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rom onboard water parks, to rock climbing and bungee trampolines, today’s cruise ships offer no shortage of thrills and spills for paying passengers. But among the eclectic mix of activities available is one that appeals perhaps more to the head that the heart: the chance to buy a rare Picasso, or possibly an unmistakable Dali.

With a captive audience seeking a memorable experience - and willing to spend big to get it - cruise ships have proved popular places to hold art auctions that were once the preserve of land-based galleries.

Over the past two decades almost every major cruise company has offered auctions on board its ships.

Park West Gallery, the largest supplier of artwork for cruise lines, says it currently operates auctions on over 90 ships around the world and conducts thousands of auctions per year on board. Founded in 1969, the Michigan-based company has seen annual sales as high as $400m.

“Our cruise ship programmes continue to grow every single year,” says John Litchenberg, Park West Gallery’s vice president of marketing.

The enduring appeal of art auctions on cruise ships, according to Litchenberg, is that they offer something for everyone, whether it’s a Sotheby's and Christie’s regular or a cruiser usually more interested in spas and sunbeds.

And whether it’s the free champagne, the exuberant auctioneer or art enrichment lectures led by experienced auction staff, even those that aren’t interested in actually buying art can usually find something that interests them.

“Our mission has always been making art exciting and affordable for everyone, not just a few elite collectors,” Litchenberg says. “That mission has resonated with people around the globe. In our 50 years, we’ve helped over two million people learn the joy of collecting art.”

Research suggests that “joy” has been passed down from generation to generation. A recent study conducted by Park West found that millennials are “almost twice as likely as baby boomers to say they both know something about art (63% to 34%), and almost universally agree that they appreciate art”.

Four out of five millennials that responded to the Park West survey said that art was important to them, the highest percentage of any age group.

“In terms of what’s driving interest, I don’t think you can discount the power of social media,” says Litchenberg. “According to our study, 73% of millennials said that social media enhances how they experience art.”

But while the appeal of auctions continues to resonate with some cruisers, others have strongly criticised the industry. In his essay Confessions of a cruise-ship auction addict, the author Mitchell Symons described auctions as controlled by “predatory companies who pay cruise lines for the concession to flog worthless art to off-guard holidaymakers keen to impress the auctioneer.”

His harsh words are not without merit. Over the past decade, companies selling art at sea have been hit with a string of lawsuits alleging all kinds of malpractice including inauthentic art, phantom bidding, delayed delivery purchases, damaged frames and more.

Over the years a number of complaints have been made specifically against Park West with customers claiming its art is sometimes sold at bloated prices based on dodgy appraisals using “high-pressure” sales tactics.

In 2008, the New York Times published an article about Luis Maldonado, a businessman from San Diego who paid $24,265 for a 1964 “Clown” print by Picasso. The newspaper reported that Sotheby’s had sold the “exact same print in London for about $6,150 in 2004”.

Maldonado had also paid $31,110 for a 1968 Picasso print called “Le Clown” that he later found being sold on the online art database Artprice.com for around $5,000. The businessman was later offered a full refund by Park West.

Bloomberg Businessweek has reported that since 2008, Park West has faced 21 lawsuits. A 2010 plaintiffs’ filing against the company, cited by Bloomberg, lambasted a “scheme” that “targeted individuals who, while unawares relaxing on their vacations, are wined and dined by Park West and Cruise Line employees and are subjected to Defendants’ art fraud scheme”.

The controversies have left a mark on the industry with some cruise ships dropping art auctions altogether and others offering new ways of selling art, including onboard galleries where items are sold at clear, listed prices and meet and greets with specific artists.

But it has certainly not ended the art auction phenomenon, according to Litchenberg. Asked what new practices Park West has introduced to increase transparency and customer satisfaction, Lichtenberg mentions a “50/50/50 Satisfaction Guarantee”, introduced “in honor of our 50 years in business”.

“Our cruise ship collectors have 50 days to return any work of art - with no fees of any kind - or 50 months to exchange it,” he says, adding that “the response we’ve gotten from our customers has been overwhelmingly positive so far. We are dedicated to making the collecting experience satisfying and safe for our collectors.”

For passengers, the website Cruise Critic recommends a few strategies to avoid so-called buyer’s remorse: researching the difference between original works, limited editions and poster art; checking the authenticity of what you are buying; and, above all, making sure the purchase makes sense for you.

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nthony Mauboussin, the culinary director at Viking Cruises, oversees both the company’s river and ocean operations. Following the recent christening of seven river ships, there are now 72 in the fleet along with six ocean cruise ships. In terms of the workload, Mauboussin describes Vikings’ new ocean ships as the equivalent of “twelve river ships on top of each other” as each contains seven different restaurants and one hundred kitchen staff.

A tour round the spotless galley confirms how fastidious and organised the food operation on board needs to be. Often a port stop will mean they can stock up for 6-7 days with fresh produce – such as blueberries, of which 25kg are consumed each day – although orders are placed with suppliers three months in advance. The kitchens are vast, as is the storage: there is space in the fridges and freezers for 14-17 days.

Menu tastings occur in the galley at 5pm every day to ensure recipes are followed and consistency is correct, and for every menu there is a detailed recipe book. Having to engineer menus across 242 destinations, each of which must be consistent on every ship, is no mean feat, but then as an athlete in his spare time, who is also part of the world’s long-distance running elite, Mauboussin’s inherent discipline and dedication are an essential part of this culinary architect’s toolkit.

Anthony Mauboussin: I started working on Celebrity Millennium in 2004. I was a kind of a chef de partie, and I had a station in one of the speciality restaurants, the Olympic, where Michel Roux was officially in charge.

Then I made my way up to the next level, sous chef and chef de cuisine, and moved to launch another co mpany, which was Azamara Cruises, back in 2007. I stayed on at my first position as executive chef for about three years, and then moved as a chef to Oceania [Cruises] for a couple of years.

I then had an opportunity to be the head chef of The World Residence at Sea, which is an exclusive private yacht with more than one hundred residents. So that’s what I did for five months. In March 2014 I left the ship. Two days later I had interview with Erling [Frydenberg], my boss today, on leading the Ocean project – and so that’s about five years ago now.

AM: I started training really hard five years ago, doing 30/40km races in the first year, 60/70km in the second year and then up to 100 for those long races. If you’re on the ship the only thing you think of apart from your job is where you’re going to train. Every place the ship docks I have a map of where I could find a hill and go train. If I go to LA with Viking I have a 25k running trail not far from Hollywood.

AM: It’s not an easy thing. Part of the success is having the people that have been part of this project for the past four years. A lot of the crew have been promoted and they are the ones carrying the standard from one ship to the next. 

AM: When we started, Viking Star had the 49-day cruise and the idea was to have 49 different menus – but I said that’s not possible. You need to have stability in your offering, and then include that as the destination or recommendation of the day. 

There were 49 destinations for 2015, so of course a lot of research. It’s a twelve-month job now we have 242 destinations.

AM: I would compare it to an architect. I think the same way maybe the first thing he starts with is history, then after this is the plan, where you start drawing on paper, and then you go more into details and finally get the product out.

AM: Menu engineering – that’s exactly what it is.

AM: We have a bidding programme where [the suppliers] come up with a selection. The idea on food specification is to make them understand our philosophy: why it is important to have the same thing all the time, consistency, because 55-60% of our guests are repeaters, and we have guests who travel two to three times a year, so expectations are set. 

AM: It influenced me a lot in the way that I make food today. My grandmother was doing the cheese, milk and cream, and we had cows, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and horses. I was outside all the time and I didn’t know a supermarket until I was eight years old. My aunt used to take care of children from difficult families and she was cooking for everybody.

AM: For the flour we work with a French company. When you want a baguette you don’t go to Germany or China, you go to France. We source our bacon from the US and we have good applewood-smoked bacon. Our guests are 95% American, so we make sure they get the products they are used to when they go to an upscale breakfast. For the salmon, it’s Norwegian-raised and the company supplies us with our seafood programme.

AM: Well, reindeer - I’m not sure there are many cruise companies that work with this product, but we’re a Norwegian company, so we do certain Norwegian items. There is Fenalår, dry-cured lamb leg, which is unusual and very traditional for breakfast in Norway. Another is Lutefisk, salt, dry cod, which is dipped in water for 2-3 days by changing the water every 12 hours to get the salt out and served with boiled potatoes. 

AM: I don’t think all of it. I think there are three things: the ship’s comfort, the whole ambiance of it, this is for me the top number one. I think the crew, that’s another one. And I’m not saying this because I’m in charge, I truly believe that in terms of the food we serve – and I’ve worked with different companies, so I know what is out there – that we’ve brought it to the next level.