Celebrity Edge, considered to be the world's most futuristic luxury cruise ship, docked in Palma for the first time on Thursday. On board were some 2,800 American tourists.
Launched in December last year, the ship is scheduled to stop over in Palma eleven times this summer. The current voyage started in Southampton on Monday last week and had taken in Bilbao, A Coruña, Lisbon and Gibraltar before arriving in Palma. It has been said of the ship that it represents a "reinvention" of holidays at sea because of facilities never before seen. Forbes magazine has called it "the coolest cruise ship at sea".
Among these facilities is a tennis court-sized movable platform on the starboard side which can be positioned to aid tender embarcation and disembarcation or used as extra entertainment space on other decks; the Club, with laser labyrinth; the Grand Plaza, with cascading glass and shops with premium names such as Cartier.
The ship was built at the STX shipyard in St. Nazaire at a cost reckoned to have been one billion US dollars.