So far, Windstar Cruises has added a Broadmoor suite to three ships in its six-vessel fleet: Star Breeze, Star Legend and Star Pride. In the future, the cruise line also plans to put a Broadmoor suite on Wind Surf. (Provided by Windstar Cruises)
For more than a century, the Broadmoor has welcomed travelers to Colorado Springs with its elegant decor, high-end amenities and mountain views.
Now, fans of the historic resort can spend the night inside one of its guest rooms — while sailing around the world on a cruise ship.
Windstar Cruises, a sister company to the 106-year-old hotel, has created near-exact replicas of Broadmoor rooms onboard several of its ships. Both brands are owned by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz, under the parent company Xanterra Travel Collection.
Today, guests will find one Broadmoor suite each on Star Breeze, Star Legend and Star Pride, three 312-passenger ships in Windstar’s six-vessel fleet. Those ships also each have a suite designed to look like a room at Sea Island Resort, the Broadmoor’s sister property in Georgia.
And, soon, Windstar will add the specialty suites to another vessel, the 342-guest Wind Surf.
Several hotels have announced or launched their own cruise lines in recent years, including The Ritz-Carlton and The Four Seasons. But Windstar is one of the only cruise lines around the world to tackle the reverse — and put a land-based hotel room onto a ship.
The specialty suites are so innovative that they earned Windstar a coveted industry award: best suite design at the Cruise Ship Interiors Awards in December 2023.
“It was a brilliant idea that was executed perfectly,” says Jack Damioli, the Broadmoor’s president and chief executive officer. “The sense of place they were able to achieve in the suites with the wallpaper, art and color tones is pretty astonishing.”
An ambitious idea
Windstar is unlike other cruise lines you may be familiar with. For starters, its ships are small, accommodating just 148 to 342 guests at a time, depending on the vessel. They feel more like private yachts than cruise ships.
There are no waterslides, no casinos, no raucous pool parties with hordes of sunburnt-to-a-crisp tourists. Guests tend to be affluent, well-educated folks in their 50s, 60s and 70s; they’re mostly married couples or small groups traveling together.
Against this backdrop, the idea for the Broadmoor and Sea Island Resort suites was born during a March 2022 meeting of executives from Anschutz’s various businesses.
Windstar, the Broadmoor and Sea Island Resort all have similar guest demographics so, at one point during a brainstorming session, Windstar’s president Chris Prelog mentioned: Wouldn’t it be great to have Broadmoor and Sea Island suites on the ships?
“Immediately, we fell in love with the idea and thought it was fantastic,” says Damioli. “But we also wondered if it could be pulled off. For one, there is just not the same square footage on a ship as in our hotels — could it be done and done well? Would you really get enough of a sense of each property to have it translate, especially for those who had stayed at the resorts?”
When Prelog returned from the meeting to Windstar’s offices in Miami, he tasked his team with bringing the ambitious plan to life. It would be wildly challenging for several reasons, on top of those Damioli mentioned.
For one, cruise ships must adhere to strict design and construction rules that are intended to keep guests and crew members safe. All materials must be non-flammable, which means interior designers couldn’t simply grab an extra roll of wallpaper from the Broadmoor’s storage closet and slap it on the ships’ walls.
“Designing ships is very different from designing residential or hotel spaces,” says Stijn Creupelandt, Windstar’s vice president of hotel operations and product development. “We have the most stringent regulations — there’s a whole 1,000-page book that says what types of materials we can and cannot use. You cannot just go to your corner antique store and pick up a few pieces. Everything has to be made specifically for cruise ships, really.”
They were also working on a tight timeline. The first ship to get the specialty suites, Star Legend, was scheduled to undergo an intense, two-week renovation period — called “dry dock,” in cruise ship parlance — in Cadiz, Spain, just eight months later. The team needed to work out a plan before then, so that construction crews could complete the work before the vessel returned to service.
“These things need to be planned out meticulously,” said Creupelandt. “The ship is in a certain location, all supplies need to be shipped in advance and coordinated with plumbing, electrical and everything else. There’s demolition, there’s buildup and then there’s time to clean it and put it back into operation. It’s a very coordinated effort.”
Experiential research
But first, before they could dive head-first into the complicated logistics, the Windstar team needed to conduct some hands-on, experiential research. Creupelandt and Seattle-based interior designer Liz Schneider took a whirlwind trip to Georgia and Colorado to check out the two resorts.
They explored each property thoroughly, making careful notes about the architectural features, the color palette and, perhaps more importantly, the overarching vibe.
“It’s not just about the looks, because obviously you can see photos,” says Creupelandt. “It was really about getting the essence of the property and how it feels. We wanted to pick up some common elements that would make you feel like you were at the Broadmoor, versus just copying and pasting.”
When they returned from their research mission, Creupelandt and Schneider began tackling some of the design challenges. They found a vendor who could reproduce the Broadmoor’s signature bougainvillea wallpaper (designed by Broadmoor co-founder Julie Penrose herself) so that it met maritime specifications; they also designed custom furniture and fabrics in the Broadmoor’s unique Europe-meets-the-American-West style.
In the end, they managed to get everything ready by the time Star Legend entered dry dock. From there, it was just a matter of repeating the process on the other ships — Star Breeze in March 2023 and Star Pride in April 2024. On each vessel, crews stripped two classic suites down to the studs, then built them back up again in the style of either the Broadmoor or Sea Island Resort.
Positive reception
The specialty suites are located at the very front of the ships, an area called the forward. They have large windows that offer unobstructed views of the water and, depending on which way the ship is heading, colorful sunrises and sunsets. The ships sail all over the globe — from French Polynesia to Iceland to Greece and nearly everywhere in between — so guests can also gaze out at the local scenery.
Each suite has a bedroom, a living room with a comfy couch, a cozy dining nook and a private veranda. Inside the Broadmoor suites, archival black-and-white photographs of the historic resort hang in gilded gold frames on the walls.
The response from guests has been overwhelmingly positive, even from those who have no previous connection to the Broadmoor or Sea Island Resort.
“They are very different from what you expect from a cruise line,” says Creupelandt. “They make you feel at home.”
Spencer Penrose, the late founder of the Broadmoor, likely would’ve enjoyed the suites, too. Penrose and his wife, Julie, were jet-setters who made many transatlantic journeys together, according to Damioli. They even drew inspiration from their international travels when they designed the Broadmoor, so the Windstar suites are a bit of a full-circle moment.
And Anschutz?
He’s “very pleased,” says Creupelandt.
“The design award we received is actually on the way to his office because he’s very proud,” he adds.
