INTERNATIONAL. The Moodie Davitt Report is on location for the maiden voyage of Celebrity Beyond, the newest ship in Celebrity Cruises’ revolutionary Edge Series.
Celebrity Beyond embarked from Southampton UK on 25 April for a two-day taster sailing of the ship’s retail and food & beverage offer. Starboard Cruise Services manages the shops, designed as an ‘immersive lifestyle shopping experience’ and features several new luxury concepts and first-at-sea brands.
April 26
20:30 GMT
Starboard Cruise Services officially unveiled Richemont’s store in the ‘Luxury Avenue’ on Deck 5. The boutique is the company’s first luxury multi-brand watch boutique at sea, housing its Cartier, IWC and Panerai brands.
19:30 GMT
‘Stage Door’ one of Celebrity Cruises’ spectacular productions, wowed audiences at the Theatre on Decks 4 and 5. The show featured some of the greatest hits from Broadway and the West End. It is one of many spectacular shows, performances and activations available for guests onboard Celebrity Beyond.
18:00 GMT
Celebrity Cruises Managing Director Jo Rzymowska, together with photographer Giles Duley, officially unveiled the ‘All Inclusive Photo Project’ on the Deck 5 Art Gallery.
The project features the work of several world-renowned photographers. Its mission is to create the first open-source photo library for cruise marketing campaigns that feature different ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, plus-sized models and LGBTQI+ changemakers.
The project aims to change the face of cruise marketing campaigns to feature a diverse cast of real people. Some of the photographers featured include Annie Leibovitz, Jarrad Seng and Naima Green.
Some of the notable changemakers featured include British Paralympic athlete Amy Conroy, National & International Wheelchair Dance Champion Monique Dior Jarrett, American recording artist and activist John Forte and domestic violence advocate Esther Onekh.
15:00
British fashion house Stella McCartney made its cruise debut onboard Celebrity Beyond. The store offers the brand’s fashion, footwear handbag and sunglasses collections.
The official ribbon cutting ceremony was attended by Starboard Cruise Services President and CEO Lisa Bauer, Stella McCartney US President Ida Simonson, Captain Kate McCue and Celebrity Cruises CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo.
14:00
Starboard Cruise Services President and CEO Lisa Bauer and Celebrity Cruises Senior Vice President Hotel Operations Brian Abel officially cut the ribbon of the Bvlgari mono brand store on the Deck 5 ‘Luxury Avenue’ of Celebrity Beyond. The boutique offers Bvlgari’s fine jewellery, watches, accessories and bag lines.
Starboard Cruise Services took media on a tour exploring its retail offer onboard the ship. The tour started with the opening of the Bvlgari boutique, followed by a visit to Richemont’s presence, the company’s first luxury multi-brand watch boutique at sea. The Richemont boutique houses its Cartier, IWC and Panerai brands.
The tour continued at the Attraction destination merchandise multibrand store and the ‘Time is Now’ multibrand fine watches and timepieces boutique. Contemporary watch brand Norqain, Hublot, Ball, IWC and Bvlgari were some of the luxury watch brands featured in the store.
9:00 GMT
Celebrity Cruises CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, Celebrity Cruises Managing Director Jo Rzymowska and Captain Kate McCue led a press conference and highlighted how the gender equality onboard had improved markedly under Lutoff-Perlo’s leadership.
Captain McCue’s bridge is staffed by 70% women, a remarkable statistic considering that globally, only 2% of mariners are women. Captain McCue is the first woman to take a new ship out of the shipyard in the world.
Lutoff-Perlo said: “Gender equality is important. Since taking over in 2014, I’ve tried to redress this balance. When I joined Celebrity Cruises, we had 5% women in our bridges, today that figure is 32%. To go from 5% to 32% that’s the easy bit, it’s the next percentage to get that full 50/50 balance that will be the hardest step. We are making progress every day and we recruit talent from all over the world regardless or race or gender.”
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Offering her views on the diversity onboard Celebrity Beyond, Captain McCue said: “We may not have crazy slides but what we do have are incredible crew members. Our crew comes from 72 different nationalities and each one brings something so special. While the ship is amazing, it really didn’t come to life until our crew members walked onboard. They brought their heart their soul and I hope you have the opportunity to meet them.”
Offering a regional view, Rzymowska said: “Last year we had an incredibly successful season sailing around the UK, with 40% of passengers new to Celebrity Cruises. In some ways, the pandemic offered a great recruitment opportunity for us. The cruise industry often works in a very insular way and so we are focused on working with travel partners who truly understand us and what we are about.”
Giving her outlook on the future and the wider recovery of the cruise industry, Lutoff-Perlo said: “We made a pact that we’re only looking through the windshield and not the rear view mirror. If we don’t, then we won’t keep moving forward. I rarely fly on a plane that isn’t full right now. The world and people in general are in a tipping point where COVID is in the rear view mirror and they want to get back to the way life is supposed to be. We see that taking shape and impacting our business in 2022 and 2023 – and our outlook is very positive.”
April 25
20:30 GMT
Starboard Cruise Services officially unveiled Mankind, a multi-brand menswear boutique concept that features a curated selection of men’s fashion, accessories, writing instruments and personal care products. Montblanc, Fulton & Roark, Alan Paine and What Goes Around Comes Around are some of the brands featured.
18:30 GMT
Starboard Cruise Services President and CEO Lisa Bauer and Summersalt Founder Emily Jackson officially cut the ribbon of the sustainable fashion brand’s store onboard Celebrity Beyond. Fashion-inclusive brand Summersalt offers ethically-made resort wear for a wide range of sizes. The store is Summersalt’s first physical point of sale outside of its website globally.
The multi-brand fashion and beauty store also offers lifestyle sustainable Spanish footwear brand Respoke, which uses repurposed silk scarves to create colourful shoes and Astenseda which offers Spanish silk scarves decorated with vibrant hand-painted designs.
Italian brand The Bridge, French jewellery brand Gas Bijoux and Greek natural brand Rizes Crete are other notable brand highlights.
Lifestyle brand 4Ocean is also available onboard Celebrity Beyond. The brand donates a portion of sales to support beach and ocean clean-up initiatives globally. 4Ocean, which is exclusively available with Starboard, has already cleaned up 25,000 pounds of plastic waste from global waterways.
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17:30 GMT
Sunset drinks have kicked off on the Sunset Bar as Celebrity Beyond officially sets sail. Celebrity Cruises CEO Lisa Lutoff-Perlo christened the ship on its maiden voyage.
She said: “Never in my 30-year career did I think we could go further with ship design, but we have with this ship. We originally named the first two ships in the series as Edge and Beyond, but decided to save ‘Beyond’ for this ship and rename the second ship as Apex, because this ship has simply gone beyond our imagination. This ship is amazing and has proven that hope indeed floats.”
Speaking on the pillars that inform Celebrity Beyond, Lutoff-Perlo said: “This ship is all about relaxed luxury, it’s not pretentious nor stuffy and is very approachable. Our aim is to offer incredible culinary destinations, elegant accommodations, amazing design with wellness woven in.
“I want my legacy for people to stop saying ‘cruising is not for me’, because you can’t come onto this ship and say cruising isn’t for me.”
12:00 GMT
Designed by acclaimed British designer Kelly Hoppen CBE, Celebrity Beyond features an innovative outward-facing concept that blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor spaces. The ship’s extended length allows for more outdoor spaces including the two-story Sunset Bar designed by American celebrity interior designer Nate Berkus, the Rooftop Garden (also designed by Hoppen) alongside a new Sundeck for The Retreat, which is the level that houses the ship’s incredible suites. Celebrity Beyond is manned by 1,400 crew members from 72 nationalities and can service 3260 passengers.
11:00 GMT
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Led by Captain Kate McCue, Celebrity Beyond is ready to set sail from Southampton for a two-day taster voyage immersing media in the luxury world onboard Celebrity Cruise’s newest star. Celebrity Beyond was meant to be launched in fall 2021 but was delayed due to COVID-19 complications. It is the third ship in the Edge series, following Celebrity Edge and Celebrity Apex.
