By JEN SAVEDRA
One of the first thing one notices on approaching the new Celebrity Edge is a massive 90-ton bright orange contraption off the starboard side. This is the Magic Carpet, a cantilevered platform which moves up and down from Deck 2 to 16 offering unique venues at each stop.
The ship offers attractions for everyone. The Grand Plaza with its restaurants and bars, and a three-story chandelier is an interesting and multi-dimensional space that’s a natural gathering spot at any hour of the day or night.
Also spanning three decks is Eden, a signature space that’s great for a quiet morning escape, for enjoying a meal or a drink, or being entertained. It also offers more outward facing glass than any other venue at sea. Eden is a little of everything: a sensory structure that embraces both nature, art and entertainment.
The 22,000 square foot spa was also inspired by nature and continues that theme in its programme SEA – inspired by sea, earth and air.
For me absolutely the best thing about the Edge are the staterooms with their Infinite Verandahs which provide a regular stateroom with about 20 per cent more living space, more light and a fabulous view. The French doors leading to the balcony can remain open and the upper half of a glass wall/window lowers at the touch of a button. Whether up or down your view of the ocean is unsurpassed. It also gives the ship a sleek look when viewed from outside.
Edge has more than doubled the number of suites and added two new categories. Two Iconic Suites are almost 2,600 square feet and feature two-bedrooms, two baths and windows with a panorama that’s similar to the view from the ship’s bridge, that’s a deck below. The six split-level Edge Villas offer amazing views, private plunge pools and direct access to the Retreat Sundeck.
Celebrity president and CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo says that when designing the Edge, the cruise line wanted to make people “comfortable yet inspired” and “to transform not just a brand – but the industry!” The project, she says, has “far exceeded our expectation.” And certainly we can attest to the fact that the Edge has, unquestionably, a serious WOW factor.
The Edge of the future
The Edge has been described as what cruising is for the future, says Lutoff-Perlo, “We are in a very specific segment of the market – modern luxury. Our intention was to solidify that position and give it more definition about what modern luxury looks like in the future. We do a lot of research and spend a lot of time thinking about what luxury will look like a few years from now.”
Royal Caribbean chairman and CEO Richard Fain elaborated, “I think part of the strength of our business and frankly part of the strength of the industry is that it is not a one size fits all, it is that we have maintained our differentiation and each brand stands for a certain type of cruising. And I think the success of the industry is that most of us don’t want to be clones of each other and I don’t think we should be.”
The Edge he said, is a distinctive ship, just as the crew are distinctive, the entertainment and food are distinctive, as is the art.
“Part of the reason the industry continues to do so well and part of the reason our company has done so well, is that we have offered highly individualized, highly brand specific characteristics, and so we’re not one-size-fits-all and I think that’s a good thing,” said Fain.
Coming to the rest of the fleet
At Edge’s naming ceremony in December, 2018, Lutoff-Perlo gave credit to the designers and also noted that, “Our existing fleet brought a tremendous amount of inspiration and experiences to Celebrity Edge. And another way we’re bringing Celebrity cruising into the future is with this project. We determined again with Richard (Fain) and the board’s support that we would invest over $500-million on the rest of the fleet to bring a lot of these design elements to all of the ships of the Celebrity fleet, and that way the fleet is extremely symbiotic, synergistic, and all of the ships will look and feel the same way.”
Diversity and inclusion
And Celebrity is not just paying lip-service to the notion of gender diversity and inclusion, as represented by the crew from more than 70 countries, Lutoff-Perlo said.
Celebrity has just hired its third woman captain, and on the hotel side, there are five women hotel directors, she says, many in senior leadership roles across the fleet.“Thirty percent of the crew on Celebrity Edge are women, and 37 percent of guest-facing crew are women on the ship, so there is a concerted effort looking and working with our hiring partners around the world and our human resources team to find women.
“And the first thing we do is we bring them in and then we make sure that we find ways to develop, and promote, and empower all of our crew, but we’ve just made sure that now women are a part of them. And now that we have all of this growth coming, it gives us even more opportunity to recruit and advance more women on our ship, so we’re all very excited about that. It takes a village and we’re all very committed and it’s purposeful.
The Inspiring Malala
At its naming ceremony, 21-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai did the honours as godmother to the ship. And if one wondered briefly at this perhaps surprising combination of commercialism and inspiration, it was only brief.
Celebrity, as it turns out, is a sponsor of the Global Girls Alliance, of which the Malala fund is part. The ship naming was a culmination of a two-year partnership, said Lutoff-Perlo, but discussions are underway on how to continue that into the future.
“I think it’s fair to say that our plan is to continue to support the mission of educating young girls around the world.”
In order to get Malala to agree to being Godmother, Lutoff-Perlo said, “we gave it everything that we could because it’s the passion that every single person had, including myself, that convinced her and her team that we were the right brand to work with. She was also sent a video of women crew from many nations imploring her, in many languages: ‘Please say yes! It brought me a tremendous amount of joy because she’s so good, and what she stands for is so good, and the crowd viscerally reacted to that.”
Malala spoke briefly and simply, noting that while the world sits back and relies on activists to make changes – there is much that needs changing – laws, cultures, countries and companies.“I’m proud to dedicate my life to fighting for girls’ education,” she said, commending Celebrity Cruises in its partnership with the Malala Fund to driving change. As it travels the world, she said, she hoped Celebrity Edge would inspire people to action.
“I name this ship Celebrity Edge. Bless her and all who sail in her,” she concluded, signing her name on a tablet that triggered the release of a giant bottle of sparkling water (rather than the traditional Champagne) to break against the hull outside, as giant ‘confetti’ printed with inspirational sayings by Malala fell on the wildly applauding audience in the auditorium.
Passion and pride
Fain also said he was emotional about the success of the ship and the team that created it. “It’s really very gratifying to me to see the pride, to see the reaction from others in all the work that the team here did. I think the one characteristic that distinguishes our company really is passion. And so, if I drop the facade a little more than I should, I apologize, but yeah, this is a very good time.”
Jen Savedra is founder, writer and Editor of Travel Industry Today
