Regent Seven Seas Voyager Canyon Ranch SpaClub

It's an elegant spa retreat at sea, befitting of one of the world's only all-suite, all balcony, luxury cruise liners.

Canyon Ranch is undoubtedly one of the world's most famous spa brands. An award winning spa destination since the late 1970's, it not only offers cutting edge beauty and wellbeing treatments, but also promotes an holistic, healthy lifestyle.

Besides operating several spa resorts and communities located in the USA, Canyon Ranch has also been a partner with several cruise lines to provide destination-style spa experiences on the high seas. One of those partners is the five-star Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

On each of its three ships, Seven Seas Voyager, Mariner and Navigator, there's a Canyon Ranch SpaClub enabling discerning cruise guests the opportunity of enjoying a little pampering with day spa packages in between fine dining, exploring ports of call, and indulging in the many benefits of a leading luxury cruise line.

On Seven Seas Voyager, which I cruised recently from Bali to Sydney, I had the opportunity of making a return visit the elegant SpaClub for a much anticipated treatment. The spa offers a broad menu of treatments from signature massages and therapeutic body work, to facials and the award winning Canyon Ranch Your Transformation skin products.

The Decor:

From an aesthetic perspective, this spa oozes style from the moment you step into its spacious reception area. The decor is warm and welcoming, with a focus on warm wood and soft gold furnishings, with bold accents of colour from the black, flecked marble pillars to the purple vases. While waiting to meet your therapist, aside from a gentle rocking of the ocean beneath you, you'd be hard pressed to know you were at sea.

The Treatments:

Choosing a treatment in a spa can be a challenge, but for my part a massage is hard to beat when judging the quality of a facility. Being on the high seas it seemed fitting to have a 50 minute World of Relief body buff, added to a 50 minute Canyon Ranch signature massage - 100 minutes of body bliss.

The body buff is essentially a full body scrub, using your choice of organic essential oils combined with Dead Sea salts. It begins with a body brush to stimulate, then exfoliate, the skin, then the salts are applied. I opted for something uplifting with a formal night ahead. The therapist sweeped the salts across my skin from head to foot, which is invigorating, and after washing off, the finishing touch is an application of more essential oils to hydrate and nourish the newly scrubbed skin.

Next came the 50 minute massage. This Canyon Ranch signature massage follows a traditional Swedish style but is a little more relaxing, and highly customised. My therapist asked me if I had any special concerns or tightness in my body, and responding to my comments she focussed on my back and shoulders for most of the treatment. The 50 minutes flew by.

The Verdict:

All up the treatment was 100 minutes long, and a lovely way to kill some time cruising along the Indian Ocean on a sea day. Afterwards my skin felt decidedly smooth and soft, and the massage had eased any tension away. When I climbed into my formal dress for the evening, I felt a million dollars.