Aboard Explora I with Explora Journeys
Cruise Overview
The only city in the world that can lay claim to straddling two continents, Istanbul—once known as Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine and then the Ottoman Empire—has for centuries been a bustling metropolis with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia.
Istanbul embraces this enviable position with both a certain chaos and inventiveness, ever evolving as one of the world’s most cosmopolitan crossroads.
It’s often said that Istanbul is the meeting point of East and West, but visitors to this city built over the former capital of two great empires are likely to be just as impressed by the juxtaposition of old and new.
Office towers creep up behind historic palaces, women in chic designer outfits pass others wearing long skirts and head coverings, peddlers’ pushcarts vie with battered old Fiats and shiny BMWs for dominance of the noisy, narrow streets, and the Grand Bazaar competes with modern shopping malls.
At dawn, when the muezzin's call to prayer resounds from ancient minarets, there are inevitably a few hearty revelers still making their way home from nightclubs and bars.
Most visitors to this sprawling city of more than 14 million will first set foot in the relatively compact Old City, where the legacy of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires can be seen in monumental works of architecture like the brilliant Aya Sofya and the beautifully proportioned mosques built by the great architect Sinan.
Though it would be easy to spend days, if not weeks, exploring the wealth of attractions in the historical peninsula, visitors should make sure also to venture elsewhere in order to experience the vibrancy of contemporary Istanbul.
With a lively nightlife propelled by its young population and an exciting arts scene that’s increasingly on the international radar—thanks in part to its stint as the European Capital of Culture in 2010—Istanbul is truly a city that never sleeps.
It’s also a place where visitors will feel welcome: Istanbul may be on the Bosphorus, but at heart it’s a Mediterranean city, whose friendly inhabitants are effusively social and eager to share what they love most about it.
The only city in the world that can lay claim to straddling two continents, Istanbul—once known as Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine and then the Ottoman Empire—has for centuries been a bustling metropolis with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia.
Istanbul embraces this enviable position with both a certain chaos and inventiveness, ever evolving as one of the world’s most cosmopolitan crossroads.
It’s often said that Istanbul is the meeting point of East and West, but visitors to this city built over the former capital of two great empires are likely to be just as impressed by the juxtaposition of old and new.
Office towers creep up behind historic palaces, women in chic designer outfits pass others wearing long skirts and head coverings, peddlers’ pushcarts vie with battered old Fiats and shiny BMWs for dominance of the noisy, narrow streets, and the Grand Bazaar competes with modern shopping malls.
At dawn, when the muezzin's call to prayer resounds from ancient minarets, there are inevitably a few hearty revelers still making their way home from nightclubs and bars.
Most visitors to this sprawling city of more than 14 million will first set foot in the relatively compact Old City, where the legacy of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires can be seen in monumental works of architecture like the brilliant Aya Sofya and the beautifully proportioned mosques built by the great architect Sinan.
Though it would be easy to spend days, if not weeks, exploring the wealth of attractions in the historical peninsula, visitors should make sure also to venture elsewhere in order to experience the vibrancy of contemporary Istanbul.
With a lively nightlife propelled by its young population and an exciting arts scene that’s increasingly on the international radar—thanks in part to its stint as the European Capital of Culture in 2010—Istanbul is truly a city that never sleeps.
It’s also a place where visitors will feel welcome: Istanbul may be on the Bosphorus, but at heart it’s a Mediterranean city, whose friendly inhabitants are effusively social and eager to share what they love most about it.
Undoubtedly the most extraordinary island in the Aegean, crescent-shape Santorini remains a mandatory stop on the Cycladic tourist route—even if it's necessary to enjoy the sensational sunsets from Ia, the fascinating excavations, and the dazzling white towns with a million other travelers.
Called Kállisti (the "Loveliest") when first settled, the island has now reverted to its subsequent name of Thira, after the 9th-century-BC Dorian colonizer Thiras.
The place is better known, however, these days as Santorini, a name derived from its patroness, St.
Irene of Thessaloniki, the Byzantine empress who restored icons to Orthodoxy and died in 802.
You can fly conveniently to Santorini, but to enjoy a true Santorini rite of passage, opt instead for the boat trip here, which provides a spectacular introduction.
After the boat sails between Sikinos and Ios, your deck-side perch approaches two close islands with a passage between them.
The bigger one on the left is Santorini, and the smaller on the right is Thirassia.
Passing between them, you see the village of Ia adorning Santorini's northernmost cliff like a white geometric beehive.
You are in the caldera (volcanic crater), one of the world's truly breathtaking sights: a demilune of cliffs rising 1,100 feet, with the white clusters of the towns of Fira and Ia perched along the top.
The bay, once the high center of the island, is 1,300 feet in some places, so deep that when boats dock in Santorini's shabby little port of Athinios, they do not drop anchor.
The encircling cliffs are the ancient rim of a still-active volcano, and you are sailing east across its flooded caldera.
On your right are the Burnt isles, the White isle, and other volcanic remnants, all lined up as if some outsize display in a geology museum.
Hephaestus's subterranean fires smolder still—the volcano erupted in 198 BC, about 735, and there was an earthquake in 1956.
Indeed, Santorini and its four neighboring islets are the fragmentary remains of a larger landmass that exploded about 1600 BC: the volcano's core blew sky high, and the sea rushed into the abyss to create the great bay, which measures 10 km by 7 km (6 mi by 4½ mi) and is 1,292 feet deep.
The other pieces of the rim, which broke off in later eruptions, are Thirassia, where a few hundred people live, and deserted little Aspronissi ("White isle").
In the center of the bay, black and uninhabited, two cones, the Burnt Isles of Palea Kameni and Nea Kameni, appeared between 1573 and 1925.
There has been too much speculation about the identification of Santorini with the mythical Atlantis, mentioned in Egyptian papyri and by Plato (who says it's in the Atlantic), but myths are hard to pin down.
This is not true of old arguments about whether tidal waves from Santorini's cataclysmic explosion destroyed Minoan civilization on Crete, 113 km (70 mi) away.
The latest carbon-dating evidence, which points to a few years before 1600 BC for the eruption, clearly indicates that the Minoans outlasted the eruption by a couple of hundred years, but most probably in a weakened state.
In fact, the island still endures hardships: since antiquity, Santorini has depended on rain collected in cisterns for drinking and irrigating—the well water is often brackish—and the serious shortage is alleviated by the importation of water.
However, the volcanic soil also yields riches: small, intense tomatoes with tough skins used for tomato paste (good restaurants here serve them); the famous Santorini fava beans, which have a light, fresh taste; barley; wheat; and white-skin eggplants.
Istanbul embraces this enviable position with both a certain chaos and inventiveness, ever evolving as one of the world’s most cosmopolitan crossroads.
It’s often said that Istanbul is the meeting point of East and West, but visitors to this city built over the former capital of two great empires are likely to be just as impressed by the juxtaposition of old and new.
Office towers creep up behind historic palaces, women in chic designer outfits pass others wearing long skirts and head coverings, peddlers’ pushcarts vie with battered old Fiats and shiny BMWs for dominance of the noisy, narrow streets, and the Grand Bazaar competes with modern shopping malls.
At dawn, when the muezzin's call to prayer resounds from ancient minarets, there are inevitably a few hearty revelers still making their way home from nightclubs and bars.
Most visitors to this sprawling city of more than 14 million will first set foot in the relatively compact Old City, where the legacy of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires can be seen in monumental works of architecture like the brilliant Aya Sofya and the beautifully proportioned mosques built by the great architect Sinan.
Though it would be easy to spend days, if not weeks, exploring the wealth of attractions in the historical peninsula, visitors should make sure also to venture elsewhere in order to experience the vibrancy of contemporary Istanbul.
With a lively nightlife propelled by its young population and an exciting arts scene that’s increasingly on the international radar—thanks in part to its stint as the European Capital of Culture in 2010—Istanbul is truly a city that never sleeps.
It’s also a place where visitors will feel welcome: Istanbul may be on the Bosphorus, but at heart it’s a Mediterranean city, whose friendly inhabitants are effusively social and eager to share what they love most about it.
The only city in the world that can lay claim to straddling two continents, Istanbul—once known as Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine and then the Ottoman Empire—has for centuries been a bustling metropolis with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia.
Istanbul embraces this enviable position with both a certain chaos and inventiveness, ever evolving as one of the world’s most cosmopolitan crossroads.
It’s often said that Istanbul is the meeting point of East and West, but visitors to this city built over the former capital of two great empires are likely to be just as impressed by the juxtaposition of old and new.
Office towers creep up behind historic palaces, women in chic designer outfits pass others wearing long skirts and head coverings, peddlers’ pushcarts vie with battered old Fiats and shiny BMWs for dominance of the noisy, narrow streets, and the Grand Bazaar competes with modern shopping malls.
At dawn, when the muezzin's call to prayer resounds from ancient minarets, there are inevitably a few hearty revelers still making their way home from nightclubs and bars.
Most visitors to this sprawling city of more than 14 million will first set foot in the relatively compact Old City, where the legacy of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires can be seen in monumental works of architecture like the brilliant Aya Sofya and the beautifully proportioned mosques built by the great architect Sinan.
Though it would be easy to spend days, if not weeks, exploring the wealth of attractions in the historical peninsula, visitors should make sure also to venture elsewhere in order to experience the vibrancy of contemporary Istanbul.
With a lively nightlife propelled by its young population and an exciting arts scene that’s increasingly on the international radar—thanks in part to its stint as the European Capital of Culture in 2010—Istanbul is truly a city that never sleeps.
It’s also a place where visitors will feel welcome: Istanbul may be on the Bosphorus, but at heart it’s a Mediterranean city, whose friendly inhabitants are effusively social and eager to share what they love most about it.
Undoubtedly the most extraordinary island in the Aegean, crescent-shape Santorini remains a mandatory stop on the Cycladic tourist route—even if it's necessary to enjoy the sensational sunsets from Ia, the fascinating excavations, and the dazzling white towns with a million other travelers.
Called Kállisti (the "Loveliest") when first settled, the island has now reverted to its subsequent name of Thira, after the 9th-century-BC Dorian colonizer Thiras.
The place is better known, however, these days as Santorini, a name derived from its patroness, St.
Irene of Thessaloniki, the Byzantine empress who restored icons to Orthodoxy and died in 802.
You can fly conveniently to Santorini, but to enjoy a true Santorini rite of passage, opt instead for the boat trip here, which provides a spectacular introduction.
After the boat sails between Sikinos and Ios, your deck-side perch approaches two close islands with a passage between them.
The bigger one on the left is Santorini, and the smaller on the right is Thirassia.
Passing between them, you see the village of Ia adorning Santorini's northernmost cliff like a white geometric beehive.
You are in the caldera (volcanic crater), one of the world's truly breathtaking sights: a demilune of cliffs rising 1,100 feet, with the white clusters of the towns of Fira and Ia perched along the top.
The bay, once the high center of the island, is 1,300 feet in some places, so deep that when boats dock in Santorini's shabby little port of Athinios, they do not drop anchor.
The encircling cliffs are the ancient rim of a still-active volcano, and you are sailing east across its flooded caldera.
On your right are the Burnt isles, the White isle, and other volcanic remnants, all lined up as if some outsize display in a geology museum.
Hephaestus's subterranean fires smolder still—the volcano erupted in 198 BC, about 735, and there was an earthquake in 1956.
Indeed, Santorini and its four neighboring islets are the fragmentary remains of a larger landmass that exploded about 1600 BC: the volcano's core blew sky high, and the sea rushed into the abyss to create the great bay, which measures 10 km by 7 km (6 mi by 4½ mi) and is 1,292 feet deep.
The other pieces of the rim, which broke off in later eruptions, are Thirassia, where a few hundred people live, and deserted little Aspronissi ("White isle").
In the center of the bay, black and uninhabited, two cones, the Burnt Isles of Palea Kameni and Nea Kameni, appeared between 1573 and 1925.
There has been too much speculation about the identification of Santorini with the mythical Atlantis, mentioned in Egyptian papyri and by Plato (who says it's in the Atlantic), but myths are hard to pin down.
This is not true of old arguments about whether tidal waves from Santorini's cataclysmic explosion destroyed Minoan civilization on Crete, 113 km (70 mi) away.
The latest carbon-dating evidence, which points to a few years before 1600 BC for the eruption, clearly indicates that the Minoans outlasted the eruption by a couple of hundred years, but most probably in a weakened state.
In fact, the island still endures hardships: since antiquity, Santorini has depended on rain collected in cisterns for drinking and irrigating—the well water is often brackish—and the serious shortage is alleviated by the importation of water.
However, the volcanic soil also yields riches: small, intense tomatoes with tough skins used for tomato paste (good restaurants here serve them); the famous Santorini fava beans, which have a light, fresh taste; barley; wheat; and white-skin eggplants.
Cruise Itinerary
Aboard Explora I
Launch Year: 2023 Length: 248 Width: 32 Currency: EUR Capacity: Crew Count: Deck Count: 11 Cabin Count: 461
EXPLORA I, the first of six luxury best-in-class ships, will set sail in 2023, with the remaining ships ready to set sail in 2024, 2026, 2027 and 2028.
Immerse yourself in all of the detail behind the Explora Journeys ships, from design and architecture, to safety and technology features.
Exquisitely designed with the guest and relaxed, home-like comfort in mind - and in partnership with the world’s foremost superyacht and luxury hospitality designers - the innovative ship will seamlessly blend elegant Swiss precision with modern European craftsmanship and vibrant design.
Water as a focal point
Fourteen decks will provide ample indoor public space, maximising guest choice and create areas of quiet seclusion and privacy. Generous outdoor decks will boast more than 2,500 sqm (26,909 sq ft) delivering stunning views of the sea, with 64 private cabanas across 3 outdoor pools.
A fourth pool, with a retractable glass roof, will allow swimming and poolside relaxation in any weather.
Combined with various indoor and outdoor whirlpool baths on the ship’s promenade deck, the ship has been designed with water as a real focal point of the onboard experience - helping our guests discover their ocean state of mind.
Homes at sea
With 461 oceanfront suites and residences, guests will enjoy feeling closer to the sea and in port thanks to their floor-to-ceiling windows and personal private terrace. Suites will start at 35 sqm (377 sq ft) which makes them among the most spacious for the luxury cruise category.
Explora I Facilities
Explora I Includes
Cabin Details
Each of our 461 ocean-front suites, penthouses and residences - all designed with a refined, European elegance - are created to get you closer to the ocean itself, with floor-to-ceiling windows and private sun terraces.
With unrivalled space and privacy, and service that means everything is taken care of, our guests can relax into their comfortable homes at sea with their luggage delivered and a chilled bottle of champagne waiting as they undertake their Ocean Journey. Our suites start at 35 sqm (377 sq ft), among the most spacious for the category.
HOMES AT SEA
Luxurious, serene, and spacious, each of our 461 ocean-front suites, penthouses and residences have been created with refined European elegance, comfort and simplicity as the focus to offer a real ‘Home at Sea’ to our guests.
Exquisitely designed to stimulate the senses and enhance the connection with the ocean, each of our suites comes with its own spacious terrace with daybeds and an alfresco dining area, boasts floor-to-ceiling windows to maximise natural light and the infinite ocean views.
Our suites range from 35 sqm (377 sq ft), in the Ocean Terrace Suites category, up to 280 sqm (3,014 sq ft) for the Owner's Residence, with an average size of 42 sqm (453 sq ft), making them among the most spacious in the industry.
With unrivalled space and privacy – and 24-hour service that means everything is taken care of – our guests can relax into their comfortable ‘Homes at Sea’ with their luggage delivered and a chilled bottle of champagne waiting as they undertake their Ocean Journey.
IN-SUITE TECHNOLOGY
- Complimentary Wi-Fi
- Infotainment system with Smart TV and easy connectivity to personal devices
- Smartphone app for access to all services
- Telephones with voicemail
- On-demand TV options
- Wireless charging base on bedside tables
- Individual climate control in each suite
SERVICES
- 24-hour butler service*
- 24-hour concierge service
- 24-hour in-suite dining
- 24-hour laundry, dry-cleaning and ironing services**
- Twice-daily housekeeping services, including evening turndown service
- Shoeshine service
BUTLERS SERVICES*
- Packing and unpacking to personal preference
- Laundering and pressing assistance
- Private in-suite dining
- Personal communication through our app and on messenger platforms
- Itinerary and transport planning
- Celebrations planning
- Onboard and ashore reservations assistance
* Available for Ocean Residences
** Additional charges may apply
