Regent Seven Seas Cruises has followed in the steps of its sister brand Oceania Cruises with the announcement that it is doing away with plastic water bottles across the fleet.
The luxury cruise line will instead serve guests Vero Still and Sparkling water fleetwide via glass bottles that guests will be given in their staterooms upon boarding.
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The announcement comes just a few days after Oceania Cruises announced that it too would be eliminating plastic water bottles and serving water via the Vero purification and filling process instead.
Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Oceania Cruises are both owned by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
As part of its Sail & Sustain environmental program, Regent will be the first luxury ocean cruise line to eliminate single-use plastic bottles, according to a press release.
The cruise line anticipates that it will save around 2-million plastic bottles being thrown away annually. Regent also says that the Vero system will improve the taste of the complimentary water.
The Vero Water service will be implemented in two phases during 2020. In phase one, the on-board water service will be rolled out to suites, restaurants, lounges and bars aboard Seven Seas Voyager by April 5th, 2020.
Seven Seas Explorer will be next with the service implemented by April 8th, followed by Seven Seas Mariner by June 5th, and Seven Seas Navigator by June 18th. Phase two will see every Regent guest provided with their own eco-friendly reusable Vero Water bottle.
Seven Seas Voyager will get the Vero water purification system first, from April, 2020.
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“Regent is committed to providing an unrivalled experience that includes serving our guests the very best tasting water on their voyage,” said Jason Montague, President and CEO of Regent Seven Seas Cruises. “In addition, the Vero water purification system helps reduce our carbon footprint and sustains our beautiful natural resources.”
“We are delighted to be a part of the pre-eminent luxury guest experience on board Regent Seven Seas Cruises,” added David Deshe, Vero Water Founder and President. “It’s truly a privilege to partner with a world leader in luxury cruising and an organization that is committed to pioneering environmental stewardship in the travel industry.”
Around 22-billion plastic bottles are thrown away annually, and many of them end up in the ocean
“Working together, we anticipate preventing millions of single-use plastic bottles from ever being produced, shipped and ultimately ending up polluting the environment,” he said.
Regent’s move to eliminate plastic water bottles comes after its parent company NCL previously announced it would be scrapping the use of all plastic straws.
Cruise lines are becoming increasingly sustainability-focused in their use of plastic aboard ship. MSC Cruises has put in place plans to reduce single-use plastics of all kinds on-board, while Norwegian Cruise Line has reduced its use of plastic straws.
P&O Cruises is also reducing the amount of single-use plastics it uses, in a sign that the environmentally-friendly effort may spread to other cruise lines in the Carnival Corporation group.
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