Superyacht Guests: 2006 vs 2026- A Tale of Two Eras
With Courtesy of Erica Lay & The Mallorca Bulletin. #26/0020. Erica Lay is owner of EL CREW International Yacht Crew Agency http://www.elcrewco.com/ erica@elcrewco.com.
By Erica Lay, owner of EL CREW CO Superyacht Recruitment agency and author of Superyacht Life: How to Start, Succeed, & Stay Sane – available now on Amazon.
If you ever want to feel the passage of time, don’t look at old photos or your first Facebook status. Look at how superyacht guests behaved in 2006 versus how they act now. It’s like comparing two different species.
The 2006 charter guest arrived armed with a chunky digital camera, a pair of linen trousers, and the belief that the height of sophistication was a DVD box set and a jetski. Lovely people. Simple times.
The 2026 guest turns up with a drone, three personalised nutrition plans, a wearable bio-tracker, an expectations spreadsheet, and a burning desire to have a “transformative week at sea”.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane… or in yacht terms, let’s compare the old-school teak era to the new-age tech era.
Arrival Day
2006: Guests stepped aboard smiling, excited, and gloriously low-maintenance compared to today. They handed over their shoes, asked where the cabins were, and wanted to know when lunch was. No demands, no complications, just relieved to be on holiday.
2026: Today’s guests board holding a phone with their wellness schedule, their diet plan, their streaming preferences, and three Pinterest mood boards. Before they even reach the aft deck sofa, someone’s already asking:
“Is the Wi-Fi strong enough for Zoom?”
“Can my fitness tracker connect to the gym equipment?”
“Do you have oat milk that’s been carbon-offset?”
The crew smile and say yes. They always say yes.
Entertainment
2006: Entertainment was blissfully simple. Crew put out a stack of DVDs, a few board games and jigsaws, and maybe a karaoke machine that mysteriously only worked after the third glass of wine. The biggest tech concern was whether the TV remote had batteries.
2026: Now it’s full Dolby cinema rooms, 4K projectors, and guests arguing over which streaming platform has the show they want. And there’s always one who wants access to something that hasn’t even been released yet.
“Can we stream the new season?”
“It comes out next month.”
“Yes, but can we?”
Toys and Tenders
2006: The toy list was jetskis, a banana boat that tried to kill people, a kayak that nobody used, and a tube that needed air every 15 minutes. Guests thought they were adventurous. Crew thought they were brave.
2026: The toy locker now looks like NASA designed it. You’ve got e-foils, underwater scooters, drones, electric surfboards, silent tenders, solar paddleboards, submersibles, and a whole IKEA warehouse’s worth of inflatables. Guests want action. Preferably filmed. Preferably in slow motion.
Photography
2006: A guest would ask a deckhand to “take a nice photo of us” with a bright blue Kodak camera. Then they’d ask again because someone blinked.
2026: Today’s guests bring drones, multi-lens phones, waterproof rigs, stabilisers, and editing apps. They want cinematic holiday reels and underwater content that makes them look like they’re narrating a David Attenborough special. Some yachts now carry full content-creator kits because… of course they do.
Wellness
2006: “Wellness” meant a yoga mat stored under a bunk and a smoothie if the chef felt generous. The only ice bath was the drinks cooler.
2026: Now guests ask for cold plunge setups, breathwork sessions at sunrise, IV vitamin infusions, sound baths, hormone-balanced menus, meditation pods, and circadian lighting. The crew are learning half the routines on the fly. A modern charter isn’t just a holiday – it’s a wellness retreat with jetskis.
Food and Diets
2006: Requests were… manageable. “No onions, they make me windy.” “I don’t eat pork.” “My wife doesn’t like mushrooms.” That was it.
2026: Guests now arrive with diet PDFs. Plural. Keto-except-Saturdays, gluten-free-but-we-still-eat-cake, pescatarian-but-will-eat-wagyu, dairy-free-but-we-love-burrata. And everything must be organic, local, sustainable, ethically sourced, and preferably touched by moonlight. Chefs earn sainthood every season.
Excursions
2006: A beach picnic, a snorkel stop, or a short walk was plenty. Most guests treated a charter as an excuse to sit still, drink rosé, and read a book with one eye closed.
2026: Guests now want coastal hikes, cave tours, cliff jumping, treasure hunts, freediving lessons, underwater drone scouting, paddle yoga, eco-tours, and drone-filmed landings. By day three the crew have burned more calories than the gym equipment.
Expectations
2006: Sun. Sea. Food. Sleep. Bliss.
2026: Modern guests want personalised, curated, meaningful, eco-friendly, wellness-aligned, cinematic, bio-tracked, content-ready experiences curated with clinical precision. And they also still want the jetskis.
So, what changed?
Everything – and nothing. Guests may be more demanding, plugged-in, wellness-obsessed and experience-hungry, but they still want the same core experience they did 20 years ago: to feel special, relaxed, and looked after at sea.
The difference is that in 2026, “being looked after” involves more technology, more planning, more dietary decoding, more content creation, and more systems than anyone in 2006could’ve imagined.
But that’s yachting. It evolves. The sea stays the same – the guests? Not so much…