On 4 December 2014, Celebrity’s parent company, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., announced that they had finalized an order with STX France for two new ships that would compose a new class of vessels for the Celebrity Cruises fleet. The two ships were known under Project EDGE and were planned to be at 117,000 GT each, with a guest capacity of 2,900 passengers. Deliveries were originally planned for Fall 2018 and early 2020 for the two vessels, respectively. Each ship was reported to come at a cost of US$1 billion.
On 21 November 2016, the day of Celebrity Edge‘s steel-cutting ceremony, Celebrity also announced the name of the second ship in the Edge-class as Celebrity Beyond. On 23 July 2018, Celebrity marked the beginning of construction for the ship with a steel-cutting ceremony at the shipyard and also announced a name change for the second Edge-class ship from Celebrity Beyond to Celebrity Apex. A ceremony marking the laying of the keel was celebrated on 31 October 2018, performed in conjunction with the delivery of Celebrity Edge. She was floated out from the shipyard on 17 May 2019. The commencement for the ship’s sea trials were hampered twice. The first set was initially set for 15 January 2020, but were cancelled due to bad weather. The new date of 17 January 2020 faced a second setback, a tugboat and port sailors’ strike. The ship ultimately left for her first set of sea trials in the Bay of Biscay on 4 February 2020 and completed them on 8 February 2020. Construction on the vessel was completed in early March 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the ship’s delivery process and christening timeline. In what was believed to be the first virtual delivery of a cruise ship due to the travel restrictions that were in place, Celebrity took virtual delivery of Celebrity Apex on 27 March 2020 via a video conference between officials from Celebrity and Chantiers de l’Atlantique. The ship was initially scheduled to be delivered a week prior, on 20 March, at the shipyard. On 16 January 2020, Celebrity originally announced that Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, would christen the vessel at the inaugural ceremony in Southampton on 30 March 2020, but it was announced on 5 March 2020 that all naming festivities would be postponed until the ship arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in late 2020.
Like her sister ship, Celebrity Edge, Celebrity Apex is equipped with the “Magic Carpet,” an orange cantilevered platform suspended along the starboard side of the ship that can move vertically between the top and bottom decks. The platform is designed to facilitate more seamless tender service and also create more guest space when at sea. More of the Edge‘s features unique to the company fleet carry over to Apex, including the “infinite veranda” balcony staterooms that integrate the balcony patios into the cabins’ structure, a three-deck aft dining and performance venue called “Eden,” and an outdoor garden on the top deck. She is also similarly designed to maximize fuel efficiency with her “parabolic ultrabow”, a bow vertically rising towards its decks that provides additional sheathing for the bulbous bow and also houses the propellers to reduce drag.
