Most cruise lines spend the summer trying to sell you a balcony. Virgin Voyages has decided to sell you the sky going dark.

Virgin just detailed the programming for its two Solar Eclipse Voyages this August, part of its "Marvelous Collection," and the pitch is exactly as extra as you'd hope. Both sailings will carry NASA astronauts, astrophysicists, commercial spaceflight founders, and science communicators, so you can watch totality standing next to people who've actually left the atmosphere.

Two ships, two routes

• Valiant Lady — Iceland & British Isles (Aug. 5–20): Portsmouth, Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast, Siglufjordur, Isafjordur, Reykjavik, Edinburgh, and back to Portsmouth.
• Scarlet Lady — Barcelona to Rome (Aug. 10–22): Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, Cannes, Ajaccio, Tuscany/Cinque Terre, the Amalfi Coast, Catania, and Rome.

Onboard, you get "Ask an Astronaut" Q&As with Virgin Galactic's Will Whitehorn, a solar physicist walking you through totality, and an eclipse photography masterclass on shooting the corona and the diamond-ring effect with your phone. When the big moment arrives, there are designated watch zones offering totality three ways: in total silence, set to a live musical score, or with real-time expert narration.

Virgin brand exec Nathan Rosenberg summed up the whole strategy with the subtlety of a foghorn: "Everyone else is selling cabins. We're selling the two minutes the sky goes dark over the ocean, next to the people who've actually been up there... You can't stream this. You can't scroll it."

He's not wrong, even if I'd normally deduct points for that much confidence. An eclipse over open water — no city lights, no traffic — is the kind of thing that ruins you for regular sunsets. Just remember the safety glasses, because "I stared directly at the sun on a Virgin cruise" is not the souvenir anyone wants.