| IMO | 9838383 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 130,818 GT |
| Length | 306 m |
| Beam | 39 m |
| Passenger capacity (double) | 2910 |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 3405 |
| Crew | 1320 |
| Service speed | 22.7 knots |
| Builder | Chantiers de l'Atlantique |
| Yard | Saint-Nazaire |
| Hull number | K34 |
| Launched | 2019 |
| Maiden voyage | 2021-06-19 |
| Class | Edge-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Celebrity Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Celebrity Apex is an Edge-class cruise ship for Celebrity Cruises, built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire, France, and delivered in March 2020. She is the second ship of the Edge class, following Celebrity Edge (2018), and at 130,818 GT she is built to the original Edge-class dimensions rather than the enlarged design of the later sisters Beyond and Ascent.
Her historical footnote is timing. She was completed and handed over just as the Covid-19 pandemic shut the cruise industry down, so a ship delivered in spring 2020 did not carry her first revenue passengers until 19 June 2021 — a gap of nearly fifteen months between delivery and debut that no one involved in her ordering in 2015 could have foreseen. The dataset accordingly leaves her maiden-voyage field blank; the researched debut date is given in the naming section below and the discrepancy of presentation is logged in the batch notes.
Key specifications
The dataset records Celebrity Apex at 130,818 GT, 306 metres long and 39 metres in beam, with a capacity of 2,910, a crew of 1,320 and a speed of 22.7 knots. Those figures match her published characteristics: 2,910 is the double-occupancy guest figure quoted by Celebrity and Wikipedia alike (the dataset files it in its maximum-capacity column, a placement logged in the batch notes), and 22.7 knots is her maximum speed. She has 14 passenger decks and a draught of about 8.4 metres.
Her machinery is diesel-electric: Wärtsilä generating sets of three types driving two ABB Azipod propulsion units, with Brunvoll tunnel thrusters for manoeuvring. That plant is conventional for a large modern cruise ship; what defined the class was never the machinery but the architecture above it.
Design and construction
Celebrity Apex was ordered on 1 February 2015 as the second Edge-class ship, yard number K34 at Saint-Nazaire. Her keel was laid on 6 July 2018 and she was launched on 17 May 2019. The Edge design she inherits had been developed with a team of outside designers and architects and broke with Celebrity's previous practice in two structural ways: staterooms designed to open to the sea through full-width folding glass — the "Infinite Veranda" concept — and a hull and superstructure arranged to face outward, with public spaces oriented to the water rather than to an internal atrium.
The class's single most recognisable structure is the Magic Carpet, a cantilevered platform on the ship's side that travels between decks and changes function with its position — tender embarkation point low down, open-air venue higher up. It is carried on an exposed orange frame that has become the class's visual signature in port. Construction proceeded to a normal schedule: she was completed in March 2020 and acquired by Celebrity on 27 March 2020, in a handover conducted under pandemic conditions, with the crew who would have sailed her to her debut instead keeping her in lay-up.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
The launch, in the float-out sense used for modern cruise ships, took place on 17 May 2019 at Saint-Nazaire. Her godmother was named in January 2020: Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, chosen — as Malala Yousafzai had been for Celebrity Edge — as a figure who had changed her field rather than as a conventional celebrity sponsor. The naming ceremony was planned for Southampton on 30 March 2020.
The pandemic cancelled that plan. The ship was delivered on 27 March 2020 without entering service, the christening was postponed and eventually held in late 2020 in virtual form, with Saujani carrying out her godmother's duties remotely. Celebrity Apex finally made her debut sailing on 19 June 2021, from Athens to the Greek Islands — the date this guide treats as her maiden voyage, sourced from her published history, in place of the dataset's blank field.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2020–present | Celebrity Apex | Celebrity Cruises |
One name and one operator. The only interruption in her career was at its very start: delivered in March 2020, she spent the pandemic shutdown out of service before her June 2021 debut, and has traded for Celebrity continuously since.
Onboard character
The Edge class's era-defining move was to turn the ship inside out. Where earlier premium ships organised life around interior promenades and inward-facing atriums, Apex and her sisters push the passenger to the edge of the hull: cabins whose entire outer wall opens, a three-deck venue at the stern — Eden — wrapped in glass, and a Rooftop Garden on the top deck with live planting. The Grand Plaza, styled on an Italian piazza, gives the ship a centre, but the design's argument is that the sea, not the ship, is the view.
The Magic Carpet expresses the same idea mechanically: a piece of the ship that physically travels outside the hull line. Whatever later ships borrowed from the Edge class — and the outward-facing formula was widely imitated — Apex, as the second hull, is the ship that proved the concept was a class and not a one-off experiment.
Major refits and incidents
No major incident involving Celebrity Apex — no grounding, fire or collision — is recorded in the sources consulted. Her early history was shaped by an event outside the ship: the pandemic suspension that delayed her debut by fifteen months. A routine drydocking in late 2023, reported in secondary ship summaries as a refresh rather than a structural refit, is the only yard period of note; no venue-changing reconstruction has been reported for this hull.
Sister ships and class
Celebrity Apex is the second of the Edge class. The class runs: Celebrity Edge (2018), Celebrity Apex (2020), Celebrity Beyond (2022), Celebrity Ascent (2023) and Celebrity Xcel (2025). Apex and Edge share the original hull dimensions in the dataset's terms — about 130,818 GT and 306 metres — while Beyond and Ascent were lengthened, to roughly 140,600 GT, and Xcel continues that enlarged form. All five were built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire.
Fate and where she is now
Celebrity Apex is active and in service with Celebrity Cruises. She has never been sold, renamed or laid up since her delayed debut in 2021, and no withdrawal is recorded. Her fate section is, for now, simply continuity: a 2020-delivered class ship in the first half of an expected long career with her original operator.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Apex, https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/celebrity/general_info/flyers/12030112_cel_fleetguide.pdf, https://www.cruiseandferry.net/articles/reshma-saujani-to-be-godmother-for-new-celebrity-apex