(Note: due to the omicron situation, Royal Caribbean ships have temporarily re-imposed a mask mandate for indoor spaces on cruises).
What a revelation it was to discover that once we get on board Celebrity Apex, we‘re safe to take off our masks. And we do. You can see peoples’ smiles again, people are hugging and even shaking hands. Amazing! And what a relief.
It’s the start of what Celebrity Cruises is confident is the start of the new normal of cruising a full year and a half since the lockdown that anchored all the cruise fleets. Here’s why it’s finally happening:
1) Fully vaccinated
All Celebrity guests and crew need to be fully vaccinated at least 14 days in advance to be able to get on board—no exceptions. Vaccination certificates as well as your passport information can be instantly scanned onto an app to get your boarding pass. No more smile for the pinhole camera for a boarding photo after a long flight, either. You take your own selfie at home, which means you can retry as many times as you like to strike just the right pose.
2) Pre-approved
You do need to present proof of a negative antigen or PCR test taken no more than 48 hours before the cruise. With that in hand, getting on board is quick and virtually seamless. You make an appointment to arrive at a specific time, which eliminates lineups at the terminal. Just show your test result and boarding pass either on paper or your smart phone and you’re free to board the ship and head straight to your room, where the key card is waiting.
3) Loosen up
Once on board, we’re in a safe space. No masks are required for guests, but crew still wear them for an extra dose of caution. Celebrity has also added extra layers of filtering to the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems on all its ships and claims “you can breathe easy knowing the robust system’s layers of protection make the transmission of aerosol particles between spaces extremely low to virtually impossible.”
4) Beam me up
The touch-free controls on this ship can seem straight out of Star Trek. You won’t have to touch anything anyone has touched before you . The door to your stateroom unlocks by just hovering your ship card over a sensor. Doors in public areas and washrooms open with a wave of the hand. And edges of arriving elevators light up either green or red to indicate whether they’re going up or down.
5) Full service everywhere
No need to lift a finger or a suspect serving spoon. Even at the multitude of “action stations” in the Oceanview Café everything is served on your plate by crew as you pick and choose.
6) Sanitizing made easy
Automated Purell stations are everywhere and handwashing stations feature soap dispensers and water taps that are sonar activated and to dry hands, a paper towel descends automatically.
Looking forward, not back
“The day we come back is here,” said Celebrity Cruises President and CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo at the naming ceremony for Celebrity Apex in Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 2. “It’s been 19 months of perseverance, hope and belief. Today is a day of utter joy. Isn’t it time?”
Indeed, Celebrity Apex’s christening was originally scheduled for March, 2020, but we all know what happened then. Fresh from the shipyard, the luxurious ship had to sit at anchor and wasn’t able to start doing a few introductory cruises until the summer of 2021. But now, 581 days after launch, the naming could finally happen.
The ceremony featured an explosion of the biggest bottle of Champagne ever produced—called a Sovereign–on the hull of the new Celebrity Apex along with an avalanche of confetti.
The ceremony was a marvel even for the remarkable godmother of Celebrity Apex, Reshma Saujani, who has spent more than a decade creating her own dramatic splashes. She’s built movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerments, working to close the gender gap in the pandemic. Her remarkable career includes a law degree from Yale, a run for U.S. congress and founding of Girls Who Code, which has taught 300,000 girls through direct in-person computer science education programs.
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