And the award for best new cruise ship of the year goes to . . . Celebrity Solstice

mercedes · November 25, 2008

No doubt about it, the cruise press loves Celebrity's newest ship, the Celebrity Solstice.

The 2,850-passenger vessel, unveiled two weeks ago in Fort Lauderdale, "is so innovative it is truly light years ahead of the cruise ship pack," raves noted cruise writer Anita Dunham-Potter this week in a column at MSNBC.com.

Solstice is "a great step up from what has gone before," agrees British cruise diva Jane Archer in the London's Telegraph.

"With gorgeous light-filled spaces, relaxation areas and little cozy nooks and crannies, the ship would be a hit even if it were docked permanently in, say, Miami," gushes longtime industry watcher Fran Golden on her online blog.

Dunham-Potter, Archer and Golden are just a few of the big name cruise writers who got a taste of Solstice over the past few weeks during inaugural events and came back praising it as one of the best new ships in years. And the vessel also is winning kudos from many of the thousands of travel agents who have visited it in recent weeks.

In short, it looks like Celebrity has a winner. Big time.

The raves are at least a partial validation of the ambitious growth strategy at Celebrity and parent-company Royal Caribbean. While rivals such as Princess and Carnival continue to churn out near replicas of the same (successful) ships they've been building for years, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean have made a bold (and expensive) bet that customers are ready for a new generation of vessels that take the cruise experience to a new level.

Solstice is the first of five new ships at Celebrity that will boast bigger and better designed cabins (that's one of the suites in the photo above), a wider array of intimate specialty restaurants and more on-board amenities than previous ships, as well as interior spaces created by top designers such as Adam Tihany.

As Dunham-Potter notes, "at a price tag of $750 million, no small detail was overlooked or spared in creating Solstice . . . (and) they appear to have gotten it right." The ship's style and design, she adds, is "unique and unlike anything out there."

The big question now is whether the praise for Solstice will translate into increased bookings at higher price points that justify the extra cost of building the ship.