Interview: Celebrity Cruises CEO on Getting the Edge in First Ship Design in a Decade

Since she was named CEO of Celebrity Cruises in late 2014, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo has been on a mission to avoid the same old same old. In an interview with Skift in early 2016, she explained how a new advertising and branding campaign was meant to avoid the "sameness" of cruise advertising. As the race for president of the United States heated up, Celebrity was one of the few travel companies to take a political stance with an ad that praised the embrace of differences and called out "the talk of building walls," "threats of keeping people out," and the "rhetoric of fear." So it's no surprise that with its latest new ship Celebrity Edge, the cruise line — part of Royal Caribbean Cruises — sought to do a lot of things differently. For one thing: the balcony. Standard veranda staterooms on all Edge Class ships will come with what's called the "infinite veranda," which can convert the balcony area into a part of the living space or a separate open-air section. The cons