The latest push into high-end travel is taking place on the high seas, as cruise lines increasingly lean on luxury offerings.

On Regent’s Seven Seas Splendor, an all-luxury ship, cabins cost anywhere from $1,800 to $15,000 per night for its top-of-the-line booking, the Regent Suite.

The difference is not just the roughly 5,100 square feet of space. The top-tier suite has a Steinway piano, a private dining room and a wraparound deck with a hot tub and a view comparable to the one from the ship’s bridge.

Multiple passengers wanted the suite for the Splendor’s 151-night global cruise that embarks in January, Regent told CNBC, and it is almost always occupied.

Regent is setting its sights even higher, as the cruise line plans to debut the Seven Seas Prestige in December, its first new ship class in a decade. Its top suite will cost $25,000 per night.

While megaships with surfing and waterslides can carry more than 7,500 passengers, the smaller, elite ships — some carrying fewer than a thousand passengers — are powering profits for companies like Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings. The company owns luxury lines Regent and Oceania.

Norwegian CEO John Chidsey has said he’s focused on sharpening the luxury brands’ positioning, improving the products and guest experience, and strengthening their commercial performance.

Regent and Oceania, he said, are in good shape for 2027, though Chidsey did not break out metrics between the companies.

Cruise competitors are also betting big on luxury offerings, investing in new ships and more specialized experiences.

Regent competes with established luxury cruise lines including Royal Caribbean’s Silversea and Carnival’s Seabourn, as well as newer entrants carrying hotel names into the market. Four Seasons, Aman and Orient Express are among the brands bringing luxury hospitality to yacht-style vessels.

The cruise industry projects the luxury cruise fleet will grow from 104 ships in 2026 to at least 130 by 2036.

And while global cruise passengers are forecast to increase about 11% between 2025 and 2028, according to the Cruise Lines International Association, or CLIA, the industry’s investment dollars are increasingly flowing to luxury and expedition brands, with orders rising for smaller ships and fewer berths through the next decade.

From 2020 through 2025, there has been a 71% increase in the number of luxury ships and an 84% increase in berths, according to CLIA. The orders indicate another 26% jump in the number of ships through the end of 2029 and a 32% increase in capacity.

Other hospitality companies are investing and expanding their uber-upscale offerings, too. Hotels, casinos, airlines, restaurants, spas and other travel and leisure companies see the trend:…

Amazon on Thursday debuted a set of new, pricier Alexa tablets and said it’s ditching its budget-friendly Fire lineup, marking a significant shift in the e-commerce juggernaut’s devices strategy.

The company unveiled 8-inch, 11-inch and 12-inch models, which start at $230 and run up to $550. All devices are available for preorder on Thursday and will begin shipping Oct. 14.

Amazon has historically sold its devices at or near the cost of manufacturing them, partly to undercut competitors with extremely cheap prices, but also with the goal of promoting its other products and services. It’s hoped that for every $80 Echo smart speaker it sells, users will purchase movies, audiobook subscriptions or items from its sprawling webstore, which tend to have higher margins.

The company has recently taken steps to make more money from its devices business under CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded founder Jeff Bezos in 2021. Last year, it introduced pricier versions of its Echo smart speakers and began charging non-Prime members a subscription for Alexa+, the souped-up version of its digital assistant.

The $550 Alexa Tablet 12 Pro costs more than double the price of the $155 Fire HD 10, Amazon’s base model, and puts it more in line with Apple‘s iPad, which runs from $449 to $1,199.

The launch comes as Amazon and other device makers are grappling with a historic surge in memory prices. Amazon in August boosted prices on Echos, Kindles, Fire TVs and other hardware, citing the memory crunch. And earlier this year, Apple raised its prices on MacBooks and iPads, while Nintendo hiked the price of its Switch 2 console.

Amazon denied that rising memory costs played a role in its decision to charge more for the Alexa tablet. But Panos Panay, the company’s devices boss, acknowledged that the shortage made it “quite tricky” to build a premium tablet at a reasonable price without making any “trade-offs.”

“I think the team did a good job designing without making that trade,” Panay told CNBC in an interview. “They gave you the full craftsmanship of a product, but are able to keep it at that price point.”

The company said the Alexa tablet’s improved speed and performance, artificial intelligence features, and upgraded design warrant a higher price tag and put the devices on par with “the best tablets on the market.”

Amazon added a sleeker, sturdier aluminum backing, higher resolution display and faster processors. On the Alexa Tablet 12 Pro, the highest-end model, it incorporated “Nanomatte” display technology that was developed in partnership with Corning to “dramatically reduce screen glare.”

One of the most notable upgrades is that all of the devices run Google‘s Android operating system, a major departure from earlier models, which relied on a custom Android version dubbed Fire OS and used Amazon’s own app store, limiting the number of apps that were available.

It’s also the first…

It’s getting more expensive to have fun in America, but consumers are splurging anyway, seeking out experiences ranging from outdoor activities to video games.

The Bank of America’s latest analysis suggested that “funflation” — the increased cost of fun — may be rising, but consumers aren’t cutting back.

In fact, spending on hobbies, which ranges from arts and crafts and hobby shops to retailers selling skiing, hiking, camping, or scuba diving gear, grew 7.9% in August 2026, year on year, per the bank.

This was double the growth of actual transactions, which were up 3.4%, meaning consumers are making more hobby purchases overall, as well as spending more on those hobbies.

“Funflation is the escalating cost of leisure activities, which is seen across prices from gas for weekend cars to ice creams on holiday,” John Gathergood, an economics professor at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., told CNBC.

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index data found that the recreation index, which includes video and audio, pets and pet services, sporting goods, photography and recreational reading, rose 2.7% in the 12 months through August.

Meanwhile, sales at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, and book stores rose 10.7% in the 12 months through August, outpacing the 6% increase in total U.S. retail and food-services sales over the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Advance Monthly Retail Trade Report.

“When prices rise, consumers might substitute between activities,” Gathergood said. “More hobbies at home might replace holidays away. More food made at home might replace eating out. So, people may be spending more on hobbies, but are spending less on other activities the hobbies are replacing.”

Jet fuel prices were last $194 per barrel for the week ending Sept. 18, up 116% from the prior year’s average, according to the International Air Travel Association’s Jet Fuel Price Monitor.

U.S. airfare prices have increased 26.5% year-on-year, according to federal data in August.

“By foregoing travel abroad, consumers can free up substantial amounts of cash to spend on hobbies at home,” The University of Nottingham’s Gathergood said.

Dan Wasiolek, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told CNBC that the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated a shift towards “spending on experiences rather than ‘things,'” even as consumer confidence and savings come under pressure.

Wasiolek noted that higher-income families have continued to travel despite higher costs,…