Celebrity Edge: large ship, too many people

The Celebrity Edge is a cruise ship with Celebrity Cruises. During our stay onboard she was based in Australia doing a variety of cruises around that country and also venturing to New Zealand.  This post is to share our experiences of our time on the Celebrity Edge while cruising round trip Sydney to Sydney in March 2025. 

Celebrity Edge – the ship

Details on the cruise ship itself are available here on the Celebrity website.

General Observations of Celebrity Edge

On the first day (embarkation) we were impressed by how new everything looked. It’s a relatively new ship with many more in the same ‘Edge’ class. There are vast internal spaces in the middle of the ship. These give us a sense of spaciousness. This is very important in a ship of this size as there are a lot of people welcomed onboard. Approximately 2918 people or so on the boat based on published materials, although it seemed like many more!

About the number of people. There are people always walking around going one place or another – it is constantly moving. It is also somewhat noisy. On our first full day, I was hoping to enjoy a coffee in the Cafe Al Bacio.  However, with a lecture in the theatre, and everyone else having the same interest in coffee, it was loud, busy, and honestly, not very relaxing.

That didn’t stop us from getting our coffee.  One of the perks of having Elite Plus status in the Captain’s Club is getting our coffee drinks for free, albeit always with the handing over of your room pass for review.

Layout and Passenger Flow

The layout of the ship is very straight forward and follows along the lines of other Celebrity ships.  The decoration of the ship is non-obtrusive, although one does wonder about some of the artwork.  On the one hand, some of it is quite modern and interesting – but, some of it is just plain odd.  There are no jarring colours in the décor and it appeared to be well maintained.

Passenger flow from main common areas – the café, the theatres, and so on – is straight forward.  One anomaly is the focusing of many of the main dining rooms at the stern on the lower couple floors.  Stairs provide accessibility.  Elevators however are more centralized so you will have to haul a bit to get to them if you miss the floor for your restaurant.  The lack of a stern elevator and uniform stern stairwells across all the floors did make for long hallway walks to get to the main social areas (bars) for happy hour each day.  

Fitness Room

It is a large gym, with a large amount of equipment – treadmills, step climbers, weight lifting machines, and so on. A somewhat small matted area for those stretching and wanting to do free weights. As a part of Aqua Class you can have your own dedicated yoga mat in your stateroom which I brought to the gym most days for my yoga and pilates workouts. There are also classes you can book to attend, typically with a fee attached.

Spa 

We were a little turned off by the hard sell and aggressiveness of the spa team on the tour on embarkation day. Except for the gym, we generally avoided the spa desk after that. 

We only tried the onboard spa once on this cruise, for a birthday pedicure.

I arrived at the spa five minutes prior to my pedicure complete with the questionnaire and went in for the pedicure with Shauna. Oh my! She did a soft sell on a slight upgrade of my basic pedicure to a Fire & Ice Pedicure. I said yes. It was amazing. She was extremely good. As a part of the birthday service, I received some bubbly to enjoy while during my service as well as an eye massage and collagen treatment around my eyes, a mask and then subsequent serum and cream. Very relaxing and the treatment was wonderful on my eyes. I purchased some of that stuff and am still loving it!

All in all a great experience.  The greeting and post treatment service by the spa front desk was fine.  

Celebrity Edge: Restaurants

We enjoyed a wide variety of the restaurant offering onboard. Generally, we experienced average and above average food. The service was, well, different. As you can see from some of our other cruising posts, we do have a bit of experience with cruising on a variety of cruise lines. Edges’ service staff was all over the place. We’ve noted our impressions in each of the restaurants below. Generally though, their restaurant service needs work.

Below, we have only noted those restaurants we ate at.

Main Dining Room Options on Celebrity Edge

Tuscan 

The staff at Tuscan were just out of sync. The food was fine. Overcooked lamb is not a good thing, but it was still tasty, but it was clear that it was a front staff not a kitchen staff issue due to the delay in service to the table. That and the sommelier who was abrupt in her manner. She was unable to deliver our wine within the first 20 minutes of sitting. Cruz, our waiter was trying to serve our starter, and we asked for it to be held due to lack of any drinks. He ended up pushing the sommelier to prioritize our service.

Cruz was very attentive and on the ball. He more than made up for the drinks gaffe by being on top of our table and presenting us with a lovely cheese tray at the conclusion of our meal, which by the way wasn’t on the menu.

Cosmopolitan

Mainly for lunches as there were so few locations offering lunch service. I guess the majority of folks went to the buffet. Food was fine if uninspiring – burgers, salads, soup and a few chicken dishes.  

Normandie Restaurant

Too bad we didn’t reserve this restaurant earlier in the cruise.  We enjoyed the food and the spacing of the tables.  Service staff here were somewhat more on point and did well.

Cyprus Restaurant

Very good food selection and great atmosphere.  We would choose Normandie and Cyprus over Cosmopolitan any evening! Staff were jovial, smiled alot and timed service well.

Aqua Class Specific Option: Blu

Blu provides breakfast and dinner service. We enjoyed the majority of breakfasts in this restaurant. Blu is available to Aqua Class cruisers. This dedicated restaurant means you don’t necessarily need to make bookings for your dinners unless you don’t want a particular table/area. We also enjoyed about half – 4-5 – of our dinners. Service was above average and the majority of the staff went out of their way to look after us and ensure food was timely, well presented and tasty. On my birthday, I was wished happy birthday by the maître ‘d at breakfast again, and by all the waitstaff who served me.

Specialty Restaurants on Celebrity Edge

Raw on 5

Sushi restaurant on the fifth level.  Good sushi, and the other offerings were very good as well.  We ate here on my birthday.  Beautiful window seat with overly attentive service – we were asked several times if everything was okay.  Very loud due to its location by the Martini Bar and Café Al Bacio.

Fine Cut Steakhouse

Very good steak, but service was lacking.  Waiter was non-existent for much of the meal and tried to rush our service. We asked for it to be slowed down. We didn’t want to eat and be out of there in 45 minutes.

Still boggles my mind how large the cuts of beef are!  Again, very loud due to its location just upstairs from the Martini Bar and the Café Al Bacio.  The window seat provided was stellar for the sunset.  Interestingly, it showed us a part of the ship we hadn’t seen on a deck that appeared to never be used!

Eden Restaurant

The standout of the ship.  Excellent food, excellent service, and a very enthusiastic sommelier. What he lacked in knowledge he made up for in eagerness with his questions and desire to please. We ate here the first night so maybe we were spoiled after that!  

Other Food Options on Celebrity Edge

Oceanview Café

The requisite buffet.  A lot of kinds of food, and TONS of people.  We ate here for a few lunches (not all) and no dinners.  Did I mention TONS of people?!  

Room Service

We’ll be upfront. We don’t like how Celebrity is now nickel and dime-ing on the room service. We were in an Aqua Class stateroom. A continental breakfast is included no problem if you get anything like eggs, pancakes and so on then you have to pay one per room service fee of $11.95. We decided to try the continental breakfast. It was OK. In our stateroom there was very little room to eat. We didn’t opt for room service again on the cruise.

Café Al Bacio

We stopped at the Cafe daily to secure a specialty coffee whether onboard or heading ashore. Due to bio-regulations in Australia, you cannot take any food products ashore from the cruise ship, so you need to eat them quickly before we went off the boat! The Cafe did a fair job of cappuccinos, americanos, macchiatos as long as you were very specific. It did take about 2 days to get the staff to listen to you and what you were asking for so that they didn’t just give you the standard coffees.

The treats available are all in miniature – perfect for light snackers! – and available in quantity. Croissants, pain au chocolates, danishes, cookies (a variety) cake, squares are all available for mornings; in the afternoon, the case is swapped out with mini-bun sandwiches and cakes; in the evenings, cakes, puddings, are available. Specialty coffees along with tea and other specialty drinks are also available at the Cafe.

Celebrity Edge: The liquor and wine

Generally, the liquor selection was better than anticipated.  For service, see the Bars section below.  Definitely clear that the booze was the highlight for many people onboard and that they focus a great deal of time and effort into ensuring you are fully liquored up.  

Bars

Eden Bar, Martini Bar, Casino Bar, etc

There are MANY places to drink onboard. Every drink requires your card to be given up to the waiter. Even if you go every day, and have the same waiter. And, each time for the first half of the cruise, they ask if you want to purchase a drinks package. These are pushed like crazy and if, like us, you don’t want one, it is very frustrating and annoying. Understand it’s your job, but, there are other ways to do this successfully. For example, one cruise line we were on a few years ago put a sticky coloured circle on your card to show to all other wait staff that you have been asked and have declined a package onboard. 

Drink prices were same as on land. Drink offerings are a bit better than I anticipated. Prior cruises with Celebrity had little diversity in wine offerings – this time somewhat better. Cocktails were fine although I may be the only one who says they were somewhat too strong! Alot of our happy hours were covered with the Captain’s Club free offerings of wine and cocktails, so, we didn’t explore too many other cocktails other than what was offered in these.

The bars were oddly setup. Eden, for example had a large amount of their chairs all looking out on the back of the ship. This was nice in some ways, but, it is not conducive to engagement with others or mingling. 

Bringing Alcohol Onboard

The published rules are very straight forward and visible in the contract for the cruise. 2 bottles per stateroom at the start of the cruise. Any bottles acquired in port may be secured by security staff and held till the end of the cruise. 

In practice this is not typically enforced. Of course, it may be on a particular ship/cruise line, but, here on Celebrity Edge we experienced what we have previously with Celebrity – no one checks or asks. We brought a few bottles onboard for our stateroom from our time in Tasmania – and, we acquired a few bottles in one of our ports (Adelaide – Barossa Valley! Check out our posts on Lambert Estate and Chateau Yaldara!) and walked right on board, no questions/comments.

Celebrity Edge: the stateroom

As with our previous couple of Celebrity Cruises, we opted for the AquaClass.  We enjoy the access to Blu Restaurant, and the small perks included.  Basically the uplift in price seems reasonable for the additional items.

Our stateroom itself was well designed and had more than enough room for the two of us.  We have decided from this one exposure to infinity balconies that they are not for us!  The lack of outside space is challenging when you want fresh air but want to keep your room cool.  

Some of the significant cons to the model (from our perspective) include:  

• prolonged up and down cycle to raise and lower window;
• prolonged up and down cycle to raise and lower the corresponding blind (which is separate the window; significant vibration and rattling of the additional shutter doors to the infinity balcony space;
• excessive vacuum seal in the room – and corresponding funneled air if you mistakenly open the door while the window is open.  This is to be expected and no different than the balcony, but, more diligence is required in to ensure closing of the window isn’t completed in tandem with the door opening!

Our attendant was attentive and did the two cleanups and turn down each day in a timely manner.  Less personal service due to the sheer size of the ship – hard to get to know any of the crew when they are frequently running in and out of staterooms to ensure they complete their tasks to schedule.

Celebrity Edge: The service onboard

Fine but overall quite impersonal.  There were some standouts  for sure who went above and beyond, and always had a great greeting and smile for us each day.  We found the bar staff quite overworked and under-resourced.  If it takes 15-20 minutes to take a drink order in a bar at a table, that is too long.  And that happened frequently and usually required flagging down a waiter or walking up to the bar to ask for our drinks there. This happened a lot.

Restaurant service was generally fine but some obvious lack of experience providing fine dining service in the specialty restaurants.  Service in these was overly invasive and too many staff were engaging with each table.  Initially we thought it was due to breaks or busy- ness, but, further observations showed that more staff were assigned to each table than was necessary.  Placement of dishes was frequently incorrect, along with plating and cutlery placement.

As it was my birthday on the cruise, it was lovely how much it was recognised.  The stateroom attendant had a lovely sign up on my door for me; every restaurant knew about it for each dinner, and so on.  One quibble, which may not bother some but it did me – I received birthday cakes at 3 of the restaurants.  All three times, it was brought ‘AFTER’ my dessert.  

These were specialty restaurants, and two of them had costs for the desserts I ordered, and the waiter nor maitre ‘d mentioned the soon-to-be served cake.  We don’t eat a lot so it was very annoying to have a cake brought at the end when you are about to stand up and leave the restaurant.

Celebrity Edge: Ports of Call

Hmmmmm…. We should have thought this cruise out a bit better.  We wanted to visit each of the ports, but, as they were all in Australia, and all on the same southern coast, we experienced the same (read so-so) weather.  Sunny but windy, with mid to larger swells in the evenings.  

Kangaroo Island was cancelled – yet we awoke that morning to placid lake-like waters! Melbourne and Adelaide were lovely.  An extra ½ day in Adelaide and overnight was added on by the cruise line with the cancellation of Kangaroo Island.  It would have been helpful if they had been able to organize the transfers/transportation into Adelaide from the port.  We made due with the train, but, many folks were left stranded due to mobility or other issues.

Casino

It had been a number of years since we had experienced a cruise ship casino.  It was the same as before, and I’m still not that into it!

The Pools

Over the years, we’ve seen the pools diminish in prominence as the ships have gotten larger.  Yet, it seems many people still are laying around on the pool chaise-lounges and pool adjacent areas.  A lot of $$ options for pool side ‘hanging out’ on the Edge, but, it is a very different experience than we remember!  First thing in the morning till about 11am, it is somewhat relaxing, enjoyable.  Then the aqua classes start, and all the ‘activities’ with a loud speaker and folks running around.  Same service by the pool as usual for us – lots of wait staff when you don’t want/need drinks, and none when you do!

Still folks saving their loungers for the whole day.  There is lots of signage saying it isn’t allowed and items will be removed, etc.  But, we didn’t see it happen.

Celebrity Edge: Entertainment

We are not show people, so, won’t comment on those except to say there were singers, musicians, magic acts, and so on.  A lot of bands onboard in the various bars.  This was usually available from around 2-3pm till late in these venues with some breaks.  We found them quite good, but very LOUD.  If you can’t talk in a bar, which we couldn’t, it is challenging to meet new people and share experiences.

Celebrity Edge – Overall Summary

To be honest, we had quite high hopes for enjoying the cruise.  The embarkation and first day were very good.  However the service and sheer number of people and noise onboard was off-putting for us. There are many smaller, more intimate cruise lines that we have previously enjoyed and we will likely focus on them going forward.

Check out our review of the Celebrity Flora!