First look: Inside the new Ritz-Carlton cruise ship Evrima, which finally debuts this week

Evrima is finally here. Really. Or so they say.

The long-delayed debut of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, the new cruising arm of luxury hotel chain Ritz-Carlton, will actually happen on Saturday, according to the company. Its first ship, the 298-passenger Evrima, is finally finished and will begin its first sailing.

The brand even sent photos to prove it.

As you can see in the Ritz-Carlton-shot images on this page, Evrima is an upscale, yachtlike vessel with a sleek, sloping front that will be right at home nestled among the megayachts anchored off Monaco or St. Barts.

As the company promised when it announced the brand, the 10-deck-high vessel's interiors have an elegant, residential look designed to appeal to Ritz-Carlton regulars. Among marquee spaces is the top-of-the-ship Observation Lounge, which offers views over the bow from curving, floor-to-ceiling windows. There's also an interior "living room" that will serve as a central gathering point on the ship, photos of which the brand did not provide.

As can be seen in the photos, Evrima's 149 cabins are spacious. They include two-story Loft Suites that measure 611 square feet, not including 81-square-foot balconies.

There also are two massive, 1,091-square-foot Owner's Suites at the back of the vessel with giant, 635-square-foot wraparound balconies.

The company didn't provide images of the Owner's Suites but offered a peek inside a Loft Suite and smaller Grand Suites and Signature Suites. The latter two categories of rooms still are large by cruise ship standards at 587 square feet and 427 square feet, respectively, not including balcony space. All of these suite categories offer living room space with spots for dining, as well as bedrooms.

As can be seen in the photos, there's also lots of deck-top lounge space for sunning, including a back-of-the-ship area with a small pool on Deck 8 called the Mistral Terrace and a forward-looking area on Deck 9 called the Spa Terrace. The Mistral Terrace doubles as a venue for alfresco lunch and dinner, with a seafood bar and prime cuts of meat grilled to order.

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Another lounge space called the Marina Terrace is closer to the waterline at the ship's rear-facing marina area.

In addition to a main restaurant called the Evrima Room, Evrima has four dining venues that, notably, include an a la carte restaurant designed by Sven Elverfeld of the three-Michelin-starred Aqua in The Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg in Germany.

There also is a spa on the vessel. The line didn't provide images of the Elverfeld restaurant or the spa.

Evrima's first sailing on Saturday will be a seven-night trip from Barcelona to Nice, France, that will include stops in Spain's Balearic islands of Alcudia and Palma de Mallorca, plus an overnight in St. Tropez, France.

Whether the ship really is ready to run at the sort of luxury level Ritz-Carlton fans expect remains to be seen. The ship has been plagued by construction problems for years, resulting in a succession of eight delays that have pushed back its arrival by nearly three years. The company initially used a shipyard to build Evrima that had little experience constructing upscale vessels.

The repeated delays have led to waves of trip cancellations over the past three years that have left would-be customers frustrated. TPG's inbox is full of emails from passengers on canceled sailings that feel let down by the company.

Assuming Evrima does begin sailing on Saturday, it will be debuting nearly 33 months behind schedule — a backup of a magnitude rarely seen in the cruise shipbuilding space. It was originally scheduled to begin sailing in February 2020.

Evrima is just one of a number of relatively small, yachtlike cruise ships that are coming to market as hospitality brands see demand for intimate, high-end vessels. Emerald Cruises earlier this year unveiled its first yachtlike ocean cruise vessel, the 100-passenger Emerald Azzurra, after several years of only operating river ships. And just last month, luxury hotel chain Four Seasons announced plans to launch a yachtlike, 190-passenger cruise vessel by 2025.

Luxury cruise operator Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours also is in the midst of adding high-end, 228-passenger, yachtlike vessels.

Rising 10 decks high and with capacity for nearly 300 passengers, Evrima is notably bigger than the vessels operated by these other brands, though it still has a yachtlike shape.

Evrima is just the first of several vessels that Ritz-Carlton plans for its new cruising arm. In March, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection announced that two more vessels for the brand would be built at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in St. Nazaire, France — a shipyard with far more experience in cruise shipbuilding than the shipyard that initially built Evrima.

The two new Ritz-Carlton vessels, which will be bigger than Evrima, are scheduled to debut in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

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