- Premium ocean line, Celebrity Cruises is venturing into the river space.
- The ships will debut in 2027 and will sail on European rivers.
- Bookings for the river cruises open this year.
Celebrity Cruises is venturing into river cruising by ordering 10 river ships bound for Europe.
The line will launch its first river ships in 2027 and the new brand, Celebrity River Cruises will start to take bookings this year for European itineraries.
Celebrity has ordered its ships from TeamCo Shipyard in the Netherlands which has built ships for river lines including Amadeus, AmaWaterways, and Emerald Cruises.
“We’re thrilled to announce our entry into the river cruise market through our Celebrity Cruises premium travel brand. Our guests and travel partners should expect us to do what we do best – innovate and elevate the river cruise experience as we meet the growing demand for intimate, culturally enriching travel experiences,” said Jason Liberty, president and CEO, of Royal Caribbean Group.
“With about half of our guests having experienced or intending to vacation on a river cruise, we know they will enjoy Celebrity’s elevated offering on the river. By leveraging our valuable loyalty programs across our three brands, we will deepen customer engagement and further our ability to keep guests within our ecosystem of vacation offerings. We are the best in the world at delivering the vacation of a lifetime, and this is the latest example of how we are building the capabilities to deliver a lifetime of vacations.”
What we know about the Celebrity River Cruises ships
The Celebrity River Cruises’ ships will designed and styled off the Edge Series ocean ships which will combine destination-rich itineraries on land, with locally inspired cuisine onboard and unique shore excursions.
Liberty provided more details on the company’s approach to river cruising at the reporting of Royal Caribbean Group’s 2024 financial results.
He said that Celebrity River Cruises will launch a couple of river ships in 2027 with four more over the next couple of years.
He also said the ships will also be able to accommodate 180 passengers making them the largest river ships in Europe.
Silversea to maybe also look to the river cruise market
Liberty also said the company has the ability to “attract high-quality demand” not just from Celebrity but also Royal Caribbean and Silversea.
“As we build up this engine for river on Celebrity, it will certainly provide opportunity for our luxury guests to consider a river experience on Silversea,” Liberty said.
“We’re going to start off with Celebrity. We think there is great scale opportunity and we’ll be looking to see if there’s opportunity to expand for our other brands.”
The cruise line will reveal further details of the ships in the coming months.
How about making some of them with accessible cabins. There are a lot of people who would book to use them.