Like other major cruise lines, Celebrity Cruises maintains a fleet of ships that travel all over the world. In a previous article about Celebrity Cruises, we covered some of the general features of all Celebrity Cruises, like the activities and amenities featured on-board. In the present article, we focus on the vessels that compose the Celebrity Cruise fleet.
To begin, the current fleet of Celebrity Cruises is composed of nine ships, all of which have a name that begins with “Celebrity.” All the ships also have the signature “X” on their funnel, which is the Greek letter chi.
The nine ships are broken into four different classes, which is a classification scheme utilized by most cruise lines. The four classes are the Century class, Millennium class, Xpedition class, and Solstice class.
The Century class is composed of only one ship, Celebrity Century. This ship entered the service of Celebrity Cruises in 1995, making it the oldest of the vessels currently operating. Celebrity Century has a gross tonnage of 71,545 and has a passenger capacity of 1778, which is smaller than all of the other vessels save one, Celebrity Xpedition.
Celebrity Xpedition is the only ship in the Xpedition class. Entering service in 2004, it is by far the smallest ship in Celebrity Cruises’ fleet: it weighs a mere 2,339 tons and can only accommodate 96 passengers. Because of its small size, passenger aboard the Celebrity Xpedition can expect more personal service. The ship also has a shallow draft (the draft of a ship is the extent to which it is immersed in water when bearing a load), allowing it to access ports that some of the larger vessels cannot.
The Millennium class is made up of three ships: Celebrity Millennium, Celebrity Infinity, and Celebrity Summit. The ships entered the service of Celebrity Cruises in 2000, 2001, and 2002, respectively. All the ships weigh the same amount, 91,000 tons, and can accommodate roughly the same number of passengers – about 2500, with the Celebrity Millennium holding some 40 less.
The last class of ships is the Solstice class, which is composed of Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Equinox, and Celebrity Eclipse. (Clearly, a theme unites the names of these ships.) The Solstice class is composed of the newest ships in the fleet. Celebrity Solstice entered service in 2008, Celebrity Equinox in 2009, and Celebrity Eclipse in 2010. The three ships in this class all have the same capacities and measurements: they have a gross tonnage of 122,000 and a passenger capacity of 2850, making them the largest ships in the Celebrity Cruises fleet.
Celebrity Cruises also has two ships on order: Celebrity Silhouette and Celebrity Reflection. The former will enter the service in July of 2011, and the latter will in November of 2012. These ships will have the exact same dimensions as the ships in the Solstice class.