Variety Cruises
Variety Cruises: the back story
The back story
About Variety Cruises: the back story
Variety Cruises traces its roots to 1949, when historian Diogenis Venetopoulos began showing international guests his Greece. Three generations later the family sails eight small ships and motor sailers on week-long voyages from the Aegean to the Seychelles and Tahiti.
A historian’s Greece
The Variety story starts in 1949, when the historian Diogenis Venetopoulos began leading international guests through “his Greece”, with a particular care for its archaeological heritage. In 1968 the family took the idea to sea with a week-long Classical Greece voyage aboard the wooden caique Eleftherios, and the formula of fewer than a hundred guests has stayed with them since. The second generation, Lakis Venetopoulos, widened the portfolio; Variety Cruises itself was formed in 2005, and the third generation, Filippos Venetopoulos, now leads the company.
Small by design
Every ship in the fleet is small. Variety Voyager, introduced in 2012 as a new class, is the largest at 68 metres, with 72 guests and a crew of 29. The rest are motor sailers and small yachts of 34 to 49 guests: Panorama with its three masts, Panorama II in French Polynesia, Galileo, Harmony G and Harmony V, Pegasos in the Seychelles and Callisto in the Adriatic. Every cabin has a window or a porthole, and there are no pools, because the sea is the pool: the ships anchor for swim stops and tender guests to quiet beaches.
As if they were spending their precious vacation days on a friend’s private yacht.
Life at the pace of a yacht
Days follow a simple rhythm. Meals are served at a single, open seating, either at the table or from a hot and cold buffet, and breakfast often moves out on deck. Masks, snorkels, fins and kayaks are carried on most boats, there is a small lending library, and the lounge doubles as the place for briefings on the next island. Variety Voyager adds a mini spa with sauna and massage, run by a Balinese spa supervisor.
Beyond the Aegean
The Greek programme runs from April to October, with an off-season Antiquity to Byzantium voyage in spring and autumn. In winter the line follows the sun to Cape Verde and the rivers of West Africa, from Dakar, while Pegasos in the Seychelles and Panorama II in Tahiti and French Polynesia sail all year round.
What to know
Fares cover the cabin and meals; transfers, most excursions, wine and alcohol, laundry and gratuities are extra, and the line suggests €15–18 per person per day for the crew. The ships have no lifts and are not suitable for guests with reduced mobility, and children under five are not accepted.
Our advice: choose Variety for the islands, not the ship. A week among the Cyclades on one of the motor sailers, with a morning swim from the stern before breakfast, is the purest version of it; for more space and a little spa, book Variety Voyager in Italy and Malta.
Why it's on our list
- Family history since 1949
- No more than 72 guests on any sailing
- Swim stops instead of pools
- Greece, the Seychelles, Tahiti and West Africa
Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Variety Cruises: the back story before you go.