Celebrity Cruises’ new 2,850-passenger ship Celebrity Equinox has started sea trials after successfully negotiating the River Ems at the weekend.
During the trip, known as the conveyance, the ship was tugged backwards down the river from the Meyer-Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, where it was built, to Emden in Germany, where guests on board for the conveyance disembarked.
The ship was then going on to Eemshaven in Holland and into the North Sea for its trials.
Once the trials are over, the vessel will go to Hamburg for any final interior work to be finished, then sail to Southampton, where it will be named during eight days of pre-inaugural events for 4,000 travel agents and 1,800 consumers.
After a maiden ex-UK voyage to the Norwegian fjords, it cruises from Southampton to Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, where it will spend the rest of the summer.
Speaking during the conveyance, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises president and chief executive Dan Hanrahan admitted he had been unsure about bringing out a second new ship so soon after Celebrity Solstice, which launched last November.
He said: “There is nothing really new on this ship. We will make more changes to the next Solstice-class ships, but we were nervous about bringing two ships out so close, so we kept them the same.”
Hanrahan said Celebrity Eclipse, which will arrive in Southampton in April 2010 for a summer season of cruises to the Mediterranean, Baltic and Canary Islands, would have different restaurants and “dramatic” decor changes.
Eclipse will be the first Celebrity ship to be based in the UK and targeted solely at the UK market.
Hanrahan said: “Our UK office convinced us there was an opportunity to deploy a ship in Southampton, and they wanted Equinox, but I was not comfortable with that, so we are doing our launch activities for this ship there, and that will position us well for the arrival of Eclipse next April.”
After Eclipse, another two Solstice-class ships, as yet unnamed, are due for delivery in 2011 and 2012. Hanrahan said the plan is to have four in Europe (including one based in the UK) each summer, with one sailing year round in the Caribbean.
Although the lawn on Solstice‘s highest deck has proved challenging, senior vice-president hotel operations for Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises Lisa Lutoff-Perlo said a lot had been learnt about its maintenance and care, and confirmed the lawn would feature on all Solstice-class ships.
She said: “The grass has become an icon and part of the experience, and it will be on all five ships. We have added picnics and concerts on the grass, and we are looking at how we can put hammocks there.”
Solstice and Equinox also have three speciality restaurants and a bistro, and new Aquaclass spa cabins that come with their own, more intimate, restaurant and free access to the thermal suite.