Getting an Edge: Celebrity out to woo Princess guests with $200 a night NZ itinararies

• Celebrity Cruises has kicked off its Australian season, with Edge and Solstice coming through Sydney Harbour this week.
• Celebrity appears to be employing a new strategy in Australia, offering longer cruises with better value.
• With Princess reducing its capacity, Celebrity is looking to appeal to Princess cruisers with a newer ship and lower prices.

Celebrity Cruises has kicked off its 2025/26 Australian season, with Celebrity Edge and Celebrity Solstice sailing into Sydney Harbour over consecutive days. 

While the season looks strong for Celebrity, it might be over the next few years that we begin to see even bigger things happening for Celebrity in Australia.

Celebrity has hinted that it is ready to invest more in the Australian market. Solstice, which is sailing in Asia at the start of the season, is going for a massive $250m refit, and will take on more sailings here alongside Celebrity Edge which has become a stalwart of Sydney harbour.

With many cruise lines pulling ships from Australia in recent years, Celebrity signalling confidence in the Aussie market is a big moment for the Aussie cruise industry and cruise fans alike. However, beyond just extra sailings, there appear to be exciting things coming from Celebrity as part of a larger strategic shift between the Celebrity and Royal Caribbean brands in Australia, both of which are owned by the Royal Caribbean Group.

Celebrity’s price strategy: offering NZ for $200 a night

What first raised some eyebrows was the reveal of Celebrity’s Edge’s 2027/28 itineraries, which, especially given that they are still a few years away, offer greater value and have kept prices fairly steady. Longer New Zealand sailings go as low as $200 per night, which is cheaper than anyone is offering in Australia for longer cruises at the moment, save for Carnival Cruisers. 

A deeper dive into the numbers confirms this and reveals a bit more about what Celebrity prices might look like moving forward in Australia.

Analysis from Cruise Passenger shows that for sailings over 10 days for the 2026/27 season, Celebrity Cruises offers the second cheapest option in Australia, offering significantly lower prices than Royal Caribbean or Princess. This is despite Celebrity being known as a premium line in Australia and Celebrity Edge being one of the newer ships to sail in Australia, having been built in 2018.

The good news is that prices are surprisingly looking even better for the 2027/28 season, with 10-night sailings starting from $2150, 11-night sailings starting from $2385, and 12-night sailings starting from $2599. All of these hover just a bit over the $200 per night mark.

Celebrity shaping as potentially the second cheapest line in Australia is extremely significant, especially as given its modernity and service level.

It’s particularly noteworthy that this is happening as Princess Cruises prices increase and supply decreases. Princess has reduced its capacity in Australia and this is showing both in a lack of available cruises and dearer pricing. The Crown Princess is already nearly entirely sold out for this season, and is about half sold out for next season, something which is almost unheard of among large ships, which rarely completely sell out. 

Princess is a hugely popular line in Australia, and as supply runs low, many Princess Cruises could run into the waiting arms of Celebrity Cruises, whose comparable level of service and lower pricing now offer an extremely attractive proposition.

How Celebrity and Royal Caribbean will operate together in Australia

Also noteworthy is that all of the above sailings go to New Zealand, and there are plenty of other options to New Zealand as well, with nine NZ itineraries in total. 

At the same time, Royal Caribbean prices, especially for longer sailings such as those to New Zealand, have been jumping up. To sail to New Zealand with Royal Caribbean for the 2026/27 season on average, you’ll be looking at about $300 per night.

The Royal Caribbean 2027/28 itineraries are yet to be released, but they’re definitely highly anticipated, given that if construction is on schedule, they’ll be the first itineraries to include Royal Caribbean’s private destination at Lelepa. 

Royal Caribbean executives have previously said that nearly all Australian itineraries will go to Lelepa once the island is in place, likely cutting all or close to all sailings to other destinations such as Tasmania, New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef. It’s expected that the only cruises that remain that don’t go to Lelepa will be shorter three or four-day cruises.

Therefore, while a few years ago Royal Caribbean was the more budget option and Celebrity Cruises was the pricier and more premium offering, it looks like the two cruise lines will now run parallel in Australia. 

Celebrity will focus on offering good value sailings to areas like New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef, Tasmania and more, while Royal Caribbean will base itself more around Lelepa sailings and short cruises. It is also expected that Celebrity will make some visits to Lelepa as well.

It will also be interesting to see how Celebrity Solstice plays into this, as its 2027/28 sailings are yet to be announced, and it’s expected to offer more Aussie itineraries than it currently does. Moving forward, Solstice could also sail to Lelepa, or it could offer more different itineraries around Australia. More sailings could mean even better prices as well.

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises also offer a status match between their respective loyalty programs. This further encourages cruisers to jump between the two lines and can help facilitate Royal Caribbean Group’s new strategy in Australia.

Meanwhile, Princess is gearing up for the arrival later this season of Discovery Princess, its weapon to maintain market share and dominance in the “Aussie premium market.

Built in 2022, Discovery Princess will be the line’s newest ship to sail in Australia.