Bumper Top End cruise season forecast as Celebrity Edge welcomed for maiden voyage to Australia
A record cruise season is predicted for the Top End, as Celebrity Edge’s first time in Australia saw thousands exploring Darwin over the weekend. See the pics from inside the billion-dollar ship.
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Luxury cruise ship Celebrity Edge arrived in Darwin Saturday morning on its maiden voyage to Australia, part of what is expected to be the Top End’s largest ever cruise season.
Thousands of the 2809 passengers and 1288 crew on board the billion-dollar ship disembarked to explore the city and surrounds before departing Saturday evening.
In total 103 cruise and expedition ships are expected to visit Darwin throughout the 2023-2024 season, with a total passenger capacity of 60,000 people contributing an estimated $65m to the local economy.
Celebrity Edge, one of the most luxurious large vessels in the Celebrity Cruises fleet, arrived from Singapore en route to Sydney, where it will dock next week for its first Australia-New Zealand cruise offerings.
Tourism Minister Joel Bowden was welcomed on board for a traditional plaque exchange to mark the ship’s arrival Down Under.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Celebrity Edge passengers to the Territory, and sure they enjoyed some of our very best tourism experiences while docked here in Darwin,” he said.
“Cruise tourism is a huge economic contributor to our tourism industry and provides a welcome boost to local tour operators, retailers and the hospitality industry.
“What’s nice is we’re getting ships in what is not normally a high peak for us, there’ll be about 45,000 passengers disembarking into the Top End during that lower season from October to April.”
Celebrity Edge is not scheduled to return to the Top End, but Celebrity Cruises Vice President Tim Jones said the company would be looking at guest feedback from the brief stop when developing future itineraries.
“What will be really exciting for us is to look at the guest feedback after today and see how they rate the experience, which I know is going to be positive … and then we can look at if we come around more often on some of our Australian itineraries perhaps in the future,” he said.
He said after three years of planning, “last night felt a little bit like Christmas Eve for our first arrival” in Australia.
While another wave of Covid cases is being felt across the country, Mr Jones said the pandemic was “not a concern” for cruise operations.
“We’ve been operating globally since June 2021 and we work really closely with local health authorities, follow all the stringent protocols that we have to prevent any of that sort of thing from happening.”
Aboard the cruise ship guests have access to multiple pools, a movie theatre, dozens of restaurants, original Picasso’s among the extensive art display, luxury shopping, and the “magic carpet” – a glass sheltered movable platform suspended from the side of the vessel.
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