CRUISE SHIP FOR THE RICH

Want to go on a cruise on a ship that was built for rich people who can afford to spend just about anything for luxurious pleasures?

It's the Regent Seven Seas Explorer. Almost an acre of marble was used to decorate the interiors.  It cost more than $450 million to build and become what it claims to be -- "the most luxurious ship in the world."

Walls are decked out with $7 million in art including Picasso lithographs and Degas originals, and the menus are laden with lobster, caviar, pate foie gras, escargot, and an international array of gourmet dishes. Of course, every dish served in the Seven Seas Explorer’s various eateries can also be delivered to patrons’ rooms at any time of day. If you dine in the Regency's super-elegant Pacific Rim Restaurant, the Tibetan prayer-wheel sculpture on display near the door weighs as much as three cars and cost $500,000.

Here the main entrance.

This is one of the 5 dining rooms.

Here is a typical bedroom, plus sitting room suite.

Of course you have a private deck:

You can swim in this teak-lined swimming pool or the larger main pool below.

On the Regency Explorer's Caribbean cruise, a single passenger pays $1200 a night for the smallest suite. The fanciest suite, the $10,000 Regency suite, has a Steinway Grand Piano, an $80,000 mattress and a pillow menu, so you can choose your pillow. You can also ask for the $150,000 Savoir bed. Savoir reputedly makes the best bed in the world.

Top-notch room service includes Lalique wine glasses; silverware is Christofle. There are two sets of dishes: Bernardaud and Versace. Overhead you'll see Preciosa Chrystal Chandeliers and the glass on the walls and windows is Murano. Visiting the bathroom, anything/everything you might need is available -- they're equipped like L'Occitane cosmetics shops.

Where do you want to go? Prices start at $5,499 (U.S.) per person in a Veranda Suite for a 10-night round-trip Miami cruise, to $134,999 in a Regent Suite for a 27-night cruise to Copenhagen from London.

Um....

Well, if we can scrounge up another hundred-thousand or so, for the wardrobe my husband and I would need, I'd love to take the 27-night cruise. Even if we went to Miami, we'd need fabulous clothes to go with the fantastically fabulous, ridiculously, excessively expensive everything else.

Hmmm....

Picturing this, imagining all this, is by itself, a fun fantasy vacation from one's hectic busy life in a bustling big city....

....mmmmm....