The best luxury spas at sea

A vast blue ocean. An ever-receding horizon. You, your soulmate. Magnesium-salted whirlpools and rows of heated day loungers. Bottled water on tap. Cold face towels infused with the essence of citrus peel and basil leaf. Rose-scented massage oil. A groovy therapist or three fawning over your nails with polish and cuticle cream. Enya’s Orinoco Flow playing in the background, reports Fiona Carruthers.

I mean, really, what’s not to like about the average luxury day spa at sea.

As the demand for cruising just keeps on growing, cruise lines continue to evolve and ramp up their offerings. There’s not a lot of bandwidth left on board for more celebrity chefs and restaurants, not to mention the entertainment line-up – from Broadway shows to opera and fado. Ships also already boast everything from minigolf courses and tennis courts to zip lines and surf wave machines.

So cruise directors have been eyeballing the good old day spa. Once tucked away like an afterthought at the back of the ship, now there are irresistible deals on most cruise itineraries for personalized wellness programs, including carb-restricted afternoon tea served by your private butler, followed by a 90-minute daily oxygen facial.

And as with most other onboard offerings, your bespoke health and fitness routine can be as minimalist or as lavish as you wish.

Like many cruise lines, Europe river cruise specialist Uniworld is doing more to help its guests stay fit and healthy on the water – and land – with new “Go Active” shore excursion programs, including complimentary bicycles and Nordic walking sticks. There are also sociable “gentle walking” groups or, to take it up a notch, you can spend the day biking through the Danube River’s Wachau Valley. To complement all that activity, Uniworld’s ships offer Travelling Lite menus so you don’t stack on those famed cruise kilos.

You can also swim it off. The brand’s four super ships each boast a small resistance pool with water jets to swim against. On the SS Catherine and SS Maria Theresa, the resistance pool is in a glass box – which frosts over when you’re swimming – right in the middle of the Bar du Leopard restaurants. At night, the water glows magnificent emerald green.

Active Encouragement

Uniworld’s newly appointed Australian managing director, Fiona Dalton, has just returned from a Lyon-to-Avignon cruise aboard the SS Catherine. Getting on-trend, she joined other guests at 7 am every morning for 40 minutes of gentle yoga on the deck.

“At first I didn’t know if I could keep it up, but it’s the perfect way to start the day,” she says. “By the end of the cruise, early yoga had become as essential as my morning coffee.”

Also on the wellness bandwagon, Seabourn has just announced a mindful living program established in partnership with the Harvard University-trained physician and integrative medicine practitioner Andrew Weil. Dr. Weil will be on board the new Seabourn Encore’s inaugural cruise in January, after which the program will be rolled out across the Seabourn fleet, including the still under construction Seabourn Ovation, due to launch in spring 2018.

Each year, Weil will sail on a different Seabourn ship for designated cruises, offering small, informal group discussions as well as free lectures on topics including spontaneous happiness and healing, anti-inflammatory foods, and healthy aging. The program is based around complimentary sessions and seminars on the daily practice of meditation and yoga.

It’s a strong addition to Seabourn’s wellness offering, with its Odyssey-class ships already featuring Kinesis fitness walls with a patented 360-degree pulley system. Talking of fitness walls, when Crystal Symphony recently underwent a $20 million refurbishment, the ship gained an outdoor fitness garden.

Italian-flagged Silversea Expeditions is also encouraging its guests to get active, with 13 wellness-themed cruises planned for the next 18 months aboard Silver Discoverer. In partnership with Technogym, the Wellness Expedition Voyages include complimentary stretching, yoga and Pilates classes (both onboard and onshore, subject to weather and destinations). You also get fitness classes, one complimentary spa massage and daily healthy cooking demonstrations.

“These voyages are perfect for travelers seeking a personal journey to wellness to complement their quest for adventure,” says Silversea’s general manager in Australasia, Karen Christensen.

Nordic Cool

From active to just plain decadent, the American Canyon Ranch Spa Resorts (founded in Arizona in1979) can also be found at sea – onboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, and aboard Celebrity, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas ships.

Meanwhile, that pinnacle of luxury afloat, The World (offering the only residential apartments at sea, priced from about $US1.3 million [$1.7 million] up), has just come out of the dry dock with a number of improvements including new pedicure and manicure stations, a new barbershop and Pilates studio, and a refreshed physiotherapy room.

Meanwhile, it’s literally getting cooler to cruise aboard the Nordic lines. Viking has set a new industry standard with lavish Liv Nordic spa and Nordic bathing options included in the cost of the cruise. Viking’s two ocean ships, Viking Star and Viking Sea have snow grottos (see more on this below). Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) offers plenty of fitness activities, including Flywheel, TRX, and the boxing-inspired Norwegian Fight Klub.

Norwegian Escape, Breakaway Class ships and Norwegian Epic offer special spa staterooms with easy access to the Mandara Spa and complimentary use of their Thermal Spa Suites, saunas, hydrotherapy pools, steam rooms, and heated loungers. As NCL’s marketing guff puts it: “All you have to do is unpack and say ah.”

Life & Leisure road-tests three of the newest day spa offerings at sea.

Going swimmingly: AquaClass on Celebrity Solstice

It’s a slightly bizarre experience stripping off and donning a spa gown in preparation for a mini-facial while staring at the Opera House about 400 meters away. But that’s what comes of touring the Celebrity Solstice at berth in Circular Quay, Sydney, earlier this year.

Celebrity Solstice recently introduced AquaClass, special cabins located close to the spa and its healthy restaurant, Blu. The cabins are available only to adults, making this part of the ship quieter; 130 of the ship’s 1426 staterooms are now AquaClass suites. The upside, naturally, is that you don’t have to traipse through the entire ship in your robe and slippers to get to the spa.

The ship has also joined forces with Randi Zuckerberg (American businesswoman and sister of Facebook guru Mark Zuckerberg) on a new range of spa treatments dubbed “Take care of your selfie”.

Celebrity Solstice’s lavish Canyon Ranch SpaClub facilities – complimentary for AquaClass guests – include a Persian Garden aromatic steam room, sensory (light and sound) showers and Swedish and herbal saunas. (Other guests can enjoy the facilities, too, for a small charge; and there’s even a special area and menu for spa-goers aged 13 to 17.)

The AquaClass cabins are pretty much like normal cabins, but without the temptations – the bar fridge and in-room edible goodies are healthy, while the toiletries are spa themed.

It’s a great option for the committed spa junkie. Whether you’re cruising the Mediterranean or Australian coastline, you could just about get through the entire cruise in a terry toweling robe with swimmers underneath.

But back to my facial. My gorgeous young German therapist breaks it to me gently, his hand on my shoulder, that my skin is well, to be honest, a little dehydrated and sun-damaged. And there I was thinking I could pass for Elle on a good day. Ah well. It’s hard to get too distraught when you’re lying under a steam machine with a lavender eye mask. Besides, nothing a bit more SPF can’t fix I muse, agreeing instantly (despite the fact my eyes are closed) to buy the large tube of miracle cure he just placed in my right hand.

When he’s done, Celebrity Solstice’s kindly staff practically need a crane to get me off the spa table, off the ship, and into Sydney’s frantic Friday afternoon traffic. Talk about parallel universes. I vow to them I’ll be back.

Celebrity Solstice Oxygen boosts facial $US203; Essential men’s facial $US135 (both 50 minutes).

A haven of calm: Greenhouse Spa & Salon on MS Koningsdam

Perhaps the biggest upside to the spa on Holland America’s new ship MS Koningsdam is it’s never crowded. That’s because numbers are deliberately limited to keep the ambiance peaceful. (Small tip: sign up early.) A day or weekly pass gives passengers access to lockers containing white cotton robes and slippers. Pop these on and head to the large thermal pool, which has powerful water jets at its center to massage stressed shoulders and backs and more gentle streams of water trickling from the ceiling around the edges.

Next, try the sauna and steam rooms – there are female- and male-designated saunas at the edge of the ship with sheer views through the glass walls down to the sea, and the third sauna for men and women. The steam room seats about a dozen people (although I was often the only one in there) and has an enormous porthole to contemplate the sea.

As you step out, you can pull the handles of suspended wooden buckets and they will dump icy water over you – or, if your body doesn’t like rude shocks, you can have a hot shower. Then relax with a glass of cranberry juice on one of the spa’s curved and heated ceramic beds.

Treatments range from facials to massages to acupuncture, as well as regular salon services such as haircuts and blow-dries.

I was slathered in lime and ginger salt scrub, wrapped in plastic, and lowered into a float bath until – like James Bond rescued just before the spinning device he’s trapped in gets the better of him – the therapist returned to let me out. She was excellent but be warned, the spa services are provided by an external company, Steiner, and they don’t hesitate to push their beauty products.

The Greenhouse Spa & Salon is open from 8 am until 10 pm. A seven-day pass costs $US149. A 50-minute salt scrub costs $US155 and the popular 75-minute hot stone massage is $US195. A 15 percent service charge is added to all treatments.

Fire and ice: LivNordic Spa on Viking Sea

The Vikings might not be famed for their personal hygiene, but this spa delivers in spades. Traditionally a river cruise specialist, Viking Cruises has two ocean liners as of last year, with two more on order. Both the ships’ LivNordic Spas are operated by Raison d’Etre Spas, based in Stockholm.

Aboard Viking Sea in May for her pre-christening cruise, I had the chance to try out Nordic bathing. LivNordic Spa is a relaxation utopia with a hairdresser, nail salon, barber and fitness center. But the heart of this sumptuous complex is a large, dimly lit room with a hydrotherapy pool in which you lie on sunken metal day beds, your head, and shoulders propped above the swirling waters. There’s a smaller saltwater pool, and, in the far corner, four ceramic-tiled thermal loungers. A steam room and snow grotto (no bigger than an Inuit’s hut with a floor of freshly made snow) complete the picture.

The ladies and gents’ changing rooms feature saunas constructed of sweet-smelling birch and a cold plunge pool set to a brisk 12 degrees. (By contrast, most Scandinavians would bathe in the water of about 2 degrees). The idea with Nordic bathing is to relax in the steam room or sauna for about 10 minutes, then dunk in the cold pool or stand in the grotto – or, for the fearless, douse yourself with icy water in a bucket suspended next to the steam room. Common Scandinavian wisdom has it that unless you have a medical condition or blood pressure issues, hot and cold bathing is excellent for your health. Not only is it invigorating, but it also helps relax tired muscles, increase blood circulation and aid detox. It can even boost immunity.

In the separate his and hers change-rooms, there’s an abundance of fluffy bathrobes and huge towels, plus comfy spots to sit. There’s also complimentary still and sparkling water; tea, books, magazines, no Wi-Fi reception and, best of all, mind-numbing beige décor to stare at – plus large portholes to enjoy the view outside. Here’s to good health (with herbal tea in a recycled bamboo mug, of course).

LivNordic Swedish massage from $US99 for 90 minutes. www.afr.com/