A moving deck is just one eye-popping feature on the world’s most advanced cruise ship

It’s cruising season in Australia, which means dozens of the world’s most impressive ships will be dropping anchor off our shores this summer. The enthusiasm that Australians have for cruising is no drop in the ocean: last year, more than 1.32 million Aussies took a cruise, making us the fourth-largest passenger source market in the world.

Still think cruising’s not for you? Celebrity Cruises is on a mission to change minds – and it’s working. Staterooms on Celebrity Edge, a ship based in Sydney until April 2026, have been snapped up in record time for voyages to New Zealand, the South Pacific and Queensland. Then, later this month, Celebrity Xcel will debut as the fifth and most advanced ship in the line’s Edge series, featuring innovative design, entertainment and dining.

Celebrity Edge will homeport in Sydney over summer.

Are we there yet? Who cares!
Here’s the thing: ships are becoming destinations in their own right. In August, during a hard-hat tour of Celebrity Xcel, then still under construction at Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, it was fascinating to see how the line between the ship and the places it will visit was becoming more blurred than ever before.

With capacity for 3260 passengers, Celebrity Xcel will be homeported in Florida until April 2026, offering voyages to Mexico and islands in the Caribbean. After that, the ship will reposition to Europe for a northern summer season in the Mediterranean.

At The Bazaar, a multi-level, multi-sensory venue on Celebrity Xcel, guests will be invited to celebrate three destination-based festivals per seven-night cruise. On Caribbean sailings, expect rum drinks, lots of seafood, Carnival dancers and the spirited sounds of the Dominican Republic.

Authentic music, locally sourced market wares for sale, food tastings, traditional craft instruction and cooking classes will connect with the ports in an entirely new way. Bad weather in Cozumel? No problem. Enjoy the Viva Festival onboard, celebrating Mexico’s traditions with tequila-based cocktails, live music, zesty bites and souvenir shopping.

Taking shipboard sensory immersion to a new level, access to The Bazaar will be via a scent tunnel, spritzing a changing roster of destination-themed aromas to match the ship’s itinerary. If the ship is in the Bahamas, for example, guests can breathe in a fresh, salty replica of the ocean’s scent. The tunnel will also feature scenes and sounds of destinations on LED screens.

A track record of innovation
When Celebrity Cruises launched the first of its Edge-class vessels, Celebrity Edge, in 2018, it was hailed as a revolutionary blueprint for future cruise ships. Designed almost entirely using 3D-VR technology, Celebrity Edge created ripples of excitement in the cruise world by pioneering, among other things, an innovative outward-facing design. By replacing the ship’s traditional load-bearing steel exoskeleton with an internal endoskeleton design, it was possible to create more expansive, light-filled public spaces and install floor-to-ceiling glass windows for a more enhanced connection to the ocean.

Guests could feel closer to the water’s edge than ever before, due to engineering advances such as the tangerine Magic Carpet, a cantilevered deck designed to move between horizontal positions. The 90-ton, tennis court-sized venue glides up and down one side of the ship’s exterior, transforming from tender embarkation station to alfresco lounge, bar and dining area throughout the day. Spectacular, unobstructed views are afforded, thanks to the deck’s location, design and discreet balustrades.

Three more ships have joined the Edge series over the past seven years – Celebrity Apex, Celebrity Beyond and Celebrity Ascent – all of them featuring the Magic Carpet. Recently, onboard Celebrity Ascent, I soaked up sunny views of Mallorca from an oversized lounge chair on the Magic Carpet, Aperol spritz in hand. From my vantage point on Deck 14, it seemed I could almost reach out and get my hands wet in the denim-blue Mediterranean Sea.

Enjoy open views on the Magic Carpet deck.

Continuing to evolve
Transformational design often makes us wonder why nobody thought of it sooner, and so it is with signature features that are now standard on Celebrity Cruises’ new Edge series ships. When guests embark on Celebrity Xcel, many will stay in sleek staterooms with infinite verandas: floor-to-ceiling windows that replace traditional balconies. With the touch of a button, the window’s upper pane lowers to let in fresh air, and transforms the entire stateroom into an airy balcony (or not, on rainy days, when the window stays closed and guests can enjoy a more spacious stateroom).

The Retreat also returns on Celebrity Xcel, an exclusive ship-within-a-ship concept, where privileged guests can enjoy private dining in Luminae restaurant and a pool deck area reserved solely for Retreat keycard-holders.

Brand loyalists will notice other familiar attractions, including a high-energy atrium bar, where skilled bartenders put on bottle-juggling, cocktail-mixing shows on ice countertops to the delight of patrons, and the adults-only Solarium, a shaded pool zone decked out with comfortable loungers. Museum-quality art sculptures (still under wraps during my shipyard tour) will elevate public spaces, and hot tubs in the shape of two-storey martini glasses will be the place to marinate all your cares away.

But Xcel is no carbon copy of other Edge series ships. Celebrity Cruises’ president, Laura Hodges Bethge, promises that the ship’s seven new spaces and multi-sensory experiences will “xcel” and change the cruising game.

New alfresco brunch restaurant, Bora, has the most over-the-top Bloody Mary bar I’ve ever seen, transforming into a moonlit Mediterranean restaurant at night. The spa will get a much-needed thalassotherapy pool and waterfall feature, a “wet” space for relaxation that had been requested by many past guests. A blowout, grown-up pool party, Poolest Day Ever, will cap off every sailing, and a club retreat with amusements for adults will be home to a high-tech golf simulator, billiards and retro arcade games that I predict Gen X guests will love.

Cruisers can look forward to new theatre and club shows, candlelit concerts, boot-scooting country music dance parties and thrilling performances by Celebrity’s largest cast ever of acrobats, parkour experts, singers and dancers.

How will future ships exceed the highs of Xcel? Details are tightly under lock and key, but you can bet the creative minds at Celebrity Cruises are already working on it. A sixth Edge series ship, Celebrity Xcite, is scheduled for delivery in 2028.

The writer travelled as a guest of Celebrity Cruises.

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