today! Let's begin our story! Celebrity Cruises is quite a young cruise company. It was founded in April 1988 as an independent entity under a parent company, the Greek Chandris Group.
Chandris Line is a company founded in 1960. Its main market was the itineraries between Greece and Australia. By 1980, the company turned into the major cruise European company, and the Mediterranean Sea was added to the itineraries. By the end of the 1980s, the company decided to expand to the markets of North America, Bermuda, and the Caribbean.
It is when the Celebrity Cruises company appeared. Queen Frederica, one of the Chandris Line company’s ships.
By the way, here’s an interesting fact: all the ships of the company had the Greek letter chi on their funnels. The logo has remained the same for many years and has been preserved by Celebrity Cruises.
Chandris Line wanted to "capture" the Bermuda route, but the company and its old fleet lost a competition to existing companies, for example, Home Lines (it was absorbed by Holland America Line).
New modern Celebrity company got the government of Bermuda interested in it, and the route was opened for them.
The famous ocean liner SS Galileo Galilei was the first ship of Celebrity Cruises.
Having three beautiful Celebrity Cruise Line ships, the company successfully operated on the cruise market.
However, it was not enough to dominate the market, so Celebrity continued to build new modern megaliners.
In 1995, the new ship, Century, was launched. She became the flagship of the Century-class.
With the advent of new ships, Celebrity Cruises began to get rid of the old ones.
Horizon was moved to the fleet of Island Cruises in 2005. The ship is still in service, but already under the flag of Croisières de France. This year the ship will join the fleet of Pullmantur Cruises under her original name.
At the same time the first liner of the new Solstice class was laid at the Meyer Werft. By 2007, 3 new ships of this class were announced.
In 2015, twenty years old Century was sold to SkySea Cruise Lines.
Now the company’s fleet consists of 10 ships: 4 liners of the Millennium class, 5 liners of the Solstice class and one small ship, Celebrity Xpedition.
In 2017, the fleet will be replenished by two small (very small) ships: Celebrity Xperience and Celebrity Xploration. They will operate in the Galapagos Islands.
Just a few weeks ago the company announced its new class of ships – Celebrity Edge. Obviously, they will open a new stage in the Celebrity Cruises history.
They will be revolutionary ships... We have already written about them. Photo by Celebrity Cruises
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