Celebrity Cruises

At first, Chandris Fantasy Cruises targeted the lower end of the cruise passenger market using second hand ships. That was until 1988, when the extinct Home Lines (at the time one of the world’s leading premium cruise lines) was sold to Holland America Line. Home Lines’ ships had held two of the five contracts offered by the Government of Bermuda to cruise lines, giving the ships priority berthing arrangement and unlimited access of sail to the islands in exchange for the ships sailing to Bermuda between April and October each year. Although these contracts were highly valued, Holland America Line decided to withdraw the former Home Lines ships from this service, leaving an opening for two new ships to gain access. Chandris wanted to acquire the contracts, but the Government of Bermuda was only willing to award them to upmarket cruise lines, which Chandris Fantasy Cruises was not.

In order to gain the Bermuda Government contracts, Chandris created Celebrity Cruises and immediately began negotiating with the Bermuda Government in April 1988. As a result of the negotiations, Celebrity Cruises was awarded the contract for two ships for a five-year period beginning in 1990. Since, Celebrity only targets the high value market as we call the Premium segment.

In 1997, Celebrity Cruises merged with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, which was then renamed to Royal Caribbean International, and thus creating the Royal Caribbean conglomerate.

Celebrity’s signature logo is an “Χ” displayed on the funnel of Celebrity ships, and is the Greek letter chi, for “Chandris”.