People are always saying how much they aren’t “cruise people.” Whether they have sailed on a ship or just watched a behemoth pull out of port, they think: nope, buffets and floating casinos — not for me.
And perhaps they are right. But not all cruise ships are created equal. Some have water slides and group sing-alongs, while others, in fact, shouldn’t be called “ships” at all.
When Francesco Galli Zugaro set out to build his first micro-ship, the 12-suite Aqua Amazon, in 2007, he certainly didn’t have those cruise liners plying the Med in mind. He had just served as head of Ocean Adventures in the Galapagos and thought, I can do this better. So the Rome native moved his wife and three children to Peru and built a luxury vessel that sailed lazily out of Iquitos along the Amazon. Word spread faster than the ship could circle up and down the river, so a sister micro-ship, the 14-suite Aria Amazon, debuted in 2010 to meet demand.
This past October, Galli Zugaro outdid himself again, launching the 20-suite Aqua Mekong, which sails from Saigon to Siem Reap, Cambodia, then back down all the way to Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Up and down she goes, offering three-, four- and seven-night itineraries to just 40 guests (plus the 36 staff who serve them). On a typical four-night journey, passengers cross four bridges, take two massages, drink their blood volume in complimentary wine and beer, and eat the glorious Asian street food of Thailand’s most celebrated Australian chef, David Thompson, and his very hard-working team of minions.
Cabin walls are lined with Thai impresario Jim Thompson’s silks. Bathrooms are tiled with onyx. An infinity pool faces the aft. The media room is lined with eight Eames lounge chairs. There’s nary a casino or buffet in sight.
Which is all fantastic and lavish, for the short spurts of time one is on the micro-ship, but running on the treadmill is really not what this “cruise” — if we must call it that — is about. The Aqua Mekong is, in fact, all about access.
On a four-night journey starting at Siem Reap, the ship moves just 275 miles — a distance one could theoretically drive by car in four hours. Except that in Cambodia, the roads aren’t paved; herds of cattle are the evening rush hour. Getting to the pottery village of Kampong Chhnang would simply be impossible on any other mode of transportation than a boat.
“I don’t want you to feel like you’re on a cruise ship,” says Galli Zugaro, who cuts a seriously aristocratic profile. “I want you to feel like you’re in a world-class hotel while having a soft adventure.” Templed out after Siem Reap? No problem. Perhaps a rickshaw drive to a 63-year-old palm-sugar-maker’s house will give you a more enlightened perspective on a country best known as the unfortunate star of “The Killing Fields.”
This soft adventure of which Galli Zugaro speaks might include a 12-mile bike trip on $1,000 carbon-fiber Giant bikes to a clay-pot maker, or a tuk-tuk ride to a remote elementary school. It might mean shopping for candyfloss silk woven right before your eyes.
For many guests on the second half of the boat’s maiden voyage, these “remarkable settings” meant biking around horse-drawn buggies and fallow rice paddies, then getting caught in a flash flood that left the group in irrepressible infantile giggles while taking shelter in some kind stranger’s living room. How often do you get to unplug, cycle at full speed between raindrops, then take shelter in a kind soul’s living room? Certainly not on a megaship that runs from Manhattan (or Brooklyn, or Bayonne) to the Caribbean and back.
Floating down one of Earth’s most majestic waterways and actually participating in all that majesty, getting literally drenched by it, was the zenith of the trip for most. A cruise? Maybe technically. But the Aqua Mekong’s strength lies not in rock-climbing walls or swim-up bars, but in its unique ability to go where no man has gone before — at least, no man on a cruise ship.
Three-night itineraries for all Aqua cruises are $3,150 per person, double-occupancy, all-inclusive; aquaexpeditions.com.
THREE MORE MICRO-SHIPS TO SAIL AWAY ON
Belmond Road to Mandalay
One of the only ways to get from Pagan up to Shan Province in newly opened Burma, this Belmond ship carries 82 passengers along the Ayeyarwady River.
Three-night itineraries from $2,520 per person, all-inclusive; belmond.com
Zambezi Queen
Just 14 guests fill the boat’s three decks, which cruises through Chobe National Park, home to one of the densest populations of elephants in Africa.
Three-night itineraries from $1,229 per person, all-inclusive; zambeziqueen.com
The Oberoi Zahra
The Zahra’s 54 guests sail along the mighty Nile with Egyptologists to guide them from Aswan to Luxor for serious views of the ancient sights.
Seven-night itineraries from $3,920 per person, all-inclusive; oberoi.com