There are around 890 original artworks aboard EUROPA 2 — Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst and David Hockney among them — and next year Hapag-Lloyd is building three entire cruises around them.
The German luxury line’s ART 2 SEA programme expands to three curated sailings in 2027, each hosted by named figures from the art world. As Lisa Wilken, the line’s head of luxury cruises, puts it, “renowned hosts from the art world curate select cruises” — bringing their own networks aboard with them.
What’s actually on offer
This is not a watercolour class on the lido deck. The ship’s Deck 9 gallery takes a different curatorial direction for each sailing, with vernissages and artist talks at sea and excursions built around access money can’t usually buy.
A January Indo-Pacific sailing pairs Lisa Zeitz, editor-in-chief of the art magazine WELTKUNST, with visits to Javanese and Balinese galleries and an Indonesian artist’s studio. A May voyage from Tokyo to Hong Kong takes in Beijing’s 798 Art Zone and the Shanghai studio of Guan Xiao.
The Mediterranean sailing — Rome to Palma, 3 to 15 August 2027 — is hosted by Hamburg gallerist Carola Persiehl, with planned calls at Fondation Maeght, the Peyrassol sculpture park, Hauser & Wirth’s outpost on Menorca and the Provençal studio of Minjung Kim.
The booking screens tell the rest
Demand for the format is not a press-release claim; it is visible on Hapag-Lloyd’s own booking engine this weekend.
The January Indo-Pacific art sailing is already fully booked. This summer’s Málaga-to-Monte Carlo art cruise, departing in nine days, has sold out its Grand Ocean suites and both top suite grades; the Monte Carlo-to-Rome leg that follows has just two cabin categories left.
Even on the 2027 Mediterranean sailing, thirteen months out, the Owner Suite has gone. We saw the same pattern when the line’s Gatsby-themed Riviera cruise returned after a sell-out debut — and it mirrors the sell-through on Fred. Olsen’s Mystery Cruise at the other end of the market. Curated sailings are outselling ordinary ones across the price spectrum.
What UK cruisers should know
This is a fly-cruise proposition — Rome out, Palma home works easily from most UK airports — and the fares are advertised in euros, though Hapag-Lloyd’s booking engine will quote sterling at checkout.
The Mediterranean art sailing starts at €9,240 per person for twelve days in a veranda suite, including an early-booking discount that runs until 31 October 2026. Tokyo to Hong Kong is €11,590 over eighteen days.
The honest caveat is the usual one for this line: EUROPA 2 sails as Hapag-Lloyd’s international, bilingual ship, but the curatorial hosts are German art-world figures and the accompanied pre- and post-cruise programmes run in German only. As we’ve written before, that’s the trade for access to a product no UK line offers.
The bottom line
An all-suite ship of 500 guests with a museum-grade collection and studio doors that open for you — there is nothing comparable sailing from Britain, and Hapag-Lloyd knows it.
The evidence says these sailings fill early and from the top down. If the Mediterranean one appeals, the early-booking price holds until 31 October — but the suite you’d want may not.
