History Main / StarshipLuxurious

* ''DarthWiki/WellMrAmbassador''... has The Captain complaining to the titular diplomat that the diamond chandelier is ''nearly twenty years old''. In his quarters. On an interstellar battleship.
-->'''Captain:''' There’s nearly no older light fixture in the SSP.

** In the same vein, the World War II Japanese battleship ''Yamato''. See the ''SpaceBattleshipYamato'' entry in Anime on this page for more info.

* The interior of SpaceBattleShipYamato is much roomier than the actual Battleship Yamato, at least if IJN battleships were similar to contemporary American ships. Especially when one considers that half the ship's volume is occupied by the WaveMotionGun. They also can put up some kind of force field that allows crewmembers to walk around on the deck of the ship without spacesuits. This field is sometimes visible to the audience, and sometimes its existence is just implied, so it almost looks like the animators just forgot they were in space.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': TheFederation's Galaxy Class vessels (including the Enterprise-D]], are more in line with luxury liners than military vessels. In fact, when [[TheEngineer Scotty]] from [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] visits the ''Enterprise''-D, he is stunned at the size of the guest room they put him in. The Ensign assigned to him initially misunderstands and offers to find him something even ''larger''. Mind you, the ''Enterprise''-D is the ''exception,'' rather than the rule, for Starfleet ships. One episode has the captain of a more typical ''Excelsior''-class starship [[LampshadeHanging describe the]] ''[[LampshadeHanging Enterprise]]'' [[LampshadeHanging as "that luxury liner".]] The production designer who designed the original ''Enterprise'''s [[TheBridge bridge]] once complained that the bridge of the ''Enterprise''-D looked more like a Hilton Hotel lobby than a functional starship bridge.

* In ''FanFic/{{Fractured}}'', a ''MassEffect''[=/=]''StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]'']] [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]] and its sequel ''[[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins Origins]]'', the Trans-Galactic Republic's starships are viewed as this trope by technologically-inferior Citadel races. Steak? Check. Huge quarters, no hot-bunking? Check. ''Massive, opulent bridge windows that could be blown out in a fight?'' (Except not, due to extremely strong DeflectorShields)? ''Check.''

** To clarify, the ships of Jurai are powered by Royal Trees that draws energy from multiple dimensions from their roots, which are direct descendants of Tsunami, one of the goddesses which created the multi-dimensional ''Tenchi Muyo'' universe. Along with obscene amounts of speed and firepower, a Royal Tree can generate a pocket dimension for its crew. Like the [[Series/DoctorWho TARDIS]], a Jurai treeship is MUCH BiggerOnTheInside than it looks on the outside. Essentially, the interior is pretty much as big as the owner wants it to be. A full size luxury resort and hotel, complete with wildlife park? No problem!
*** Outside of a couple of exceptions, they can't beat Ryo-ohki.

* The Baltic cruise ferries. They are basically floating five star hotels with car decks. Most people traveling between Russia, Estonia, Finland or Sweden rather opt for the ferries instead of air travel because of the superior comfort, ability to relax onboard and ability to take your own car with you. While they are slower than airplanes, a good evening in the restaurant, night at the night club, pub or casino, shoppings at the tax-free shop and well-slept night in the cabin usually weigh more on the scales than speed of the travel.

** The TARDIS itself, thanks to being BiggerOnTheInside, surely have the most impressive "ship floor space to number of occupants" ratio of any series ''ever''. There's enough space inside a TARDIS to house ''an entire literal star''! We know for sure it has a library, pool, bedrooms, closet with any clothing you can imagine, and the ship itself is capable of producing basically anything its occupants could ever need. We may only see the control room most of the time, but there's a lot of stuff in there. It's only appropriate for the ships produced at the height of the power of the [[JustForFun/AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit richest, most powerful civilization in the history of the universe]]. That is not a boast. It is simply a description of the real situation. Ironically, the Doctor's TARDIS, a Type 40, is considered a literal antique by his people. We never actually get a look at a truly cutting-edge TARDIS.

** The ''Tempest'', the equivalent of the ''Normandy'' from 'VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', is smaller than the SR-1 and more compact and efficient in general, though also runs with a considerably smaller crew. It still has an unusually large set of quarters for the Pathfinder, possible even larger than the space allowed for the crew quarters for everyone else to share, but given the Pathfinder's quasi-diplomatic role this may have been intended to allow for private meetings.

** The ''Tempest'', the equivalent of the ''Normandy'' from MassEffectAndromeda, is smaller than the SR-1 and more compact and efficient in general, though also runs with a considerably smaller crew. It still has an unusually large set of quarters for the Pathfinder, possible even larger than the space allowed for the crew quarters for everyone else to share, but given the Pathfinder's quasi-diplomatic role this may have been intended to allow for private meetings.

* ''WesternAnimation/WallE''. The ''Axiom'' is a perfect example of this. Though it is intended for people to live on it as long as needed and taking up all of Earth's remaining resources so you would imagine it should look nice. The ''Axiom'' is specifically the flagship of the line, and all the ships are intended to transport a broad cross section of Earth's population. You can get away with much less pleasant surroundings for a careful selected crew than for just any random million people.

* Mostly averted in ''Anime/CowboyBebop'': The interiors of nearly every ship we see are extremely cramped and utilitarian, perhaps to go with the UsedFuture look. The Bebop herself is built like a modern submarine, in that there’s a tiny few spacious rooms like the bridge or the living room, but everything else is bland, tight, and often filled with junk.

* Averted in Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/IntoTheLookingGlass'' novels: Earth's first starship, the Vorpal Blade, is a converted ''Ohio''-class [[UsefulNotes/SuperiorFirepowerMissileSubmarines ballistic missile submarine]].

* Averted in ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' even first class space travellers have fairly limited space.

* Averted by the Split, the {{proud warrior race guy}}s of the ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe''. Ancillary materials describe the interior of the Panther as sacrificing basically every non-combat function possible in order to create a [[TheBattlestar pocket carrier]] mounting heavy guns and enough fighters to take on entire fleets by itself in skilled hands. Unofficial reports state that the crew and pilots are bedded in the fighter hangar, or stuffed into the cargo bay in suspended animation.

[[quoteright:289:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Resize_of_ship-scene.gif]]
[[caption-width-right:289:''Some'' spaceships are [[Literature/CharlieAndTheGreatGlassElevator better than others]]]]

* ''Literature/WellMrAmbassador''... has The Captain complaining to the titular diplomat that the diamond chandelier is ''nearly twenty years old''. In his quarters. On an interstellar battleship.

** In the same vein, the World War II Japanese battleship ''Yamato''. See the ''SpaceBattleshipYamato'' entry in Anime for more info.

** An [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_I-class_Star_Destroyer Imperial-I-Class Star Destroyer has an overall crew of 46,785 individuals]], including a troop complement of 9,700. This is the smaller 'Standard Star Destroyer', which is 1.6 kilometers (or one mile) long. In addition to the crew it carries a complement of smaller ships and ground vehicles. In earth terms it could be compared to a whole carrier group, rolled into one ship.

* ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster''. The luxury starship Humongous, with "ballrooms the size of football fields! Football fields the size of planets! (if they were flat)". Unfortunately the ship is so expensive, only half a dozen people in the universe can afford to travel on it.

* Before you scoff at this trope's prevalence, remember what the very [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer first]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_Bis planes]] looked like, then look at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 this]].

* For that matter, when we were just figuring out [[SpaceIsAnOcean sea travel]], ships were dinky, crowded little things. Now we have things like the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Freedom_of_the_Seas Freedom of the Seas]].

* Literature/WellMrAmbassador... has The Captain complaining to the titular diplomat that the diamond chandelier is ''nearly twenty years old''. In his quarters. On an interstellar battleship.

* The aptly named ''Titan'' in Creator/StanislawLem's ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot'' is a luxury liner taken UpToEleven and [[DescriptionPorn described in loving detail]][[note]][[LongList Bars. Casinos. Four movie theaters. A department store. A concert hall. A copy of and old-fashioned city lane complete with gas lanterns, a moon and genuine back-alley cats.]] [[{{Zeerust}} Eighteen direct communication lines to Earth serving the passengers]]. (And the ship's communication also apparently [[EveryoneKnowsMorse operates in Morse]], although this can be just a backup emergency method.)[[/note]], and its contrast with usual cargo spacecrafts in Pirx's universe is lampshaded.

* "Terra!" , written by Stefano Benni, narrates a weird space race to reach a mythical planet that holds the secret for unlimited energy, in a future when humanity has ruined planet Earth. Three spaceships are sent from different nations, playing with the trope in every direction:

* The Orion III spaceplane from ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'", that carries Dr. Heywood Floyd to a space station orbiting Earth, is clearly designed for comfort and luxury. The plane is owned and operated by Pan Am, an airline that went bankrupt in real life, ceasing operations in 1991.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

[[folder:Videogames]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' is a particular offender in this regard. The Elsa, a lowly salvage ship, has a curiously luxurious interior with its own cafe, store & other amenities. The Durandal is even more ridiculous, as it has its own subway system & a park. Possibly justified in that both belong to an extremely wealthy company. Still, what little we see of the interior of military ships suggests a similar problem; though the accommodations may be more spartan, they're no less spacious.

[[folder:WebOriginal]]

This trope is usually justified in cases of "cruise spaceships", where the wasted space is part of the point, as the passengers are wealthy enough to absorb the cost. Another major justification is how technological progress made our ships go from cramped and dirty boats to massive and luxuriously "wasteful" ocean liners, and if SpaceIsAnOcean, said progress can apply also to spaceships. For {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s (or humans at the CrystalSpiresAndTogas level with access to AppliedPhlebotinum), cost would naturally be nearly not an issue. This trope can also be somewhat justified in the case of spaceships that are constructed and operated entirely in space, with no intention of ever making planetfall. Most of the space issues on current spacecraft are due to the fact that it takes an obscene amount of money per pound to lift something out of the atmosphere. Another justification is when the ship is meant to be lived on for extended periods of time, for a less claustrophobic (and thus mentally healthier) environment, along with better comfort for the crew.

* Subverted in Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''Literature/RevelationSpace'': the ''Nostalgia for Infinity'' is kilometers long, manned by five people and features a rather beautiful grove that serves the crew as a dining room. The one set of quarters seen are explicitly mentioned to be only austere due to its occupant's personality. However, outside the dining grove are the rotted remnants of a much-larger park, a pattern that basically holds true for the rest of the ship.
* ''Literature/MyTeacherIsAnAlien'' has the ''New Jersey'', so named because the ship is as big as the aforementioned state. Occupants have to get around via teleporter. Not only are there thousands, perhaps millions of aliens aboard, but each one gets his/hers/its/dxwje's own pod/room, and there are facilities on board that will make them anything they want and have it delivered at a touch of a button.
** Notably, that's the ''smallest'' ship in the fleet. Their FTL drive works only with ships [[ThatsNoMoon large enough to have a certain gravitational field]]. The abundant space seems to be largely incidental.
* Capital starships[[note]]generally battlecruiser and larger[[/note]] in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' intended to serve as flagships for fleet commanders have been known to have good-sized swimming pools on them. Military starships. Of course when said ships can be measured in kilometers this becomes a bit more palatable. Lampshaded when after remarking that the swimming pool doubles as a storage tank for part of the ship's water, Honor decides that's the only reason the design was signed off on.

** However, [[SequelGap 18 years later,]] (which translates to [[{{Continuity}} 80 years in-universe]]) the [[TheFederation Federation's]] Galaxy Class vessels (One of which is the [[CoolStarship Enterprise-D]] of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''), are more in line with luxury liners than military vessels. In fact, when [[TheEngineer Scotty]] from [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] visits the ''Enterprise''-D, he is stunned at the size of the guest room they put him in. The Ensign assigned to him initially misunderstands and offers to find him something even ''larger''. Mind you, the ''Enterprise''-D is the ''exception,'' rather than the rule, for Starfleet ships. One episode has the captain of a more typical ''Excelsior''-class starship [[LampshadeHanging describe the]] ''[[LampshadeHanging Enterprise]]'' [[LampshadeHanging as "that luxury liner".]]
*** The production designer who designed the original ''Enterprise'''s [[TheBridge bridge]] once complained that the bridge of the ''Enterprise''-D looked more like a Hilton Hotel lobby than a functional starship bridge.
*** It was originally ''worse''. The early artistic conceptions for the ''Enterprise''-D bridge would have no consoles or active controls at all, everything would be done by voice command to the computers, and the whole bridge was basically one long curved bench (to signify the non-hierarchical future mindset). With hanging plants and other casual touches. A remnant of that was the three command seats together at the center, and the 'coffee bar' look of the whole thing.

** The ''very worst'' offender is the [[Film/StarTrek 2009]] ContinuityReboot of the original series. [[http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/new_enterprise_comment.htm The new exterior design of the Enterprise is already a very loose variation of the original, but they redesigned the bridge so that you can't even recognize it as the original]] ''[[CoolStarship Enterprise]]'' bridge. [[RuleOfCool It's not necessarily a bad thing]], but those are some ''very'' BroadStrokes Abrams took.
** Averted with [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Klingon]] ships. When Worf's brother Kurn visited the Big E he said "This entire ship seems built on comfort, relaxation, being at ease. It is not the ship of a warrior -- not the ship of a Klingon."
*** We get to see what Klingon [=VIP=] quarters are like when Picard and Data get a lift from a Klingon ship to go look for Spock (who's on Romulus, so they need a cloaked ship to go there). It's all metal, including the bed. Which is a shelf that slides out of a wall. Data doesn't even call it a bed, just a shelf, when telling Picard he can have it. (Klingons don't view luxury as appropriate on warships.) The cabin is also fairly small, particularly when you consider how a TV set is usually sort of opened out from the way a real room would be.

** Played straight with the Alliance ships, which feature huge bridges with very high ceilings, and oddly spacious interrogations rooms. Creator/JossWhedon even [[WordOfGod mentioned]] in the DVDCommentary that the models of the Alliance ships were actually designed to look a little over sized and inefficient, to signal to the audience that the Alliance itself is a little, well, over sized and inefficient.

** The TARDIS itself, thanks to being BiggerOnTheInside, surely have the most impressive "ship floor space to number of occupants" ratio of any series ''ever''. There's enough space inside a TARDIS to house ''an entire literal star''! We know for sure it has a library, pool, bedrooms, closet with any clothing you can imagine, and the ship itself is capable of producing basically anything its occupants could ever need. We may only see the control room most of the time, but there's a lot of stuff in there. It's only appropriate for the ships produced at the height of the power of the [[JustForFun/AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit richest, most powerful civilization in the history of the universe]]. That is not a boast. It is simply a description of the real situation. Ironically, the Doctor's TARDIS, a Type 40, is considered a literal antique by his people. We never actually get a look at a truly cutting edge TARDIS.
* Averted in, of all places, the original ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}''. When they encountered the "Terrans", conditions inside the Eastern Alliance ships were very cramped and submarine-like. This was a convenient visual shorthand to convey that "Terran" spaceflight technology was comparatively primitive next to the large, roomy vessels of the Ragtag Fugitive Fleet.
** Averted too in its [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 re-imagined cousin]]. The only truly "open space" in the fleet is aboard the luxury liner Cloud Nine, which is equipped with a massive environmental dome. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Gina blew it up]]. Galactica is shown to have fairly large corridors, but this is justified by the size of her crew and the sheer size of Galactica itself. There was a graph comparing Galactica to the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WWII]] aircraft carrier USS ''Enterprise'', which wasn't even the size of one of Galactica's engine pods. The crew seem mostly to be quartered in barracks-style rooms, with rows of bunks in the walls surrounding a central table and some lockers on the far wall. A small number of crew (mostly families after the TimeSkip) have more private quarters, but even these are small one-room arrangements. The only one who has quarters with multiple rooms appear to be captains.

* Mostly averted in ''Series/StargateSG1'', where the Earth ships, being battlecruisers, are based on actual military ships, such as aircraft carriers, at least with the interiors. The space utilization is comparable to that of a battleship or carrier, although the fictional battlecruisers are possibly a bit more spacious. They were seemingly designed with the intention of having many rooms for different purposes -- such as ship systems, a mess hall, a small gym, storage rooms, armories, and brig -- rather than any big rooms. The crew and passenger quarters are about the size of an average mid-range hotel room.
** The alien ships on the other hand are generally more spacious (and larger). Exhibit a) Ha'taks. Exhibit b) Atlantis-class city ships.
*** The Atlanteans at least had the excuse that they were actually [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien sufficiently advanced]] and one step short of becoming [[PhysicalGod physical gods]] and were building these city-ships to, you know, live in.
*** And to the Goa'uld, the spacious nature of the Ha'tak motherships had a dual role: to carry large numbers of [[{{Mooks}} Jaffa]] troops and Death Gliders, and to reinforce their carefully cultivated image as [[AGodAmI gods]].
*** Exhibit c) Asgard ships. Even their smallest type, the ''Daniel Jackson''-class science vessel, is larger than a Ha'tak. All Asgard ships have a standard crew of a single [[TheGreys very small]] person.
*** Actually, Asgard ships are supposed to have a normal crew complement, but ''can'' run mostly on automatic, provided nothing breaks down. In "Nemesis", Thor mentions evacuating the crew before trying to scuttle the ship. The other times we see Asgard ships are Carter never leaving her room and only interacting with Thor and Loki stealing an Asgard ship to continue his experiments.
* If it weren't literally falling apart around their ears, the ''[[Series/StargateUniverse Destiny]]'' would have been quite luxurious. There are spectacular viewing decks and everyone gets his own room with a large bed, sheets and comfy duvet, which must have come with the ship, since no one is seen dragging a mattress through the gate during the evacuation of Icarus Base.
* [[Series/StargateAtlantis Atlantis]] is technically a spaceship. And a city, roughly the size of Manhattan with 150-200 square feet rooms having an internal height over 12 feet. But as mentioned above, city-ships like Atlantis were meant to be lived in ''permanently''. They were designed as cities first and ships second (to the point that they don't actually have airtight hulls; they need their [[DeflectorShields shields]] operational to fly through space), so comfort was of paramount importance.
* Partially justified by the ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' as she was built for a crew of thousands rather than the five or six who currently crew her. And the ballroom and dining hall are for hosting diplomatic functions.

** However, [[SequelGap 18 years later,]] (which translates to [[{{Continuity}} 80 years in-universe]]) the [[TheFederation Federation's]] Galaxy Class vessels (One of which is the [[CoolStarship Enterprise-D]] of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''), are more in line with luxury liners than military vessels. In fact, when [[TheEngineer Scotty]] from [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] visits the ''Enterprise''-D, he is stunned at the size of the guest room they put him in. The Ensign assigned to him initially misunderstands and offers to find him something even ''larger''. Mind you, the ''Enterprise''-D is the ''exception,'' rather than the rule, for Starfleet ships. One episode has the captain of a more typical ''Excelsior''-class starship [[LampshadeHanging describe the]] ''[[LampshadeHanging Enterprise]]'' [[LampshadeHanging as a "Flying Hotel".]]

* While not as bad as some of the other examples, ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' still managed to include a classic, Japanese-style tea room in the Arthra, one of the [[TheFederation Time-Space Administration Bureau's]] Dimensional Cruise Patrol Warships. The room even had TheThingThatGoesDoink

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. When the prison ship ''London'' first docks with the alien spacecraft that will become known as the ''Liberator'', it's so dwarfed by the alien vessel that StockFootage of the scene was reused for a later episode in the hope the audience wouldn't notice the tiny model ''London'' attached! The ''Liberator'''s facilities include a spacious flight deck with ArtificialIntelligence MasterComputer, a full-equipped surgical bay, an armory, teleport system, EscapePods, an UnlimitedWardrobe and a treasure room holding more wealth than you'd find in the entire Federation banking system (according to Avon). No reason for the latter is ever given.