If you’re following the cruise news, you’re going to be reading everywhere today about Celebrity’s new ships.
You’ll read that the Silhouette and the Reflection, still under construction, are going to carry more passengers than the three other Solstice Class ships. You’ll read that there are more amenities, more pool deck space, more lounge chairs and — of course — more cabins. In the case of the Reflection, there’s even one more deck.
All this was divulged yesterday in a conference call with Celebrity CEO Dan Hanrahan on one end of the phone and a gaggle of cruise reporters on the other. The press release that followed was 1,617 words long, or longer than any blog and most stories written about cruising.
Now you could say that it was just time for an update on Celebrity’s two new ships, one due in 2011 (Silhouette) and the other in 2012 (Reflection), just weeks after the arrival of the Eclipse. Or you could say that the nice people at Celebrity were just tired of reading how its corporate cousin, the mighty Allure of the Seas, was making all the waves.
After all, and we know this first-hand, Celebrity is a highly regarded and quality cruise line, and not only for its Solstice ships. These two will make it five in the class, and they’re going to be the biggest, in terms of passenger capacity. The Silhouette will have 17 more cabins, the Reflection will have 89, and it’s still uncertain where all the extra space is coming from, given that there will be another 245 lounge chairs on a larger pool deck on a ship that is physically only one metre wider than the three Solstice ships on the seas.
As for all the other Solstice sweets, it’s all there in 1,617 words. Just ask, and we’ll send it to you.