I’m a pretty traditional kind of person, but when I first saw the design of Celebrity’s Edge in 2017, I knew I had to experience it for myself. I talked Janet into booking us on one of her first sailings, wrote a preview piece, and spent the better part of two years looking forward to it. Now that I’ve actually sailed her, I want to close that loop and report back on how the real experience compared with my expectations.

The short version: I was impressed from the moment I stepped aboard. Celebrity’s stated goal with Edge was to offer cruisers a completely different experience, and in that they have succeeded — perhaps more than they intended. The design team alone signals intent: architect Tom Wright, designer Nate Berkus, and award-winning interior designer Kelly Hoppen. When you hire that group and give them latitude, you don’t get an incremental upgrade. You get something genuinely edgy.

I should note that Edge hasn’t been universally embraced. Reviews are mixed in a way you don’t see with most ships — people either love her or they don’t. I love just about everything about her, and I’ll try to explain what I mean by that while being honest about the parts that gave me pause.

By the Numbers

The Staterooms

The Infinity Veranda

This is probably the most polarizing feature on the ship, and I went in expecting to love it without reservation. The reality is more nuanced. Most balcony cabins on Edge feature the infinity veranda — not a new concept, it’s been standard on river cruise ships for years, but a genuine first on an ocean-going vessel at this scale. At first glance it looks like a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. The upper portion lowers at the touch of a button, opening the cabin fully to the elements — fresh air, sea sounds, unobstructed views in all directions. When weather cooperates, it’s magnificent. In inclement weather the glass raises to enclose the space completely, turning the veranda into a sealed extension of the cabin.

Our cabin had a traditional balcony, so I observed the infinity veranda in use rather than living in one. What I saw explains both the enthusiasm and the complaints. The enclosed ceiling and walls give you significantly more privacy than a traditional balcony — neighbors can’t look down on you, and you have genuine weather protection. What you give up is the open-air feeling that most balcony cruisers are actually after. Several passengers we spoke with called it “a very nice window.” That description isn’t wrong. Whether it’s an upgrade or a trade depends on what you want from a balcony.

Suites and The Retreat

Edge introduced two new suite concepts. The Iconic Suites — there are only two on the ship, both positioned all the way forward one deck above the bridge — run 2,600 square feet with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a private sundeck with hot tub and a 270-degree ocean view. They are what they sound like. The Edge Villas are two-story, with private plunge pools and direct access to the suites-only sundeck that forms part of The Retreat. Six are available per sailing.

The Retreat is Celebrity’s ship-within-a-ship concept, available to Sky Suite category and above. Private sundeck, pool, pool bar, lounge, and the Luminae restaurant — a dedicated dining venue with its own unique menu available only to suite guests. What distinguishes The Retreat from NCL’s Haven is the connecting cabin policy: Celebrity extends Retreat access to non-suite passengers who book a cabin connecting to a qualifying suite. For multigenerational families where one couple wants the full suite experience and the rest of the group is in adjacent standard cabins, this is a meaningful distinction. The tradeoff is that The Retreat is not adults-only, and I’ll address what that cost us in the negatives section.

I will say this: the butler service in our suite was exceptional. Our butler, Denisa, was from Prague — polite, efficient, and apparently omniscient. She joked with me that she was a stalker, and I half believed her. One morning I walked out without my key card; before I had taken ten steps toward the pool, Denisa appeared beside me with the card in hand. She was everywhere and yet we rarely saw her. That is the standard Celebrity is setting with its suite service, and it’s the standard I’ll use to compare every suite experience going forward.

In-Room Technology

All staterooms are controlled through a single touchscreen panel — lighting, temperature, window shades, service requests. This is the feature that draws the most complaints online, and I’m genuinely puzzled by the resistance. I found it intuitive from the first use, and our cabin steward offered a complete walk-through regardless. If you can operate a smartphone, you can operate this panel. I suspect most of the negative reviews come from the first ten minutes of a sailing before anyone has read the instructions.

The Ship’s Design

The Resort Deck

The Resort Deck is where Celebrity’s “outward facing vessel” marketing language finally made sense to me. I had read those words in the pre-sailing materials and filed them under “things marketing departments say.” Standing on the Resort Deck for the first time, I understood. The 25-yard lap pool — the longest I’ve encountered on any cruise ship, though on the narrow side — is positioned with its long axis pointing toward the ocean. The lounge chairs angle outward. The bar faces out. The layout draws your eyes and body toward the sea rather than toward the ship’s interior. It’s subtle and it works. Two martini glass-shaped hot tubs — think Poconos honeymoon suite, but elegant — flank the pool, and the Solarium offers a covered adults-only pool one level up. The one concession: the pool takes up so much deck space that lounge chair real estate around it is limited. The two decks above have ample chairs if the Resort Deck fills up.

The Rooftop Garden

Tom Wright’s architectural contribution to Edge is most visible here. Celebrity’s Solstice class ships feature the Lawn Club — a flat patch of real grass on the upper deck, pleasant but essentially inert. Wright took that concept and rebuilt it as an urban garden with botanical density somewhere between a Parisian square and Central Park, though smaller than either. Funky metallic tree sculptures with small round stages built into them provide perches for individual musicians. By day it’s genuinely quiet and beautiful, with lounge chairs tucked into garden alcoves. By night, musicians play the main stage while movies screen on the big screen above.

Celebrity has a recurring concept they call “A Taste of Film” in the Rooftop Garden — an outdoor dinner and movie experience using the Rooftop Grill. Janet and I watched Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again one night. It was so relaxing I didn’t realize it was after midnight until the credits rolled. I am not a person who stays up until midnight on a cruise ship. The Rooftop Garden is apparently the exception.

The Magic Carpet

This is the one design feature I can’t fully endorse, and having sailed with it I remain unconvinced. The Magic Carpet is a cantilevered platform the size of a tennis court hanging off the starboard side of the ship, capable of carrying about 90 people. It rides up and down the hull on tracks, stopping at four decks with a different function at each level. On port days it descends to Deck 2 where it connects to an indoor waiting area, making the tender process more comfortable. At sea it rises to Deck 14 as an outdoor extension of the Resort Deck. At its highest, on Deck 16, it becomes Dinner on the Edge.

The engineering is impressive. The concept reminds me of the Rising Tides Bar on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis class ships — a feature in search of a fully realized purpose, and one that sits oddly against the refined luxury aesthetic of everything else on the ship. The name doesn’t help. More on what happened when I tried to use it for dinner below.

Interior Design and Public Spaces

Boarding Edge for the first time felt like putting on a well-worn pair of slippers — familiar and comfortable, in a way that surprised me given how unconventional the ship is in other respects. The connection to Royal Caribbean’s Quantum class is unmistakable, and as someone who loves that class of ship, I found it immediately welcoming rather than jarring. Glass is everywhere — floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the public areas extending the outward-facing design philosophy from the decks into the interior. Panoramic views are available from spaces where you’d never expect them.

The décor runs in a palette of neutral beiges, tans, and warm sepias, which does something most cruise ships don’t manage: it creates visual continuity from deck to deck. Most ships segment their design so aggressively that moving through the ship feels like changing channels. On Edge, the design flows. The occasional splash of color from the artwork stands out precisely because the surrounding palette doesn’t compete with it. Tray ceilings with subdued inset lighting give public spaces an understated sense of class. The white upholstered furniture in the suites lounge — with green accent pillows carrying the garden-of-Eden theme — was spotless throughout our sailing. White upholstery on a cruise ship is either an act of optimism or a housekeeping triumph. Based on what I saw, it’s the latter.

The four-deck chandelier in the Martini Bar is a must. Janet’s martini credentials are well established and she approved without reservation. Plan to be there at 8:30pm or 10:30pm when the chandelier comes alive in a music and light show. It’s the kind of thing that would feel gimmicky on a lesser ship. On Edge it fits.

The Tenders

A small thing that deserves mention because it makes a real difference. Edge carries eight purpose-built launches rather than converting lifeboats to tender duty as most ships do. Celebrity describes them as yacht-like, which is a stretch, but they are genuinely more comfortable than anything I’ve used to get from ship to shore on any other line. Cushioned seating, natural light, more headroom. It’s a small piece of the overall luxury argument, but it’s consistent with the rest of the ship’s philosophy: refine every touchpoint, not just the obvious ones.

Dining

The Main Dining Program

Edge’s dining structure is the clearest parallel to Royal Caribbean’s Quantum class, which pioneered the multi-restaurant complimentary dining concept that Celebrity has refined here. Four smaller restaurants — Cosmopolitan, Normandie, Cyprus, and Tuscan — replace the single large main dining room. Each is distinctly designed and significantly more intimate than a conventional mass-market dining room. Celebrity learned from the early execution problems on Quantum, and the result is smooth. Food quality in the main restaurants was good — not gourmet, but better than my previous Celebrity experience and better than most mass-market competitors. The smaller room sizes seem to correlate directly with better service ratios.

Le Petit Chef

This was the dining experience I most wanted, and it delivered completely. Le Petit Chef is a 4D projection dining experience: animated characters are mapped directly onto your dinner plate, where they proceed to “prepare” your dish from raw ingredients in a miniature kitchen — chopping, cooking, seasoning, occasionally dropping things — while the real dish is being prepared in the actual kitchen. When the animation concludes, the wait staff delivers the real plate. The humor is layered into the presentation and rewards close attention; casual viewers catch the broad jokes, but there are subtleties built in that only reveal themselves if you’re watching carefully. Celebrity initially planned to offer Le Petit Chef on select nights only. Wisely, they moved to offering it nightly. Book early — it fills up.

Raw on 5

I need to confess something. Until Janet and I were in Annapolis for one of their summer festivals, I had never eaten a raw oyster. I decided to be bold and ordered a half dozen from a street vendor. I discovered that I love them — particularly the pickled onions and hot sauce they came with. Janet is not a fan of oysters, which meant that on one of our sea days while she was at the pool, I had Raw on 5 entirely to myself. I ordered a half dozen and was delivered a full dozen. I ate every one of them. Then the sushi at the next table arrived and looked so good I ordered a Rainbow Roll. I watched the sushi chef prepare it from across the restaurant — knife skills that resulted in cuts I could not have made with any blade in my kitchen. How they packed that much flavor into that compact a roll, I don’t know. Raw on 5 is a specialty restaurant with an upcharge. It was worth every penny and I’d go back on the first day of a future sailing.

Dinner on the Edge

The Magic Carpet at its highest position — Deck 16, cantilevered out over the ocean — serves as a specialty dining experience for 90 guests on select evenings. I didn’t get to experience it, and the reason is one of the more honest confessions in this review: Dinner on the Edge was offered only once during our sailing. I didn’t find out which night until after boarding. The one night it ran happened to conflict with our Le Petit Chef reservation, and I wasn’t giving that up.

In hindsight, this may have been fortunate. Dinner on the Edge carries a cover charge, and with a stomach that has been surgically reduced in capacity, there is no realistic universe in which I get my money’s worth from a multi-course specialty dining experience. I’d still like to try it someday — the setting alone is extraordinary — but Celebrity would do well to offer it more than once per sailing. One night for 90 guests on a ship carrying 2,900 is not enough supply for the demand.

Entertainment

The Theatre

Celebrity’s Theatre on Edge is a genuine departure from the standard cruise ship entertainment venue. The stage extends into the audience creating a theater-in-the-round effect; two rotating spiral staircases, multiple synchronized projection screens, video mapping laser projectors, and aerial rigging give the production team tools that no competing ship in the premium segment can match. The result is production shows that feel immersive rather than watched. Five full productions run on a week-long sailing, with contemporary music threading through all of them — artists ranging from Rihanna and Bruno Mars to Prince and George Michael. The shows aren’t Broadway adaptations; they’re original productions built for this specific theater and its technology. My honest reaction when we sailed was that the content didn’t quite match the venue — not bad, but not as edgy as the ship itself. The exception was Eden.

Eden

Eden is the venue I’d go back for on its own. It occupies three decks at the aft of the ship and is built around a Fibonacci spiral — a shape found throughout the natural world and best visualized in a snail’s shell — which gives the space an organic, flowing character that no other room on any ship I’ve sailed achieves. Seven thousand square feet of glass connect the space to the ocean behind it. Living plants and hanging plant pillars by designer Patricia Urquiola run throughout. A 90-meter ramp winds between levels.

By day Eden is peaceful — a café, quiet seating, the kind of space you find yourself in when you need ten minutes away from the ship. By night it transforms. The evening program, developed with Variety Worldwide, blends performance art, live music, and immersive theatrical moments in a way that doesn’t fit any category I have a name for. “Edgy cabaret” is the closest I can get. It reminded me of the cabaret concept on Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas — but more committed to the concept and better executed. If you board Edge and spend a week without spending at least one night in Eden, you’ve missed the point of the ship.

The Club and The Rooftop Garden

The Club serves as the ship’s late-night venue — a multi-purpose space that hosts laser maze and gaming activities by day and converts to a disco around midnight. The music is loud and the LED wall behind the stage is dramatic. It’s aimed at a younger crowd than Edge’s overall demographic, but it’s there for those who want it. The Rooftop Garden handles the gentler end of the evening entertainment spectrum: live acoustic sets, outdoor movies, and the general pleasure of being in a well-designed garden under stars. Between those two poles, Celebrity has managed to cover a wide range of evening moods without any single venue feeling like an afterthought.

The Negatives

I am, as anyone who reads these reviews knows, inclined toward honesty when something doesn’t work. On Celebrity Edge I was hard pressed to find much. The staff was genuinely attentive — more so than our previous Celebrity experience, and more reminiscent of what we’ve encountered on Crystal. The butler service I described above set a standard I don’t expect to see matched often.

The two things that didn’t work both involve The Retreat. The first is that it’s not adults-only, which Celebrity positions as a feature — connecting cabin access for multigenerational families — but which in practice creates a problem. On our sailing, a family claimed one of the two covered spaces in The Retreat for the entire voyage. Playpen, high chair, towels draped over six or eight loungers whether anyone was occupying them or not. With only two covered areas in The Retreat, losing one to a family that was present in it for a fraction of the time their equipment occupied it was genuinely frustrating. I understand this is a management issue as much as a policy issue, but Celebrity should think carefully about how they handle lounge chair reservation in a space marketed as an exclusive retreat.

The second is that Dinner on the Edge ran once during a seven-night sailing. I’ve addressed this in the dining section. It needs to run more often.

Neither of these things significantly diminished the cruise. I’m noting them because I promised honest, and because both are fixable.