Celebrity Cruises is “already making plans” to bring Celebrity Apex back to the UK.
The line’s new ship was due to be launched in Southampton at the end of March, followed by a mini-ex-UK season, but the event and sailings had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Delivery of Apex was taken via a virtual ceremony with shipbuilders Chantiers de l’Atlantique.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast, president and chief executive Lisa Lutoff-Perlo said: “I was supposed to see all of our friends from the UK on our beautiful Celebrity Apex at the end of March. We were so looking forward to that, and to that mini-season out of the UK with that grand, wonderful ship, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Asked if she would bring Celebrity Apex back to the UK to showcase her to UK agents, when the time is right, she promised: “I absolutely will. We’re already making plans for that. And can I just say, we track all of our business, in all of our major markets all over the world, and every single week, the UK is the top market in top performance for the Celebrity brand. So I want to just say thank you to all of you for that.
“Apex will definitely be back into the UK and we can’t wait to celebrate with all of you.”
Lutoff-Perlo added: “All over the world, we’re all coping as best we can with this pandemic. And we are all really waiting and hoping for science to catch up with us so that we can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
“We get positive reports and then we get some maybe not such positive reports. We’re trying to figure out how to come back even stronger than when we were set back. We’re getting our brands ready and our protocols ready so that we can come back into service.”