Celebrity Xcel is being built at the Chantiers d'Atlantique shipyard in St Nazaire, France. Celebrity Xcel will be Celebrity Cruises’ fifth Edge-class vessel, launching in November 2025.
The ship is a successor to Celebrity Edge and the ships that came after it – Celebrity Apex, Celebrity Beyond and Celebrity Ascent. The 3,260-passenger ship will be based in Fort Lauderdale, offering alternate seven-night Caribbean itineraries.
Celebrity Cruises laid the keel of the new ship at the shipyard June 13, 2024.
The Bazaar festivals will focus on offering local foods, providing hands-on workshops on things like batik creation or leather hat work, bringing to life local entertainment and more.
Spice, a casual eatery, will replace the Eden Cafe, and Mosaic will replace the Eden Restaurant. A specialty restaurant, Mosaic will offer upscale takes on traditional Caribbean dishes.
A Chef’s Studio cooking class will be offered, where guests can learn to create traditional Caribbean dishes, like a spiced banana rum cake from Jamaica.
The space will also offer a Chef’s Table concept, where the ship’s culinary team creates a multicourse menu that highlights their favorite childhood dishes. Each course will feature a different cuisine style from a different chef.
Many of the details still are being worked out, and other new surprises could be on the horizon.
At the keel-laying ceremony in June 2024, Celebrity Cruises’ President Laura Hodges Bethge hinted at major changes, saying, “True to her name, this next ship will ‘Xcel’ beyond her sister ships with entirely new experiences, yet to be revealed, but that will change the game all over again.”
Celebrity Xcel will have many of the same features and spaces as its fleetmates, including suites-only space, The Retreat; a top-deck Rooftop Garden and Resort Deck (main pool deck); the Magic Carpet, a tangerine-colored, cantilevered platform at the side of the ship, which doubles as a restaurant and tender space.
Celebrity Xcel will also have a multilevel, multi-terraced Sunset Bar redefining the ship’s aft; and a Daniel Boulud fine-dining restaurant, Le Voyage.
The ship will also likely include some of the new entertainment being pioneered on Celebrity Ascent, which includes new shows in the main theater and interactive shows around the ship.
Celebrity Xcel will also feature the cabin type pioneered on Celebrity Edge, Infinite Balcony Cabins, which do not have a balcony door, but rather a picture window that goes up and down at the touch of the button.
Celebrity Xcel will enter service in 2025, and the maiden voyage will be a seven-night Caribbean itinerary departing from Fort Lauderdale in November.
Celebrity Xcel will offer two alternating itineraries to the Bahamas, Mexico and the Cayman Islands, and Puerto Plata, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. The sailings are open for sale.
Celebrity Xcel will be 140,600 gross registered tons and 1,073 feet long and carry 3,260 passengers at double occupancy. It is being built at the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in St-Nazaire, France. The first steel was cut November 7, 2023.