Inside the Orient Express Corinthian, the world’s biggest luxury sailing ship which starts at $3,700 a night

Orient Express Corinthian, the world’s biggest sailing ship, has many superlatives. But what’s blowing me away as I gaze skywards is its sheer size. I’ve never seen a ship with masts so tall: three of them, 69 metres above the deck and an astonishing 100 metres from the top to the water level.

And while everything about the art deco interiors of the new yacht harks back to the golden age of travel, there’s nothing retro about the technology. The 4,500 square metres of sails are solid, made from carbon fibre and fibreglass. The ship itself feels enormous; given that it only carries 110 passengers, tended by 170 crew, a length of 220m is seriously impressive. If a comparison helps, Scenic Eclipse, luxurious in its own right, is 168m long and carries 228 guests.

Corinthian is the first of two yachts from Orient Express, part of the French-owned Accor Group. The hospitality giant acquired the Orient Express name in 2022 (not to be confused with the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train, which belongs to Belmond). A strategic partnership with luxury goods giant LVMH has already led to the opening of two palatial hotels – literally, as they’re both in palaces – in Rome and Venice. Then there’s the glamorous, 60s-inspired La Dolce Vita Orient Express train, which trundles through the glorious Italian countryside. Yachts, then, seem a logical progression.

Corinthian is just one of a small armada of ultra-luxury yachts being launched by high-end hotel groups, including Ritz-Carlton, Aman and Four Seasons. It’s extravagantly beautiful, full of surprises and daring design elements, as well as nods to France’s great ocean liners; the white bas-relief panels in the lobby by sculptor Etienne Rayssac, for example, are a tribute to designs from the legendary S.S. Normandie.

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No ordinary cruise ship

Architect and artistic director of Orient Express Maxime d’Angeac has certainly ripped up the ship design rulebook. “We’ve used a lot of materials that we had to get certified for use on a ship – big pieces of marble and glass, a lot of varnished wood, carpets, certain fabrics,” he explains. “The first impression of people coming on the yacht is to forget they are on a boat and think they are in a hotel. We have designed the yacht for the kind of voyageur who would have chosen Orient Express at the beginning of

the 20th century; people who are curious, elegant and looking for a different way to spend their time.”

There are just 54 suites, all served by butlers, each with sumptuous finishes of marble, backlit onyx, hand-stitched leather and polished wood. They’re all gorgeous; “cabin” is a word too prosaic for this ship. The Suite Panoramique, the entry-level accommodation, is a spacious

47 sq m, and while these rooms don’t have a balcony, two day beds span a whole wall of glass, between them a polished wooden box filled with chess, dominoes and other games. Bathrooms are divine, lined with red-veined marble, while the detail is astonishing, from the art deco door handles to the delicate inlaid wood behind the headboard.

There are six penthouses (and two tiny cabins for butlers, should you wish to bring your own) spanning deck seven, three of them with private outdoor hot tubs. The decor here is more masculine and bold, with decadent cream sofas and ottomans in rich burnt orange offset by polished chrome fittings. Vast living spaces are broken up by clever cocoons of polished eucalyptus, creating separate TV and dining areas. There’s a surprise, too; two of the suites, Meltem and Zephyr, conceal tiny Orient Express “heritage” cabins, faithful replicas of the sleeping compartments on the 1927 train, with fold-down bunks, a washbasin concealed in a cabinet and the original luggage racks.

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Decadent dining on the Orient Express Corinthian

The designers have created multiple restaurants, rather than one main dining room, among them La Terrasse, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There’s no stinting on the Veuve Clicquot or Petrossian caviar in L’Encre, which has a smart colour scheme of black, white and gold, while L’Ecrin has a Mediterranean vibe. All of these are included, as are free-flowing drinks.

The jewel in the crown, though, is La Table de L’Orient-Express by Yannick Alléno, who holds a dazzling 18 Michelin stars across his restaurants and oversees all the dining on board. This space, which seats just 20, is beyond gorgeous, with soaring ceilings, expansive ocean views, carved columns of warm wood and textured panels of black glass by master glassmaker Emmanuel Barrois. Orient Express won’t reveal the supplement to dine here (the ship hasn’t yet made its maiden voyage with individual guests), but if you’re prepared to spend upwards of AU$9250 per cabin per night to sail, I don’t imagine the cover charge will be an issue.

Corinthian has bars for every mood. The Marina Bar gazes over the ship’s wake, or, when possible, the impressive fold-out watersports platform. You’ll have to work to find Le Speakeasy (the door is in the barber’s salon), a decadent space of gold-upholstered bar stools curving around a crimson marble bar. I loved Le Wagon, a faithful recreation of the eponymous bar on the Orient Express train right down to the Lalique art deco lamps and the emerald velvet banquettes.

Other features include a cabaret lounge, cinema, card room, a library with 1,500 books, some of them rare editions, and even a recording studio; it’ll be interesting to see if that gets used. The enormous spa is the first seagoing venture for the luxury French brand, Guerlain. The pools, though, puzzle me. The black mosaiced pool outside La Terrasse is pleasant enough, but it’s not very big. Then there’s Le Couloir de Nage, a skinny, 16m lap pool running along the centre of deck 7 under the sails. But the pool itself is essentially a corridor, the actual water level on deck 6, at the base of four metre walls, which feels oddly claustrophobic.

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Adventures ashore

Corinthian will spend the coming months in the Mediterranean before crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean. While shore excursions will cost extra, there are some delightfully creative included experiences, not least a classic car rally in Provence, followed by a truffle tasting in an 18th-century farmhouse. In the Caribbean, there’s an included gala night, an espionage-themed extravaganza on Richard Branson’s Moskito Island, part of the British Virgin Islands. If you have a savvy travel agent (and deep pockets), it’ll also be easy to design extended itineraries that seamlessly connect the train, hotels and yacht. Welcome to the new golden age of travel.