The Cruise Cure

One definition of bliss at sea is padding down a ship's hallway from your suite to the spa in a robe and slippers. Here's what awaits.

- SUE BRYANT

The height of shipboard indulgence is no longer a windowless massage room below deck. Any self-respecting spa at sea now addresses the full gamut of wellness, fitness, and beauty needs: HIIT classes and Pelotons, snow caves and IV lounges, Tibetan singing bowls and quartz treatment beds. And, of course, all manner of fillers, injectables, skin tighteners, and collagen boosters. (As the old adage has it, travel can indeed be transformative.)

But don’t choose a ship purely for its spa. The cruise lines’ spas do differ from one another—but mostly because each line’s architects design them. The latest Celebrity ships Edge, Apex, Beyond, and Ascent— have beautiful spas designed by Kelly Hoppen; Crystal’s gorgeous Aurora spas are the work of Tillberg Design of Sweden. The Mareel spa on Cunard’s new Queen Anne is by Sybille de Margerie, whose credentials include the Mandarin Oriental in Paris. But everything else—therapists, treatments, products, gadgetry—is managed by a dominant spa concessionaire, the Florida-based OneSpaWorld. (Some exceptions are Ponant, which works with French-owned Sothys; Viking, which uses LivNordic; and newcomer Explora Journeys, which manages its own spa and handpicks its partners.) Still, it’s useful to know what to expect. Here are some of the best spa “concepts” at sea: