Seven Seas Navigator: Hi & Bye!

One of the world’s most elegant small ships arrived in Fremantle this morning just after 6 am on its very first, and very last, visit to Fremantle!

Seven Seas Navigator, Fremantle, 12 April 2026. Credit Fremantle Shipping News

The Seven Seas Navigator is currently on an 18-day, one-way sailing from Auckland to Benoa (Bali), running from 31 March to 18 April 2026. Her last port of call was Busselton, and this is a transit visit in Freo.

There are 446 transit passengers, 3 passengers will disembark, and 6 new passengers will embark.

There are 374 crew on board offering among the highest space-per-passenger and crew-to-guest ratios in luxury cruising — a floating palace with marble bathrooms, butlers, and all-inclusive dining.

This visit to Freo is almost certainly the last. Regent Seven Seas Cruises has announced that the Navigator will leave its fleet in late 2026, with the ship’s final Regent voyage departing Istanbul on 2 October. After that, she heads into a new life entirely — to be converted into a luxury residential yacht, with cabin prices ranging from USD $750,000 to $8 million. So anyone seeing her today is witnessing a piece of cruise history.

The Seven Seas Navigator was built using a hull originally designed as a Russian satellite tracking vessel, before being converted into a luxury cruise liner at the T Mariotti shipyard in Italy after the USSR collapsed. She entered service in 1999 and quickly earned a reputation as one of the most intimate ships at sea.

Freo has just seen another vessel which has a surprising link to Navigator’s future. The Villa Vie Residences ship Odyssey arrived in Fremantle on 4 April, timed perfectly for the Easter long weekend and the Fremantle International Street Arts Festival. The connection runs deeper than a coincidence of timing: Avora Residences — the company acquiring the Navigator and rebranding her as Avora Lumina — announced a strategic marketing alliance with Villa Vie Residences, giving residents of both company’s reciprocal access privileges. In other words, the two ships in question are partners in the apparently booming world of residential cruising.

Odyssey, Fremantle, 4 April 2026. Credit Jean Hudson

Regent is orchestrating a high-profile goodbye for the Navigator, with three commemorative farewell voyages in Europe from August to October 2026, featuring gala dinners, memorabilia auctions, and appearances by Regent alumni — including the brand’s founding president. The final voyage will also mark the retirement of Cruise Director Ray Solaire after five decades at sea.

For now, she’s here in Fremantle gracing the port before departing at 4pm today heading to Komoda, Indonesia.

*Story by Jean Hudson

Jean Hudson is our Shipping and Sailing Correspondent and also a regular feature writer, reviewer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

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