Celebrity CEO kicks off production of final Solstice-class ship - USA Today

By Gene Sloan, USA TODAY

This item was written by Johanna Jainchill, who covers cruising for Travel Weekly. Jainchill is serving as Guest Editor of The Cruise Log while USA TODAY Cruise Editor Gene Sloan is away.

Celebrity Cruises executives were in Germany today for a ceremony marking the first steel cutting for the fifth and last of the line's Solstice-class ships.

Dan Hanrahan, Celebrity president and CEO, activated the machinery that cut the first piece of what will become the 3,030-passenger Celebrity Reflection at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany.

The delivery of the Reflection will mark the last of the $3.7 billion ship order that began with the delivery of the Celebrity Solstice in 2008, and has since added one ship per year to Celebrity's fleet.

The Reflection, scheduled to debut in the fall of 2012, will be made larger than its four, 2,850-passenger sister ships by both widening the vessel and adding another deck to it.

The additional room will allow Celebrity to add 72 cabins to the Reflection, including 34 AquaClass suites, which offer passengers special access to the spa and Blu, the "healthy, clean cuisine" restaurant. The 126,000-ton ship (4,000 tons more than the other Solstice-class ships) will also have extra seats in its theater and restaurants, and hundreds more lounge chairs on an expanded pool deck.

Also in the shipyard and under construction is the fourth of the Solstice-class ships, the Celebrity Silhouette, which is scheduled to enter service in July of this year.

Posted Apr 1 2011 1:57AM

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