Beyond the Future

Living on the Edge was our reality for a week. We sailed on the new Celebrity Edge December 16 – 23. There were many new features from infinite verandas, art installations, a Magic Carpet cantilevered over the side of the ship, a high tech theater, and a smartphone app to manage the door lock, room TV, and lights. As a Cruise Critic reviewer said,

“Celebrity Cruises set out to design its newest and most technologically advanced ship, Celebrity Edge, to make a statement. Not with titles — it’s not the largest, nor the most luxurious; it doesn’t have the most water slides or the biggest suite at sea. But it is one of the unique and appealing cruise ships we’ve seen in a decade and it was very much built to appeal to the contemporary traveler (note we didn’t say cruiser).” This review does a great job of summarizing the ship.

Our Eastern Caribbean cruise took us from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tortola, BVI, and Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. This was the Inaugural Cruise with the President/CEO of Celebrity Cruises on board for a few days. Since this was a new ship, I had many questions about the ship. Fortunately, someone established a Celebrity Edge Facebook book and posted photos and comments about the new ship so I had a sense of what we would see.

We enjoyed the ship, the food, and the high tech screen in the theater. The production shows were targeted to a younger demographic with music that I had never heard before. THEATER was “in the round” almost completely. Nice improvement. The projection panels across the back of the round stage both retracted to allow others to enter and acted as a huge screen which they used to advantage with some moving scenery. The shows were like they’ve always been, the performers tried and the audience was gracious. We watched Jewelry Box and it was a cross between Lion King and Narnia.

No more Motown Retro shows or a 50’s Rock and Roll Show.