When the Celebrity Xcel ties up on St. Thomas Dec. 9, some of the 3,200 passengers aboard will already have had a taste of what the Virgin Islands has to offer — or a facsimile of it.
The cruise industry has flirted with bringing shoreside experiences aboard for decades, procuring lamb on New Zealand itineraries and salmon in Alaska. Many ships bring on regional experts — historians, ecologists, oenologists — to explain what passengers see ashore.
For the Xcel, however, Celebrity Cruises plans to go a step further, serving traditional Caribbean food and drink, and staging an interactive carnival celebration that cruise line officials hoped would feel as natural and warm as the real thing.
While work crews at the Chandelier De Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, were welding together the new Celebrity Xcel one sunny August day, Celebrity Cruises President Laura Hodges Bethge said the idea was for the passengers to get their dose of the Caribbean before stepping ashore.
“Our guests come to us, first and foremost, for where they’re going to visit. So it’s our opportunity to bring that on board the ship. It’s part of your journey, even when we’re not in the destination,” Hodges Bethge said during a tour of the ship during construction.
Each of the ship’s Caribbean itineraries will have a different region-specific festival, with music and performers that passengers can choose to interact with or not, she said.
Some cruises’ quest for authenticity falls short. A sweet umbrella drink does not necessarily equal tropical relaxation, Hodges Bethge said. But she and her team said they were making authenticity a selling point aboard the Xcel. If someone is feeling lazy, or if the weather didn’t cooperate, the passenger could get their dosage of near-authentic Virgin Islands splendor without leaving the ship, she said.
Celebrity sought local experts to guide their hand, getting the right food and drink recipes, right music, and carnival costuming for daily presentations and weekly celebrations, Hodges Bethge said.
Keith Lane, Celebrity’s senior vice president of hotel operations, said hot sauce and horseradish for Caribbean-style dishes and drinks would be sourced locally from various islands. Rather than inventing Caribbean traditions, Lane said Celebrity would hire local carnival experts to instruct other performers.
“You recruit. And we try to recruit the folks that will reflect the authenticity of the festival,” Lane said. The ships already have a fair number of Dominicans and Jamaicans but lack a robust population of Virgin Islanders, he said.
When the ship repositions to the Mediterranean in the summer, it will trade Caribbean pepper sauce for locally-sourced olive oil and swap Caribbean carnivals for southern European festivals.
“That’s the most complex piece. As far as getting the crew here, training the crew, then you look at the new venues, that’s where the complexity lies in,” Lane said. “It’s a big undertaking.”
These celebrations will take place in a dedicated space called the Bazaar. Celebrity plans to splatter color across enormous LED-lit walls and archways.
A bi-level lounge concept has a chef’s counter and cooking class space called Spice below, and a casual restaurant, Mosaic, above. The plan is for two sets of live musicians to play the same song at the same time, with hints of one performance wafting into the other space.
“Definitely, the Bazaar seems like the most complex piece because it isn’t just one concept,” Lane said.
The Bazaar will also feature a retail market with local — or locally inspired — items for sale.
The Xcel finished its sea trials in September and is scheduled to leave France for Fort Lauderdale in October, said Captain “Kirk” Kyriakos Matragkas. Its maiden voyage is scheduled for November and arrives on St. Thomas Dec. 9.
Matragkas said he was well acquainted with the Virgin Islands, having docked at Crown Bay many times.
He had high praise for the Virgin Islands’ harbor pilots. In some ports, the legally-mandated pilot comes aboard and has a cup of coffee and a chat while the bridge crew essentially does what they were going to do anyway, Matragkas said.
“The American pilots are way much more professional than the rest in Caribbean,” he said. “In U.S., they are great. In Europe, they are very good. In Asia, sometimes we face language barriers.”
For more on cruise ship construction, see “Where Cruise Ships are Born.”
