Ultra-luxury residential cruise start-up, Crescent Seas, shelved its plans to acquire two initial ships from Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, due to demand from future buyers seeking greater customisation of their future floating homes.

Speaking with LATTE at ILTM Cannes today in France, Thatcher Brown, CEO of Crescent Seas said the business has needed to be “nimble” and listen to the early feedback of the interested buyers.

Earlier this year, Crescent Seas – backed up GFO Investments – announced it would acquire Seven Seas Navigator and Oceania Insignia as its first residential cruise vessels, launching in 2026 and 2027 respectively. In April, the company revealed a newbuild dubbed ‘The Ocean’ would further support growth of the brand. The Ocean is expected to debut in 2032.

Brown said, after consulting with clients, and “spending a lot of time listening, at the end of the day, the customer knows ships. They know yachts. They’ve cruised before, and they love the water. Some buyers have just cashed out of a technology company. It won’t be their primary home.”

Brown said buyers want a lot more involvement.

““We’ve been listening to the customer and the marketplace, and we looked at it very carefully (and I’ve been involved in four start-ups), and the customer determines everything…and you have to be a little bit predictive, but you’ve also got to understand what they want today and what they want tomorrow.”

“And they want a lot of customisation. They want to get their fingerprints on the home that they are buying, that they want to live in at sea.”

That included buyers wanting a bathtub and not a shower, or full sinks versus half, being involved in the colour pallet choice.

Such was the level of interest in customisation, Crescent Seas is creating a design studio at its sales gallery in Miami, where the guest can meet the designers and play around with materials.

“With the newbuilds, we’ll be able to customise each of the residence homes,” he added.

“When we started looking at all the nuances and the need for more space and the need for this customisation when you do a retrofit, you have constraints,” Brown told LATTE. “It started to become very technically challenging, so we made a pivot.”

“And that’s what you do when you’re making ideas come to life. You can’t be rigid. You have to be nimble.”

Quizzed by LATTE as to where the ship will sail, Brown was tight-lipped on destinations, only saying the plan will be to have two- to three-nights in destinations, enabling guests to explore land based cities all around the world from the comfort of their floating home.

Meanwhile, Brown said Crescent Seas was close to signing the contract for the new ship-build, with Meyer-Werft favoured for the deal.