Celebrity Cruises accepted delivery of Celebrity Edge, its first new ship in six years Wednesday, at a ceremony at the Chantiers de l’Atlantique (STC France) shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France.
The ceremony was held following the ship’s sea trials, which it passed with flying colours.
Celebrity Edge on her sea trials.
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“The Celebrity team has done an outstanding job and I cannot thank the Chantiers de l’Atlantique team enough for delivering this game-changing ship and for their ongoing partnership,” said Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO of Celebrity’s parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises.
“Their work continues to transform the way our guests experience the world,” he added, alluding to the ship’s new innovations such as the much-hyped ‘Magic Carpet’ restaurant that moves up and down on the ship’s starboard side.
Other new features include “Infinite Verandah” cabins that can be either an outdoor space or provide more room indoors with the touch of a button, six new restaurants never before offered by Celebrity Cruises, and the largest spa in the Celebrity fleet.
Rachel May Arnold, third officer aboard Celebrity Edge, posted from Instagram during the day.
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The 2,900-passenger Celebrity Edge will depart Saint-Nazaire for Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades on November 6th, from where it will operate roundtrip cruises to the Eastern and Western Caribbean.
The first cruise is scheduled to depart December 9th, following naming ceremonies and other festivities.
Celebrity Edge is the first new ship for the cruise line in six years, but will be quickly followed by three sister ships, the second of which, Celebrity Apex, will debut in Southampton and cruise to the Mediterranean initially.
The Magic Carpet dining experience that will debut aboard Celebrity Edge.
Celebrity Edge will also cruise in the Mediterranean following her maiden cruise season in the Caribbean. She’ll homeport in Barcelona and Rome through the summer of 2019.
The Edge-class cruise ships are larger than Celebrity’s Millenium-class ships (one of which, Constellation, homeports seasonally in the Arabian Gulf), and are a few thousand gross tons larger than the Solstice-class, making them the largest ships in the Celebrity fleet.
Celebrity Edge cost around US $900-million to build and will have a passenger capacity of 2,918 at double occupancy. Her sister ship, Celebrity Apex, will be delivered in 2020, with the last two in the class due to be launched in 2021 and 2022.
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