NEVER STOP ASKING
Why are Raffles operating costs so much lower than those of the apparently similar style ships on offer?
Raffles is your ship and the first point to note is that all of its operating costs are totally open to your scrutiny at any time.
The main reason for its lower costs is that Raffles has been specifically designed to have operating costs similar to those associated with a privately owned mega or “ultra” yacht, rather than those of a leased or chartered cruise liner operating for profit. A significant factor in achieving this is that Raffles is purpose designed / outfitted as a floating home / mega yacht and is not a cruise ship, which “just happens” to have live aboard apartments.
Another reason is that Raffles costs include no depreciation because you own the ship and are not trying to profit from its operation. This is not true of similar residential ships!
Raffles has also been purpose designed to be much more reliable, easier to run and maintain than conventional cruise ships, meaning that she needs only 100 crew, compared to most of the others with 200 plus. Being fully diesel – electric, an “electric ship”, and using heavy fuel (HFO), at about 60% the cost of diesel fuel, also significantly contributes to these lower costs.
A massive effort with Lloyd’s involved has also gone in to making Raffles energy efficient and designing her to be able to use any future developments, including alternative fuels, or such technology as hydro thermal cooling.
Another important factor, as above, is that there is not the profit margin element noted in the management of similar / competing vessels, which means that Raffles’ operating costs are automatically 1/4 to 1/3 of its competitors.