in the rooms, which are outfitted with Frette linens and robes and feature the kind of subdued color palette and rich materials you’d find at an Aman or One&Only resort. (They’ve also got heated marble floors in the bathrooms and Dyson hair dryers in the walk-in closets.) 

The onboard restaurants are also excellent. The tasting-menu venue Anthology is the most ambitious, with menus designed by culinary superstars who commit to three-month rotations aboard the ship. The first partnership is with Ristorante Uliassi, the Michelin three-starred destination outside Ancona, Italy, which has created an eight-course menu that highlights Adriatic seafood and wines from Le Marche. (The tuna carpaccio alla puttanesca was, for me, a particular highlight.) Other dining rooms, like the Japanese-inspired Sakura and the chops-and-steaks venue Marble & Co., served fantastic dishes that were both technically precise and satisfying.

Sourcing superlative luxury seems to be a specialty of Explora. For one, the line is the world’s first to partner with Rolex for an onboard boutique — and during my six-day trip, several of the timepieces were sold. Scarcity is also a theme on the ship’s premium wine list, which is stacked with trophy bottles so rare that it may not be a stretch to say that some future passenger will book simply to pop the cork on a €2,900 bottle of 2013 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Echezeaux. (Thankfully for the rest of us, many house wines are available at no cost, and numerous worthwhile finds, like bottles from R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia and Artemis Karamolegos, can be had for a more down-to-earth supplement.)

In between the extravagance, the onboard experience is as serene as you’d expect from a premium cruise line. A well-equipped spa has several treatment rooms, plus all sorts of amenities such as a sauna, hydrotherapy pool, Himalayan salt cave, and a salon. A fitness center — bustling at most hours throughout my trip — is stocked with the latest Technogym gear. Explora I is the first big ship with a dedicated outdoor fitness area, too, on deck 14, where one afternoon a group of go-getters were busting it through a boot camp — though they just as easily could’ve been playing pickleball on the outdoor court nearby.

Back inside, things were often tranquil against the backdrop of tunes from the Steinway piano, the crackle of ice, and bar spoons swirling in mixing glasses. The deferential service, often with a gracious-yet-reserved smile, reminded me of the sort you’d expect at a five-star Swiss hotel. Which would make sense: though Explora Journeys stands on its own as a brand, it’s part of MSC, the family-owned global shipping conglomerate based in Geneva.

“Now that everyone is on board, they understand what it means to be a boutique resort on the water: the European-ness in terms of design, the ambiance, and the atmosphere,” said Michael Ungerer, the CEO of Explora Journeys, when we met over espresso in the ship’s Explora Lounge as we cruised the North Sea.

“It’s been totally exhilarating and extremely rewarding — and also humbling, in a way, when you think about every little tiny detail we have planned from day one and how it came together and how many people were involved,” Ungerer said, thinking back on the more than five-year odyssey of developing and launching the new brand.

Then, he surprised me with a question. “Did you go to the canning museum in Stavanger?” he asked, before I’d had the chance to fill him in on my memorable morning. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Explora I will sail Northern Europe, as well as New England and Eastern Canada this summer and fall, before continuing south to the Caribbean. Seven-day trips aboard Explora I start from $3,650 per person, all inclusive, and you can book your cruise at explorajourneys.com.