Hotel brands have gone to sea, and our clients ask us about them every week.
Four Seasons Yachts and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection run ships in Greek waters today. Orient Express Corinthian enters service in October 2026 with Greek voyages from 2027, and Aman’s Amangati arrives in spring 2027. They are good ships, and they are a different holiday from a private charter. Which one suits you comes down to one number: how many of you are coming.
A private yacht in Greece takes up to 12 guests and every one of them is yours. The route is set each morning, the chef cooks for your table, and the whole boat is yours for the week. For a group of 8 to 12 who want that, nothing on a ship comes close. For 2 it comes down to what you are buying. A suite costs a fraction of a whole yacht, and a whole yacht is the most private week the two of you can have.
What a Hotel Ship Actually Is
They are small cruise ships run to hotel standards and sold by the suite, so we call them hotel ships here. Four Seasons Yachts and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection are the 2 sailing Greek waters now.
| Brand | Guests | Suites | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aman at Sea, Amangati | 94 | 47 | Enters service spring 2027 |
| Orient Express Corinthian | 110 | 54 | Enters service October 2026, Greece from 2027 |
| Four Seasons I | 222 max | 95 | In service since March 2026 |
| Ritz-Carlton Ilma | About 448 | 224 | In service |
| Ritz-Carlton Luminara | About 450 | 226 | In service |
Every accommodation is a suite with a terrace. What differs is everything around it, and the sections below take that difference one subject at a time.
Who Is Aboard: 94 to 450 Strangers, or 12 People You Chose
On a hotel ship. You share the ship with between 94 and 450 other guests. The restaurants, the pool, the marina platform and the tender are shared, and you meet the same people at breakfast whether you want to or not.
On a private charter. The guest list is yours. Up to 12 people, all of them invited by you, and nobody else aboard for the whole week. Your family or your friends, and the crew.
It is the difference between a small cruise and a house on the water. The jacuzzi at seven in the morning is either yours or it is not.
The 12 is a legal ceiling, not a preference, as our page for groups over 12 explains. A group of 14 takes 2 yachts.
The Route: Printed Before You Book, or Decided at Breakfast
On a hotel ship. You buy a fixed voyage of 5 to 9 nights with the ports published months ahead. Four Seasons calls at Athens, Santorini, Mykonos and Hydra, and at smaller harbours including Ios, Folegandros, Serifos and Kos. A real list, and a finite one.
On a private charter. The captain builds the week around your group and rebuilds it every morning. Stay a second night in a bay you liked. Skip the town that is full. Move to the lee side and leave early when the meltemi gets up.
Both bend. A hotel ship bends to operations, and its booking terms say the captain may change ports for safety or operational reasons. A charter bends to you, daily, on request.
Food and Drink: A Restaurant Booking, or a Chef Cooking for You
On a hotel ship. Four Seasons charges a la carte for lunch, dinner and alcohol and suggests budgeting about 250 dollars per person per day. Ritz-Carlton includes dining and most drinks. Both send a dining questionnaire before you sail.
One Ilma guest reported that the ship sent that questionnaire months ahead and then ignored every answer. That is not carelessness. A galley cooking for 448 people cannot build a menu around one table, however good the form is.
On a private charter. Your chef cooks for your group and nobody else. The preference sheet you fill in actually decides the week: the allergies, the children’s food, what you drink, the Greek dishes you want to try.
Breakfast at 11 if that is the holiday. Dinner at 10pm if you say so. Lunch at anchor because nobody wanted to move.
The Space: A Suite With a Terrace, or the Whole Yacht
On a hotel ship. Every accommodation is a suite with its own terrace, and the entry Four Seasons suite is 473 square feet. It is a genuinely good hotel room, and everything outside its door belongs to the ship.
On a private charter. You get the cabins and everything else as well. The sundeck, the aft deck, the jacuzzi, the tenders, the toys, the crew. Nothing needs booking and nothing is shared.
The seabobs are on the platform when you want them, not when a slot opens.
Crew numbers work the same way. Four Seasons I runs around 200 crew for 222 guests, and our Greek yachts at this level carry 7 to 11 for 12. Their crew is shared with 222 strangers. Yours is not shared at all.
Toys and Spa: Non-Motorised and Shared, or Everything and Yours
On a hotel ship. Both lines include watersports from a marina platform at the stern, and both restrict them to non-motorised kit: kayaks, paddleboards, snorkelling, small sail boats. No jet skis, no seabobs. The platform only opens when the ship is at anchor, and on Four Seasons it is a scheduled Marina Day rather than an everyday thing.
The pool, the gym and the thermal suite are yours to use, shared with up to 448 people. Spa treatments are not in the fare on either line. You book them and you pay for them, exactly as you would in the hotel.
On a private charter. The toys are whatever that yacht carries, and at this level that usually means jet skis, seabobs, an eFoil, wakeboards, paddleboards and a proper tender, with crew to drive them. They are on the platform every day of the week, not on 1 scheduled afternoon.
There is no queue, because there are 12 of you. Yachts with a jacuzzi, a gym or a sauna are straightforward to find, and where a guest wants a massage the crew arranges a therapist aboard. It goes on the APA rather than a bill at reception.
What a Week Costs: 24,500 Dollars for 2, or 222,000 Euros for 12
On a hotel ship.
The ships publish in dollars and we quote Greece in euros, so we convert once, at the end.
At a working average of about 3,000 dollars a night, 3,000 x 7 = 21,000 dollars a suite. One detailed review put a Mediterranean week nearer 28,000. Occupancy does not change either number.
Add food and drink at the 250 dollars per person per day Four Seasons recommends: 250 x 2 x 7 = 3,500 dollars. So 21,000 + 3,500 = 24,500 dollars, and 28,000 + 3,500 = 31,500 dollars. Across 2 people that is 12,250 to 15,750 each, taxes, port fees and gratuities included.
The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is cheaper and more inclusive. Its 7-night Mediterranean voyages start around 11,900 to 12,300 dollars per person, so their side of this comparison runs roughly 11,900 to 15,750 dollars a head.
On a private charter.
A typical crewed yacht for 10 to 12 guests in Greece runs 100,000 to 250,000 euros a week. Take 150,000, the lower middle of that band and where most of our Greek weeks for 12 land.
Greek charter VAT is 13 percent: 150,000 x 0.13 = 19,500 euros. APA is the running-cost fund for fuel, food, drink and berths, budgeted at 35 percent: 150,000 x 0.35 = 52,500 euros, spent against receipts with the unspent balance returned to you.
So 150,000 + 19,500 + 52,500 = 222,000 euros, and 222,000 / 12 = 18,500 euros a head. A crew tip sits outside that, 5 to 15 percent of the base and at your discretion. The branded fares include gratuities and ours does not.
That is one yacht. The range matters, because the answer changes with it. Every figure below is a week for 12 in Greece, with 13 percent VAT and a 35 percent APA on top:
| The yacht | Charter fee | All in | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superyacht, 45m and up | 250,000 | 370,000 | 30,800 |
| Luxury motor yacht, 40m | 150,000 | 222,000 | 18,500 |
| Motor yacht, 30m | 90,000 | 133,200 | 11,100 |
| Crewed catamaran | 45,000 | 66,600 | 5,550 |
Euros, per week, high season. Most of our Greek weeks for 12 land in the top half of that table.
Their fare works out at roughly 10,250 to 13,600 euros a head. So the crossover sits around 90,000 euros: below that a private yacht is cheaper per person than a suite on a hotel ship, and a crewed catamaran week is about half their fare. Above it you are paying for a bigger, better yacht, not for the privacy, which you had already.
Convert it rather than dodge it. At about 1.16 dollars to the euro, 18,500 euros is roughly 21,500 dollars a head against their 11,900 to 15,750. Per person the ship is cheaper at every group size, here by 35 to 80 percent.
What the extra buys is the whole yacht instead of 1 suite on it, a chef who cooks for your 12, and a week that changes when you do.
Size matters to that math. At 8 guests the same week is 27,750 euros each, so the case is strongest at 12 and weakens fast below 10.
For that 150,000 broken down yacht by yacht, see what 150,000 euros a week actually buys. Our Greece yacht charter cost page covers the rest of the fleet, and we compare a charter against a hotel or villa week here.
When the Hotel Ship Is the Better Call
Some weeks are not ours, and we would rather say so now:
- 2 people on a set budget. The fare is per suite, so a hotel ship costs a fraction of a private yacht. If the number is what decides it, book the suite. If you want the most private and romantic week you can buy and you are willing to pay for it, charter the yacht: a couple on their own boat is a different holiday altogether, and we book plenty of them.
- Solo travelers. You cannot charter a yacht alone. They will sell you a suite.
- Anyone who wants 1 fixed number. Their fare is close to it. If that is your priority and you still want a yacht, our all-inclusive Greek charters price the week as a single figure.
- Anyone who wants to decide nothing. No broker, no preference sheet, no route conversation.
- Guests who love the vessel itself. A reviewer watched the tender go ashore and noted most guests stayed aboard. If the ship is the holiday, 448 people is no problem.
One Question Decides It: Does the Week Bend to You?
Both products bend. A branded ship bends to operations, and its booking terms say the captain may change ports for safety, regulatory or operational reasons. A charter yacht bends to the guests, daily, on request.
So ask one thing. When you change your mind on Tuesday afternoon, does anything change? On a 448-guest ship the answer is no, and that is not a fault. On your own yacht it is the product.
Tell Us the Group and the Week, and We Will Price Both
If you are 2, we will say so and point you at the ship. If you are 8 to 12, send us your dates, the group size and a line on what you want the week to feel like. We come back with yachts, numbers and the route we would run.
Or start with the fleet: high end yachts and yachts under 250k.
People also ask
Is a Four Seasons yacht cheaper than a private charter in Greece?
Per person, yes, at every group size. Budget 24,500 to 31,500 dollars for a suite and a week of meals for 2. A Greek charter for 12 at 150,000 euros lands near 222,000 once VAT and APA are added, about 18,500 euros or 21,500 dollars a head.
How many guests are on a Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton yacht?
Four Seasons I carries up to 222, Ritz-Carlton Ilma about 448 and Luminara about 450, Orient Express Corinthian 110 and Aman’s Amangati 94. A crewed charter yacht carries 12.
Why do charter yachts only take 12 guests?
Above 12 guests sleeping aboard, a yacht falls under passenger-ship survey and insurance rules. It is a legal ceiling, not a preference. Passenger Yacht Code vessels over 500 gross tons carry up to 36, but that fleet is small and expensive, so larger groups usually charter 2 yachts.
Where do the branded yachts stop in Greece?
Four Seasons Yachts publishes Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Hydra, Antiparos, Corfu, Parga and Chania, plus smaller calls at Karystos, Ios, Folegandros, Serifos and Fiskardo. The list is finite and set months ahead, which is the real difference from a charter route.
Is the food better on a charter yacht or a branded ship?
Your chef cooks for 12 and works from your preference sheet. A ship’s galley serves hundreds, so preferences get averaged. Four Seasons also charges a la carte for lunch, dinner and alcohol, while Ritz-Carlton includes them.
