With ultra-cutting edge technology Celebrity Edge is set to be a game changer for the cruise industry when it sets sail in late 2018. The new ship, currently being constructed for Celebrity at the STX France shipyard in Saint Nazaire, will boast features never seen before at sea and also a radical new design for the superstructure.
Celebrity Edge is being marketed as a way that people can be reconnected to the ocean. This will be the first ship to feature the new ‘Magic Carpet’ platform. This new hydraulic innovation will slide up and down the side of the ship between sea-level deck 2 and deck 14 to aid tendering and to provide a new eatery.
The ship will also boast the Resort Deck, which will include the main pool area, the new rooftop urban garden, a jogging track, and an adults-only Solarium. The resort deck pool area is set to be one of the centres of the ship boasting several oversized art installations including exclusive treetop sculptures; a pair of 2-storey hot tubs; a 25-yard lap pool and massive private Cabanas (165 sq. ft. by 18 ft. high). The rooftop garden will provide a venue for movies at ‘A Taste of Film’ events as well as a venue for live dance bands and dining at the rooftop garden grill.
Rooftop Garden
Celebrity Edge: New design
The most innovative part of Edge is its construction. The strength of the ship will no longer be focused on the external superstructure but will be concentrated on the spine of the ship running down its middle. Richard Fain, President & CEO of Celebrity’s parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd explained’: “If you think of a traditional cruise ship design as forming an exo-skeleton, with the strength of the ship on the outside… Edge reverses that concept, so the skeleton is on the inside with the spine of the ship down the middle supporting the whole body.”
But what does this mean? Celebrity has moved supporting steel from the exterior of the ship into the centre. This means much larger and seamless cabins, which incorporate the balconies. The size of the overall cabin is thus increased by some 23 percent. There will be no more balconies that stick out from the side of the ship and there will be much less steel to disguise in cabins. The horizontal balcony windows in a similar way to river boats will slide up and down at the touch of a button and there will be partition glass pocket doors to separate the cabin from the balcony if required. Also bathrooms, which are 10% bigger than usual will have windows that, at the touch of a button, frost over to become opaque.
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- Stateroom Cabin with Seamless Balcony
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- The Amazing Two-Storey Villa
The Magic Carpet on Celebrity Edge
The ‘Magic Carpet’ began as an attempt to improve tendering i.e., getting people on and off the ship. The concept has now become a giant multi-use sliding platform attached to the side of the ship. The size of a tennis court, the Magic Carpet rises from deck two (tender platform), to deck five to become a casual dining venue and finally to deck 14 to become an extension of the pool deck. This is set to be a great hit for passengers as a new sea-view restaurant and if it can also get passengers on and off the ship more efficiently in port it will be very useful. However, passengers will not be able to ‘ride’ the Magic Carpet while it’s repositioning between decks!
Celebrity Edge, along with its four future sister ships in the ‘Edge’ Class will have a passenger capacity of 2,918 at double occupancy. 1,305 cabins can accommodate 3 or 4 people.
Her Maiden Voyage is scheduled for December 2018, with week-long Eastern and Western Caribbean sailings from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
A fantastic video explaining the design of Celebrity Edge as well as showcasing some of the amazing innovations can be viewed here:
For more information about Celebrity Edge (we’ve only touched on a fraction of the features here), please visit Celebrity Cruises’ Edge page here.
