Could You Actually Live on a Cruise Ship for Three Years Straight?
Avora Residences just acquired Regent's Seven Seas Navigator and plans to convert it into a floating residential community embarking on a three-year global circumnavigation in 2028.
What if your home had no fixed address — just a hull, a horizon, and 140 countries on the calendar?
That is no longer a thought experiment. A new company called Avora Residences has acquired the Seven Seas Navigator from Regent Seven Seas Cruises, and it plans to relaunch the ship in January 2028 as the Avora Lumina — a fully residential vessel that will spend three continuous years circumnavigating the globe. As announced via PR Newswire, residents will be able to purchase private cabins ranging from studios to full suites and simply… live there.
What Avora Residences Actually Is
Avora was founded by Mikael Petterson, who previously created Villa Vie Residences. The company describes its positioning as sitting between contemporary residential cruising and ultra-luxury maritime estates — a niche that is more crowded than it used to be, but still small enough that each new entrant is a genuine story.
The deal with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, which owns Regent, is structured as a nine-year charter with a nominal purchase option. That arrangement gives Avora a long operational runway while NCLH retains an ongoing stake in the ship’s performance.
The Ship
The Seven Seas Navigator is a polar-certified, mid-size vessel — small enough to access boutique ports that larger ships cannot reach, and capable of Antarctic voyages. That is not an accident. Avora is specifically positioning the Lumina as a ship that can go places most residential vessels cannot.
Before its 2028 debut, the ship will undergo a full residential conversion. The plans include personalized interior options, reimagined communal spaces built around long-term living rather than short-stay cruising, and a dedicated business and connectivity center designed for residents who still have careers to manage.
242 Residences, Two Ways to Buy
The Avora Lumina will offer 242 private residences ranging from approximately 300 to 1,173 square feet. Avora is offering two ownership pathways:
- Life-of-Ship Ownership: Priced from roughly $545,000 to $4.2 million, depending on the unit.
- Five-Year Ownership Program: Starting at approximately $219,600, for buyers who want the experience without the full long-term commitment.
Both options come with ocean views and opportunities for interior personalization — which is table stakes when you are asking someone to make this their primary address.
Three Years, 140 Countries, 400 Ports
The inaugural itinerary launches from Lisbon, Portugal, and is designed around depth rather than throughput. The ship will spend up to five days in individual ports, a deliberate contrast to the one-day turnarounds that define mainstream cruising. The plan covers more than 140 countries and over 400 destinations across all seven continents.
After the opening circumnavigation, residents will reportedly have structured input into future itineraries. Whether that works in practice depends entirely on how aligned 242 households turn out to be about where they want to go next.
Why This Matters for the Broader Cruise Market
Residential cruising has always existed at the fringes of the industry — The World has been sailing with private residences aboard since 2002 — but the concept is attracting more serious capital and more sophisticated execution than it did even five years ago. Avora is entering a market that now includes Four Seasons Yacht, Crystal Grace, and several other ultra-luxury builds targeting the same long-term living audience.
What distinguishes this announcement is the accessible entry point. A five-year program starting under $220,000 is still a significant purchase, but it is meaningfully lower than most life-of-ship offerings in this category. Avora appears to be making a deliberate bet that the potential audience for this lifestyle is larger than the industry has historically assumed.
CEO Kathy Villalba put it plainly in the announcement: “We intend to honor that legacy while transforming the ship into a true long-term residential platform.”
We will be watching closely to see how sales materialize over the next two years. If the five-year program finds traction with buyers who are not yet ready to go all-in, Avora could end up redefining the price of admission for living at sea.