Utopia: A Luxury Cruise Like No Other

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 22, 2010 — -- The dreams some cruise lovers have of a life spent on the seas may not be too far away.

A Beverly Hills company has announced plans to launch a $1.1 billion ocean liner, called the Utopia, in 2013, featuring private luxury residences for people who want to cruise the seas year-round.

"We're creating an ideal place… where people can travel with their home all over the world and have the same people taking care of them 24 hours a day in every city that they visit," said David Robb, chairman of the firm working on Utopia. "It's like having a waterfront villa in 30 cities around the world."

The core idea of this project is its event-driven itinerary. The opulent Utopia is to go on perpetual tour, visiting world-famous events and festivals. For example, the ship would go to Sydney, Australia, for New Year's Eve fireworks over the famed opera house there. It would dock near Paris for Fashion Week, go to the Mediterranean for the Monte Carlo Gran Prix and the Cannes Film Festival, or stop in Rio de Janeiro for the Carnival.

"The cruises I took before were very short and a limited experience where everything was planned for me and I had no say in what and when I do things," said Hannah Shin, 22, a schoolteacher who says living on Utopia would be her ideal lifestyle.

But the glitzy lifestyle comes with a glitzy price tag. There are 200 residences up for sale, starting at $3.9 million for 1,400 square feet of space. The most luxurious residence offered is a 40,000-square-foot cabin ordered by a European family for more than $160 million, the company says.

Utopia would also have a 204-room floating boutique hotel for short-term stays. Amenities include a casino, spa, theater, swimming pools, and retractable marina.

The company said it expects more than 60 percent of sales to be generated from outside the United States.

Potential buyers with purchase commitments include "captains of industry, leading entertainment people, leading people in the arts, and the founder of a very major video game company," Robb said. Names cannot be made public for privacy purposes, but the list of who's who also includes prominent wealthy families from Australia, China, and Turkey, he said.