Arts / Entertainment

Luxurious life on the almost-open waves: The five-star floating hotel with 189 rooms and a ballroom coming to Gibraltar

July 29, 2013

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Gibraltar’s Sunborn Yacht Hotel came about as the company realised there was demand for a new luxurious hotel but no room to build one on the exclusive island 142 metre super yacht will be permanently moored in Gibraltar’s Ocean Village Marina.
The floating hotel is expected to open at the end of this year and is seven storeys tall, has 15,500 metres squared of floor space and will dwarf less super yachts in the marina.
Befitting a five star hotel, the 167 guest rooms, four executive rooms and 18 suites are expected to cost between £200 and £2,000 a night. Images of the gigantic five star floating hotel that will cost around £130 million to build and is designed to provide luxurious accommodation and panoramic sea views in Gibraltar, have been unveiled. The 142 metre super yacht will be permanently moored in Gibraltar’s Ocean Village Marina, located off the southern tip of Spain, and is expected to open at the end of this year. The oceanic behemoth boasts 189 rooms, banqueting suites, bars, restaurants, casino, a spa and gym, cocktail lounge, pool, sundeck and even a ballroom.
It will be one of the most luxurious places to stay in the Mediterranean, as suggested by the concept images. The floating hotel is seven storeys tall and has 15,500 metres squares of floor space and will dwarf less super yachts in the marina.
Befitting a five star hotel, the 167 guest rooms, four executive rooms and 18 suites are expected to cost between £200 and £2,000 a night. All of them feature wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling panoramic windows and 90 per cent of the rooms have an outdoor area. Gibraltar’s Sunborn Yacht Hotel came about as the company realised there was demand for a new luxurious hotel but no room to build one on the exclusive island.
The floating hotel is designed to be permanently moored in Gibraltar and will be attached by six strong hydraulic arms, each weighing eight tonnes. Guests will enter the exclusive hotel through an enclosed glass bridge and Sunborn Gibraltar CEO Brian Stevendale said that unlike cruise ships, guests will feel as if they are staying on dry land. “It is intriguing that something so large can literally just be plugged in to a port,” he added.
The concept of a hotel on water was in answer to there being little space on the British territory of Gibraltar, which measures less than seven square kilometres. Monaco and Singapore have similarly thriving economies and a glamorous allure for holiday makers but accommodation and space is limited.
Stevendale said, “In Gibraltar there’s a huge demand for hotels, but how do you do it in such a small jurisdiction, unlike traditional buildings which involves trucks, cranes and a huge amount of disruption, we have a ready built product that can be delivered to these prime areas.”
Further hotels could follow in or places where a land-based development is impractical because a site is environmentally sensitive, has heritage status, or because there is simply no more room to build new hotels.
Despite its over-the-top interior, the company behind the super yacht claims it is eco-friendly compared to building a new hotel on land. The ship is being constructed in Malaysia and has an engine to take it to its final location at Gibraltar, but because it has the ability to travel, Sunborn said similar yachts could be used at temporary events such as the Olympics or World Cup. There are plans for similar hotels in London and Barcelona as well as tentative plans for others in North America, South East Asia, the Middle East and Russia. The Gibraltar vessel is the second floating hotel by the company, which opened the ‘Sunborn Princess’ at Naantali Spa Resort in Finland in 2002.