CELEBRITY APEX
Returning favorite Café al Bacio
FEATURE
Sharper Edge
Celebrity Apex hones the highly successful Celebrity Edge, as Anne Kalosh reports.
C
elebrity Edge is a tough act to follow but the second ship in the series, Celebrity Apex, brings new entertainment, menus and spa/wellness programs that should be very well-received.
As Celebrity Cruises builds ships, ‘We make a lot of changes along the way. We do it because we want it perfect,’ says Lisa Lutoff - Perlo, president and ceo.
‘With the second ship in a series, you take what you started and perfect it,’ adds Harri Kulovaara, evp maritime for Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., while noting the company has been exceptionally happy with Edge.
‘There was a lot of novelty, like the infi nite veranda staterooms that required a tremendous amount of work, and other things that were not so visible. All of that has worked really well. There hasn’t been a huge need to do major changes. We have just tweaked Apex.’
For example, additional canopies and windscreens make the Rooftop Garden more comfortable.
While Apex and Edge share virtually identical designs and décor, the newer ship’s novelty is in the hotel product, with entertainment being the biggest change. New vp entertainment Lisa Lehr transformed the shows and activities.
The Theatre has three new productions, along with an arsenal of technology to make the performances more immersive and exciting. For example, 23ft-tall, 4K LED screens curve around the stage, and a 28ft-high circular scrim and eight Panasonic
seatrade-cruise.com
20K laser projectors for projection mapping create a 360-degree wrap-around picture.
The new productions include ‘Crystalize,’ which Lehr calls ‘our eye-candy tech show,’ with lasers, aerial acrobats and an underwater ballet sequence made possible by that scrim and the projectors. ‘Tree of Life’ revolves around a 20ft-tall ‘tree’ with more than 3,000 LED leaves. And ‘Rockumentary’ stars classic rock moments and lets passengers decide the fi nale by voting in advance on the Celebrity app.
The Club has a new cabaret-style production, ‘Caravan,’ with fresh takes on classic circus acts. Daytime activities range from DJ classes to archery competitions to karaoke with a live band.
Eden, the triple-deck, glass-walled lounge at the back of the ship, has a new theme each day, with daytime activities that carry through to the interactive nighttime entertainment.
When it comes to dining, Cornelius Gallagher, vp food and beverage, continues to innovate.
He revamped Eden’s menu with dishes discovered on his own travels. Everything is based on fl avor and local sourcing. For example, when the ship is on the Costa Brava, fresh-caught carabiniero prawns may be featured.
Gallagher also came up with new signature dishes for the four main dining rooms and upgraded the proteins in the popular Fine Cut Steakhouse.
A larger galley enables expanded off erings in Raw on 5, the seafood specialty spot,
Cornelius Gallagher
and the Magic Carpet, the movable, cantilevered platform that is the hallmark of the Edge series.
In Le Grand Bistro, a new storyline was developed for the 3-D tabletop animation, Le Petit Chef. And new items like grilled branzino are found at the Rooftop Garden Grill.
The Craft Social Bar, introduced on Celebrity Equinox, is aboard Apex, too. It off ers draft cocktails, wines on tap and more than 50 craft beers served by a certifi ed cicerone.
In Celebrity’s new collaboration with OneSpaWorld, the Kelly Hoppen-designed spa gained new treatments for a total of more than 120, including an Iyashi Dôme, the original Japanese infrared sauna. A new Destination Wellness program incorporates ingredients from places the ship visits.
F45, the fi tness craze popularised by actor Mark Wahlberg, involves 45-minute team sessions with cardiovascular, strength and interval training. And a new Women in Wellness program highlights practices by noted infl uencers like Ruth Zukerman, co- founder of Soul Cycle and Flywheel Sports.
Seatrade Cruise Review 61
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228
