New tech on the Celebrity Edge

The Edge also features touchscreens to control lights, curtains, and your thermostat – with presets for morning, evening, and night.  In addition to the in-room touchscreen control, you can use your smartphone for more refined control of individual lights in your stateroom.  The touchscreens don’t provide individual light controls, which was a bit disappointing.

Your smartphone can even be used to unlock your stateroom door, although we found it more convenient to use the stateroom card.?

LARGER ELEVATORS WITH TOUCH PANELS

Elevators have been one of the Achilles heels on ships. Who hasn’t waited for an elevator after a show only to have it open full of guests. The Edge hopes to minimize this problem with new sensors in the ceiling of its elevators. These sensors detects when it is full, and then it skips stopping at floors until space is available. These sensors weren’t working yet on our cruise, but should be working soon. The Edge’s elevators are significantly larger than on the Solstice Class ships. In addition, they use touch screens rather than individual buttons. By using a programmable touchscreen, prominent messages can help guide guests to the proper floor for port tenders or other special events.

The tenders on the Edge are sophisticated and pretty luxurious. With individual seats, air conditioning, and higher ceilings, the tenders are very comfortable. In addition they have multiple display screens for safety and port information.

By encouraging guests to pre-register online, the boarding process on the Edge is much simpler. Suites guests are greeted as they enter the new terminal and taken to a special suites lounge. There you are asked to take a seat, enjoy a cocktail and continental breakfast until a customer service agent comes by to take your picture. Once that’s done, you can board the ship – no lines, no forms to fill out, no paper to take with you – just board the ship. You can go directly to your stateroom to drop off you bags and pick up your stateroom keys.

HIGH TECH THEATRE

Nowhere has technology been taken to a higher level than in the theatre. The stage itself juts out into the audience making performances more intimate. Behind the stage is a panoply of projection screens which provide backgrounds for performances  and can move as needed.  Plus the stage has all the bells and whistles – it can be raised and lowered, ropes and hooks from the ceiling allow aerial performers to show off their skills, a motorized water fountain rolls out for special effects, and a very powerful sound system are just some of the technological features which will dazzle guests.

With the Edge, Celebrity made a very intentional effort to revolutionize the cruise experience. Technology was one of the cornerstone of this effort. There are many other examples in addition to what we’ve covered here. They did a good job of integrating new technology to enhance the cruise experience for guests.