Inside Celestia: Seventeen Crew for Fourteen Guests

Each January since 2024, the gift bag handed to Golden Globes winners and presenters, assembled by Robb Report, has contained something unusual between the rare wine and the villa stays: a five-day private charter aboard Celestia, a hand-built Indonesian sailing yacht. The Hollywood Reporter called the 2024 edition possibly the most expensive official awards-show bag ever assembled, and by 2025 the bag's value had doubled to a million dollars. Some of its gifts go to a lucky few or run first come, first served. The week aboard Celestia is offered to every recipient, and three ceremonies later she is still in it. The question is why, and the answer is on board.

Seventeen Crew, Fourteen Guests

Celestia sails with seventeen crew for a maximum of fourteen guests, led by a cruise director who builds each itinerary around the group. The siblings who own her, Jasmine Chong and Jason Tabalujan, hired every one of them personally and treat them like family, and it shows in the service. Nobody waits around: when the divers go down, a crew member takes everyone else to an island picnic, a beach game or a paddle. One American family wrote that the crew helped them celebrate a birthday and an anniversary in the same week and ended up feeling like relatives.

The Rest of the Day

A Celestia day has a shape. It starts on one of her three terraces at sunrise, runs through a Nitrox dive mid-morning, puts the sails up for the passage after lunch when the wind allows, and ends ashore as often as not, with dinner on an uninhabited beach. Between those fixed points sit the toys: crystal-bottom kayaks, paddleboards, water skis, a wakeboard, an underwater scooter and two speedboats launched from the rooftop deck. Three one-hour massages a day are part of the rate, shared among the guests.

One Travel Age West reviewer's group relaxed on Komodo's pink sand, hiked Padar for sunset and docked at a private island for a friend's birthday dinner, all arranged by the crew without being asked twice. The ship holds her standards ashore too: no single-use plastics, reef-safe toiletries, and guests are welcome to join the crew's beach clean-ups.

The Galley Is the Second Engine

The galley belongs to executive chef Wayan Kresna Yasa, Michelin-trained and formerly of Home restaurant in Bali, and about ninety percent of what he serves comes from the Indonesian islands themselves. Sambals are matched to individual dishes the way sommeliers match wine. The house drink is Pak Herry's jahe, a ginger infusion named for one of her original boatbuilders, who stayed on as crew. After a night dive there is hot chocolate waiting.

Built for Whole Families

Her layout explains her bookings. The main-deck master, with panoramic windows on three sides and a private terrace, was conceived for the siblings' parents. The two identical owner's suites on the upper deck, each with its own terrace, were designed for the siblings themselves. Four further cabins take the count to seven ensuite staterooms for fourteen, which is why her most devoted repeat guests tend to be multigenerational families and trios of couples who each want a proper suite.

Where She Takes Them

She winters in Raja Ampat from November to March, summers in Komodo from April to October, and crosses the Banda Sea each April and October under sail when the wind allows. Jason's favorite piece of history sails with her: Manhattan was once traded, one for one, for a nutmeg island in that sea. Guests hike Padar for sunset, swim the reefs of the Coral Triangle, and anchor at islands whose only other visitors are seabirds.

The Name Is an Instruction

Celestia means heavenly, and the name looks up, not down. Most guests arrive thinking about reefs. Then comes an evening on the foredeck daybed, flat on their backs under the rig. “One of my favourite experiences on the boat is to just look up,” Jasmine told The Straits Times. In cities we spend our lives looking down at screens and pavements. Her yacht is built, named and crewed to reverse the habit: stargazing dinners on the rooftop deck, custom daybeds pointed at the sky, hot drinks after dark.

It works on professionals too. Boat International opened its profile of her owners at anchor off northern Sumbawa, under the Milky Way, with bioluminescence flaring in the water below and a squid, minnows and a banded sea snake passing through the glow. Stars above, stars below, and a wooden ship between them.

The Verdict That Matters

The citations are easy to list: Robb Report called her Indonesia's most luxurious new yacht in 2023, TIME put her among the World's Greatest Places in 2025, and the gift bag keeps coming back. But awards are other people's words. The reason she holds her place is simpler: a ship that makes guests feel like family, in waters that make everyone feel small in the best way, with a crew that never lets either feeling fade.

Her story continues in the story of how she was built.

Celestia is available for private charter through Indo Yachts. Her yacht page has her cabins, seasons and itineraries.