New Celebrity Cruises ship Celebrity Ascent has completed sea trials, which the line said it passed with “flying colours”.
The fourth vessel in the line’s Edge class, which is scheduled to enter service in December, completed a series of “manoeuvrability skills to test its functional and operational capabilities” in the Bay of Biscay near the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard where it is being built.
Nearly 200 crew members were on board for the trials alongside the industry’s first brother cruise captains, Demitrios and Tasos Kafetzis.
The 3,260-passenger ship will be officially named during a ceremony on December 1 in Fort Lauderdale.
Celebrity Ascent will then depart the Floridian port on December 3 for its seven-night round-trip Eastern Caribbean maiden voyage, calling at Saint Maarten, Saint Thomas and the Dominican Republic.
The ship will spend the winter rotating between eastern and western Caribbean sailings before repositioning to the Mediterranean for a season of summer cruises.
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