Royal Caribbean Group has taken delivery of the new Celebrity Xcel unit for Celebrity Cruises from Chantiers de l’Atlantique and has simultaneously begun the construction of two additional ships scheduled for 2028.
The Celebrity Xcel is the fifth unit in the Edge class for Celebrity Cruises; registered in Malta it has a gross tonnage of approximately 141,000 tons and a capacity to host around 3,300 passengers.
The Celebrity Xcel will set sail from Saint-Nazaire and, after a technical stop in Freeport, Bahamas, will head to Port Everglades, where its official inauguration is scheduled for November.
Parallel to the delivery, the French shipyard celebrated the first steel cutting and the start of construction for two cruise ships that will be built simultaneously and whose delivery is expected in 2028. The first ship is the Celebrity Xcite (Celebrity Cruises), officially announced as the sixth unit of the Edge class. The other ship is the seventh in the Oasis class for Royal Caribbean International. The company specified that this unit will be largely a sister ship to the Utopia of the Seas (gross tonnage of 236,473 tons), which entered service in July 2024; its name has not yet been revealed.
The developments of the Royal Caribbean Group, together with those of other cruise companies, highlight the recovery of the global cruise sector. According to Seatrade Cruise analysis, the current orderbook includes approximately 70 ocean cruise ships with deliveries scheduled through 2036. The construction program will add over 180,000 new lower berths to the industry. Seatrade estimates the total value of these orders to be over 60 billion dollars.
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