The Best-Kept Secret in Luxury Cruising is 135 Years Old: Introducing Hapag-Lloyd Cruises

This 135-year-old German line is quietly defining what luxury cruising expeditions look like—and most American travelers have never heard of it.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises created the world's first purpose-built cruise ship over a century ago and hasn't stopped pushing the boundaries of where a vessel can go since. Its small expedition yachts sail deeper into the Amazon than any other operator, navigate across all five Great Lakes and chase the aurora through Arctic Scandinavia. A European favorite, the brand is largely undiscovered stateside—and Indagare members can unlock early-booking savings up to $1,650 per person on adventures through October 31, 2026 (learn more here).

For many travelers, visions of "cruising" conjure towering mega-ships, long buffet lines and thousands of strangers competing for a deck chair. But that reflex increasingly overlooks what's developing at the top of the industry. Small-ship and yacht charters have become one of the fastest-growing trends in luxury travel, because they offer a unique perspective and true immersion in the destination, anchored around intimacy, access and personalization. A ship carrying 300 guests instead of 3,000 can slip into ports too small for larger vessels, adjust course for a pod of whales or a break in the weather and host expert naturalists and local guides for after-hours lectures and round-tables. These ships are also the only way to reach some of the most astounding and remote corners of the world: the biodiverse waterways of the Amazon, the volcanic shores of the Galápagos and the ice fields of Antarctica. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is one of the oldest names in this business—and it is continuing to reinvent and evolve what cruising can be.

Joining two historic global shipping companies, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises was founded in 1970 in Hamburg—but the brand's maritime pedigree can be traced back to the 1800s. In January 1891, Hapag director Albert Ballin repurposed the ocean liner Augusta Victoria for the world's first dedicated pleasure voyage, posing the idea that a ship could be a destination unto itself rather than just a means of transport. In 1900, the company commissioned the Prinzessin Victoria Luise, which is widely regarded as the first ship ever purpose-built for cruising: a vessel with staterooms, a social hall and a soaring dining room rather than cargo holds. In 1931, Hapag-Lloyd pioneered the expedition cruise concept, bringing guests to places no passenger ship had ever gone before. Today's fleet carries that vision forward with the two luxury ships MS EUROPA and MS EUROPA 2 and the polar-class expedition trio HANSEATIC nature, HANSEATIC inspiration and HANSEATIC spirit.

Yet, despite this world-class legacy, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises has retained a primarily international and largely European following, which means that American travelers who book a voyage are, for now, less likely to find themselves surrounded by their compatriots—a rarity in luxury cruising today.

The MS EUROPA carries just 400 guests, the MS EUROPA 2 holds 500 and each HANSEATIC expedition ship caps out at 230 (200 on Antarctica cruises and the circumnavigation of Svalbard)—a scale small enough that the crew-to-guest ratio onboard approaches one-to-one, and itineraries can be tailored in the moment toward opportunity and interest. These luxury ships have been named the world's top-rated cruise vessels in the Berlitz Cruise Guide, the industry's most exacting evaluator, for more than a decade running. The expedition ships hold the highest ice classification available to a passenger vessel—engineering that opens routes far beyond the reach of standard cruisers.

HANSEATIC inspiration was purpose-built with retractable bridge wings so that it can transit the narrow lock systems of the North American Welland Canal and the Soo Locks, allowing it to sail all five Great Lakes—a feat only a handful of vessels in the world can perform. In the Amazon basin, the shallow draft and modest size of the HANSEATIC fleet allow guests to venture some 2,500 miles upriver to Iquitos, Peru—going deeper into the world's largest rainforest than any other international operator (most lines turn back at Manaus, Brazil). From Antarctica and the high Arctic to the remote atolls of the South Pacific and the fjords of Japan, these ships are designed to take travelers further.

Plus—Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' ambitions extend beyond navigation. Aboard MS EUROPA, THE GLOBE is the signature restaurant of Kevin Fehling, the Hamburg-based chef whose flagship restaurant, THE TABLE, has held three Michelin stars since it opened in 2015. Fehling personally joins a rotating slate of EUROPA voyages each year, presenting menus shaped by his years at sea (he began his career as a sous chef onboard) and turning dinner into one of the more sought-after reasons to book particular sailings. Every August, the ship also hosts EUROPA'S Best, a floating festival that draws many Michelin-level chefs from across Europe for a single, transportive night at sea.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises operates more than 120 scheduled itineraries per year across all seven continents and dozens of destinations, with access to some 600 ports. A few highlights include:

The Amazon

Twice a year, HANSEATIC inspiration undertakes an 18-day passage along the Rio Mar—one upstream from Belém, one downstream from Iquitos—venturing into stretches of the river basin that are still largely unmapped. Smaller Zodiac boats carry guests into narrow tributaries by day and by searchlight at night to track caimans, river dolphins and macaws, while onboard ethnologists, biologists and local "spotters" translate the rainforest's signals and sounds. The voyages also pay visits to the stilt-house settlements along the river, where, for decades, they have brought school supplies, medicine and other essentials to these isolated communities.

The Great Lakes

For 2027, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is expanding its Great Lakes program with new, longer HANSEATIC inspiration voyages between Milwaukee and Halifax—the deepest exploration of the region offered at this level, and one only a purpose-built ship can execute. Guests transit the Welland Canal's chain of locks, a nearly 330-foot change in elevation roughly equivalent to the height of Niagara Falls, and the historic Soo Locks connecting Lake Huron to Lake Superior—plus, Zodiac excursions on Superior's wild northern shore and cultural stops in Toronto, Montréal and Québec.

Indagare Intel: In summer 2027, HANSEATIC inspiration will become the only ship in the world to combine all five Great Lakes with a full transit of the St. Lawrence River in a single voyage.

Scandinavia

From November through March—a season when almost no other cruise ship is in the water—HANSEATIC nature sails a series of Northern Lights-focused voyages tracing Norway's fjord coast and the frozen reaches of Lapland. Guests watch for the aurora from open decks, venture out by dog sled and snowmobile*, visit an ice hotel in Alta* and sometimes sail through pack ice with icebreaker support, overnighting in port so the ship never has to push through ice after dark. (*Please note that the shore activities are not included in the cruise price.)

The British Isles

Sailing between Hamburg, Kiel and the wilder edges of Scotland and Iceland, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' British Isles voyages trade the continent's busy ports for its rougher, more remote coastlines—where standing stones, whisky distilleries and seabird cliffs replace high streets and cathedral squares. One 13-day MS EUROPA route threads from Hamburg through the Hebrides and up toward Reykjavik, giving guests a taste of different worlds without the multi-week commitment of a true polar expedition.

Antarctica and South Georgia

On the 20-day Grand Expedition route aboard HANSEATIC inspiration, guests trace the classic southern polar arc from Ushuaia through the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula—a route only ice-classed ships can safely undertake. South Georgia is home to colonies of some 200,000 king penguins sharing black-sand beaches with elephant and fur seals, while the Falklands' 60-plus bird species draw serious birders for the albatross and rockhopper penguin sightings alone. Onboard historians, glaciologists and biologists lead Zodiac landings and hikes across the ice, with the option to spend an overnight camping under the stars for adventurers who want to travel, however briefly, like the explorers who came before them.

Indagare Intel: Alongside its classic Peninsula voyages, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is also introducing three shorter, 14-day South Georgia and Antarctic Peninsula sailings in early 2028 for guests who want the ice without committing three-plus weeks.

Plus: Coming Soon

In 2027 and 2028, MS EUROPA 2 debuts a new South Pacific route to Papua New Guinea and Palau—remote islands with astounding coral biodiversity that often top the wish lists of even the most well-traveled—while HANSEATIC spirit launches its first expedition through Western Australia's Kimberley, weaving through red sandstone gorges, King George Falls and indigenous rock art sites by Zodiac. Other premieres keeping the itinerary schedule exciting include Costa Rica's Pacific coast, a first-ever Philippines season and HANSEATIC nature's inaugural Indian Ocean winter in Madagascar and the Seychelles.

Access of this kind carries responsibility, and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' environmental and community-building credentials run deep.

The company was a co-founding member of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators in 1991, helping write the rules that still govern how ships operate in the region, and it is a member of the Arctic's equivalent body, AECO. Since 2020, the fleet has run on low-sulphur marine gas oil rather than heavy fuel oil, cutting sulphur emissions by roughly 80 percent, and its wastewater systems purify effluent to near-drinking-water quality before release. The HANSEATIC ships double as research platforms, partnering with institutions including the Alfred Wegener Institute to gather data on subjects like whale sightings and seawater composition in places that scientists otherwise struggle to reach.

In the Amazon, beyond the donations program for supplies, guests and crew have the opportunity to make a direct impact on local communities. On one voyage, passengers helped repair a broken water filtration system at a riverside school and donated portable filters so nearby villages could access clean drinking water. The ships' onboard doctors also offer free medical consultations to residents in villages with little other access to care. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' broader giving includes a standing partnership with SOS Children's Villages, fair-trade purchasing and educational projects in the communities its ships visit and support for marine-conservation education in developing-world ports.

Across 42 voyages departing between May and September 2027—spanning Europe, North America and the Great Lakes, Asia and the Indian Ocean, and the Arctic—travelers who book by October 31, 2026 can secure an early-booking discount of up to $1,650 per person on the PLATINUM fare. Rates are cruise-only, for double occupancy, and subject to availability; the offer cannot be combined with other promotions. Learn more here or contact us to get started.

This article was created in partnership with Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.