Cruise ships keep getting bigger, but some travelers want the opposite. A growing number of small ship operators are offering something more personal: cruises on boats with real history. From a refitted tugboat off Canada’s west coast to a hand-built phinisi sailing Indonesia’s waters and dahabeyas reviving a century-old style on the Nile, options exist if you’re tired of floating mega resorts.
Luxury cruise bookings are up 22.4% this year, according to Virtuoso. Some of that growth is chasing the newest megaships, with their water parks and casino floors stacked a dozen decks high. A growing slice of travelers want the opposite: a boat with a hand-pegged, century-old hull and a crew who can say exactly who made it and why.
A tugboat’s second life on Canada’s Inside Passage
Swell started as a working tugboat, hauling freight up and down Canada’s west coast for decades before it was converted to carry passengers. Built in 1912, it’s been run as a 12-guest vessel by Maple Leaf Adventures since 2015, still working the Inside Passage between Seattle and Alaska with a crew of just five or six, including a naturalist and a chef. Co-owner Maureen Gordon said travelers aboard Swell and the company’s other heritage vessel, the 1904 schooner Maple Leaf, “live and breathe coastal history.”
A fashion designer and her brother preserve a UNESCO-recognized craft
If Swell changed hands from a working boat to a charter, Celestia never left the people who dreamed it up. Siblings Jason Tabalujan and Jasmine Chong built the 45-meter phinisi in 2023 using traditional Sulawesi boatbuilding techniques recognized by UNESCO.
An all-Indonesian crew now sails Celestia through Komodo National Park, Raja Ampat and the Banda Sea. “It’s not simply about chartering a yacht,” Tabalujan said. “It’s about sharing Indonesia from the perspective of people who call it home.” His sister Chong said sailing has let her rediscover her own country, “reaching extraordinary places alongside our Indonesian crew and developing a renewed sense of home.”
Egypt’s dahabeya, built 2 different ways
The Nile’s “dahabeya,” Arabic for the golden one, carried royalty on the river from the 1920s through the 1940s, and it’s coming back this year in two very different forms. Luxury hotel brand Oberoi is launching two new dahabeyas, Melouk and Malekat, sailing between Luxor and Aswan in 2027.
All five cabins sit on one side of each boat, so every cabin opens onto the same unobstructed river view. A resident Egyptologist travels with guests, and the onboard spa incorporates ancient Egyptian oils in some of the treatments.
Nubia Dahabeya, another Egyptian vessel, took a more personal route. Owners Hedayat and Elwy Taymour built the boat themselves, starting from the hull up. Hedayat’s own design studio filled it with details drawn from Egypt: fabrics and fittings inspired by temple architecture in Edfu and Khnum, and tiles patterned after the Nile’s plant life. “True luxury lies in calm, space and a sense of connection,” Hedayat Taymour said.
An owner-captained gulet in Turkey’s boatbuilding capital
TOSCA launched this year in Bozburun, the Turkish town that has built broad-beamed wooden gulets for centuries. Its owner didn’t build the 36-meter boat himself, but he doesn’t hand the wheel to a hired captain either. He personally sails all 12 guests along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts on what’s known there as a “blue voyage.”
The crew member who helped build the boat he now sails
Ahmad Jais, from Tana Beru, one of South Sulawesi’s historic boatbuilding communities, helped build Rascal, a 30-meter, five-cabin phinisi built entirely by hand, in 2015. Five years later, he helped build the sister ship, Rebel.
Ahmad sails aboard both today, not as a hired hand who came aboard afterward, but as chief officer and one of the people whose hands built them. Rascal now sails through Raja Ampat, Komodo and the Spice Islands as a private floating villa for up to 10 guests.
A third sister ship, Rogue, launches in spring 2027, and members of Ahmad’s family are now part of her build. The fleet still holds a traditional keel-blessing ceremony with the community’s boatbuilding elders before each new ship’s first voyage.
A private riverboat modeled on Lao riverside homes
Gypsy sits at the far end of that lineup, neither owner-built nor crewed by the people who built it, but shaped by a design brief instead. The 41-meter riverboat launched in 2018 with just two suites, built locally with a thatched roof modeled on northern Lao riverside homes, and now sails the Upper Mekong between Luang Prabang and Thailand’s Golden Triangle. Founder Jeremy Clubb said the boat’s design “showcases a beautiful blend of traditions” while offering “an intimate, contemporary luxury experience.”
A different kind of luxury than a bigger cabin
Water covers 71% of the planet, so there’s room enough for both. The megaships will keep getting bigger, keep adding water parks and casino floors. But the real story right now is happening aboard the heritage ships, the smaller boats still carrying a bit of history, not just passengers.
Jennifer Allen is a retired chef turned traveler, cookbook author and nationally syndicated journalist; she’s also a co-founder of Food Drink Life, where she shares expert travel tips, cruise insights and luxury destination guides. A recognized cruise expert with a deep passion for high-end experiences and off-the-beaten-path destinations, Jennifer explores the world with curiosity, depth and a storyteller’s perspective. Her articles are regularly featured on the Associated Press Wire, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, MSN and more.