A Personal Note from Krista

You may have noticed I haven’t been in your inbox these last few weeks. Unfortunately, while I was at my host agency’s conference in Mexico last month, I found myself in a situation that no traveler wants to be in. After a long day of networking and informative meetings with the likes of Four Seasons Yacht, Rocco Forte Hotels, and National Geographic Lindblad, I returned to my hotel room at the Conrad Tulum. I had barely taken my shoes off when my phone rang. It was a hospital in Florida. My 85-year-old dad had had a stroke. The hospital recommended I fly home immediately.

It was 7 pm in Cancun and I knew there was no way I’d get back to Florida that evening. The first flight I could get was at 3:15 pm the next day, and it was to the wrong coast of Florida! I was supposed to be in Mexico for another five days, staying at some of the most luxurious properties in the Riviera Maya.

God bless JetBlue for only charging me $115 to change my flight, and thank goodness for travel insurance.

I share this story because we all think our travels will go as planned — I thought I’d be sipping margaritas on the beach at the Belmond Mayakoba, not hanging out in the ICU, living in a Hampton Inn, and waiting for updates from neurology — but life is unpredictable.

Please keep my dad in your thoughts over the coming weeks. He has a very long and tough road to recovery in front of him.

A Special Tip for Your Next Cruise Booking

Now back to what I had planned to send you last month…

With the hurricane that tore through Hawaii last month and low river levels (still) on the Rhine and Danube, I am unfortunately no stranger to cruise itinerary changes. So let me share a simple tip with you. If you purchase third-party travel insurance (i.e., not through the cruise line), ask if there is a "Cruise Bundle." These bundles are usually very inexpensive to add and include extra coverage for itinerary changes and diversions. As always, the devil is in the details but the cruise-coverage add-ons are usually so cheap that they are a no-brainer to me! Book a complimentary vacation consultation here and let’s talk about this.

Now Let's Talk about Niche Cruises

Most cruise itineraries are built for the widest possible audience. Same five to six ports, same onboard shows, same crowd. The interesting stuff is happening on smaller ships — under 2,000 passengers, usually well under that — where a cruise line picks a lens and builds the whole sailing around it. More ports in fewer countries. More time hiking instead of sitting at the pool. Less of a focus on the booze and more of a focus on the experience. A ship full of people who all care about the same thing you do.

I did Azamara's Greece Intensive last summer and it changed how I think about itinerary design entirely. Instead of skimming five countries in ten days, you spend the whole cruise in one place, hit ports the bigger ships can't be bothered with, and stay late enough to actually have dinner ashore. It's the opposite of a highlights reel.

Here's are some other niche itineraries and cruise lines for you to consider…

The Women-Only Cruise: Uniworld's Scenic Rhine, Paris & the Swiss Alps

Uniworld's second women-only sailing runs in 2027, bookending a Rhine river cruise with stays in Paris and Zurich. It's hosted personally by Uniworld's CEO, Ellen Bettridge, aboard the brand-new S.S. Audrey — a ship named for and styled after Audrey Hepburn. The whole thing is designed by a team of women, for women: bring your mother, sister, or best friend, or come solo and expect to make new ones on board. Curious about this cruise? Book a complimentary vacation consultation here.

The Formula 1 Cruise: Explora Journeys at Monaco

Formula 1 and Explora Journeys' parent company, MSC Group, extended their global partnership through 2030, and Monaco is where it shows up most. In 2025 and 2026, Explora turned Explora I and Explora II into floating boutique hotels moored in Port Hercule for the Grand Prix — five nights docked about 150 meters from the track, with grandstand tickets, F1 Paddock Club access, and pit lane walks available to book. At 461 suites and roughly 922 guests, Explora's ships are large for "small ship" but still a fraction of a standard mega-ship, with a 1.25:1 staff-to-guest ratio. These book up fast once cabins open — get in touch if you want first crack at a Monaco sailing before it's announced widely. Check out all the Explora sailings here.

The Japan Immersion: Mitsui Ocean Cruises

Mitsui is a Japanese shipping company running Japanese-flagged, Japanese-crewed ships built around the idea of funatabi — "beautiful encounters with Japan" — and omotenashi, the country's tradition of wholehearted hospitality. The 458-guest Mitsui Ocean Fuji (a former Seabourn ship, refit with a much stronger Japanese culinary focus) sails smaller ports most itineraries skip — Ibusuki, Sasebo, the Seto Inland Sea — alongside the bigger names. A second ship, Mitsui Ocean Sakura, debuted in late 2026. Every port includes one complimentary English-guided tour, and 2027 brings the line's first calls in Australia as part of a 47-day South Pacific voyage.

The Single-Destination Specialist: Paul Gauguin in French Polynesia

Paul Gauguin Cruises operates exactly one ship, the 330-guest m/s Paul Gauguin, and has for more than 25 years. It's built with a shallow draft specifically to get into lagoons and atolls larger ships can't reach, and it's the only ship in the region with an onboard PADI dive program. The 2027 season brings 34 voyages across the Society Islands, Tuamotus, Marquesas, and Cook Islands, plus a Boutique Crossing Collection between Singapore, Australia, Fiji, and Bali — all on a ship that just finished a multimillion-dollar refurbishment and runs a 1:1.5 crew-to-guest ratio. Ready to talk French Polynesia? Get in touch!

The Golf Cruise: Voyages.golf on Emerald Azzurra

Voyages.golf runs fully escorted golf cruises on Emerald's 100-guest yacht Emerald Azzurra, with groups capped at 20 to 40 golfers per departure. The 2027 Mediterranean sailing starts with three nights in Lisbon and championship rounds at Oitavos Dunes and Penha Longa, then boards the ship to play Palmares in the Algarve, Finca Cortesin and Las Colinas in Spain, and Al Houara in Morocco, with Cádiz, Tangier, Ibiza, Menorca, Sardinia, and Corsica worked in between rounds. It ends in Rome. There's also a 2027 Caribbean version on the same ship, hitting courses in Anguilla, St. Kitts, and Barbados.

Life doesn’t get much better thana Belmond barge…

The Barge Cruise: Belmond's Hotel Barges in Burgundy and Provence

This is the small-ship end of small-ship — Belmond's barges carry 6 to 8 guests each, with a crew nearly matching that number. In Burgundy, the Amaryllis and Fleur de Lys cruise the Saône and Canal du Bourgogne with stops for wine tastings in Beaune and walking tours of Dijon; in the south, Napoléon threads through Provence and the Canal du Midi. Every meal is prepared by an onboard chef, and the pace is slow enough that your only real decision each day is which château to visit before dinner.

The Active Cruise: Avalon's Active & Discovery Program

Avalon runs this across its European river fleet, not as a single sailing but as a standing choice on nearly every itinerary: each day, you pick between Active (biking, hiking, kayaking), Discovery (cooking classes, painting, hands-on culture), and Classic (the standard guided walking tour). The Rhine and Rhône versions get the most attention, with up to 28 excursion options on a single itinerary — more variety than any other river line offers. It doesn't cost more than a standard sailing, either.

The Curated-Passenger Expedition: Ecoventura in the Galápagos

Ecoventura caps its three Relais & Châteaux yachts at 20 guests each, well under the Galápagos National Park's own 100-passenger limit for expedition ships. That size is the whole point — no rotating groups on shore excursions, no waiting your turn to snorkel, and a crew-to-guest ratio high enough that you'll know everyone on board by day two. It's also why the line can match families with kids and teens of similar ages on its designated family departures.

The Wellness Cruise: Windstar's Mind, Body, Spirit Collection

Windstar built an entire themed-voyage program around specific interests rather than destinations — wellness is the flagship version. Daily yoga, meditation, and breathwork happen on open deck, led by an instructor who stays with the ship for the whole sailing, plus a pop-up juice bar and a dedicated wellness coach for one-on-one time. It's not a spa day bolted onto a normal itinerary — the schedule is built around it. Windstar runs these on its all-suite yachts, which carry 148 to 342 guests depending on the ship, so it still feels like a private group. Ready to talk sailing? Get in touch.

The Peruvian Amazon Cruise: Multiple Options

This region has only a handful of vessels total, so newcomers stand out. Abercrombie & Kent's Pure Amazon launched in 2025 — 22 guests, a 1:1 staff ratio, and two dedicated single cabins, built in partnership with A&K's Galápagos brand Ecoventura. Aqua Expeditions runs the Aqua Nera and the 32-guest Aria Amazon, both floor-to-ceiling glass on the Pacaya-Samiria reserve. And Zafiro, part of the Rainforest Cruises fleet, keeps excursions to a maximum of 10 travelers per guide. All of them are floating-safari territory: pink dolphins and sloths instead of lions, skiff rides instead of jeeps. I did a Peruvian Amazon cruise last summer and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

Imagine yourself cruising through Colombia…

The Brand-New River: AmaWaterways on Colombia's Magdalena

Until 2025, no international line had ever run overnight passenger cruises on the Magdalena — it's the first new river to open to this kind of cruising since the Mekong debuted roughly 20 years ago. AmaWaterways now has two ships there, the 60-guest AmaMagdalena and the 64-guest AmaMelodia, sailing seven-night round trips between Barranquilla and Cartagena. Stops include the UNESCO-listed colonial town of Mompox, a recreated Barranquilla Carnaval performance, and riverside stilt villages where boats double as the street. It can be paired with a Panama City post-cruise extension through the Miraflores Locks and Gatun Lake. This is about as far from a familiar river cruise as it gets — caimans and otters instead of castles, and a route almost no one has sailed before you.

The Solo-Built Itinerary: Azamara's Small-Ship Fleet

Azamara's four ships already suit solo travelers well beyond the Intensives — longer overnights in port, more late-night stays, and a genuinely social bar scene because the ship only holds a few hundred people to begin with. They also run solo rates on select sailings, including their 2027 and 2028 world cruises, so traveling alone doesn't mean paying double for an itinerary that was never going to be crowded anyway. My only caveat with Azamara is that the bathrooms in the entry level cabins are small. Pay for the larger cabins.

Have a favorite region and want to know if there's an Intensive-style sailing for it? Get in touch and I'll dig into the 2027/2028 calendars for you.

Putting It Together

There's a time and place for mass market cruises but they are not always for me! If I'm going to take a cruise, I want it to be interesting and different. If you're weighing a cruise om 2027 or 2028 and can’t decide what to do, I sort through exactly this kind of thing every week. Get in touch and let's find the right one!

About Krista

I’m a Virtuoso travel advisor based in Palm Beach, Florida. I attended the University of Notre Dame for undergrad and I have my MBA from the University of Chicago. Before building my travel business, I spent 20 years in the investment management industry and over a decade living and working in London, England. I’ve personally traveled to 80+ countries and now design thoughtful, highly customized trips for travelers who value expertise, access, and a seamless experience.

I offer a complimentary 30-minute consultation for travelers considering a custom itinerary or luxury cruise. Book a complimentary vacation consultation here.

For travel inspiration and real-time updates, you can follow along on Instagram or connect with me on Facebook. I also share a curated list of travel products I genuinely use and recommend in my Amazon store.

What I Offer…

Custom itinerary design for complex, multi-stop trips
VIP hotel benefits through Virtuoso and preferred partner programs (including complimentary breakfast, hotel credits, and priority for upgrades where available)
Luxury ocean, river, and expedition cruises with added onboard credits
Vetted villa rentals with concierge services worldwide
Private guides, small-group touring, and unique local experiences
Private aviation and yacht charters through trusted partners
Airport transfers, VIP arrival and departure services, and full ground logistics
Travel protection and support when plans change

I work best with travelers who want expert planning, trusted partnerships, and someone in their corner from start to finish. That’s what I am best at! Ready to talk travel? Book a complimentary vacation consultation here.

Small-Ship Cruises With a Unique Point of View