Celebrity Cruises - Final Grade: "C-"
Celebrity Cruises was founded in 1989. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Celebrity is a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited. Each of Celebrity’s current fleet of 11 cruise ships has a carrying capacity of more than 3,000 passengers and crew, with the exception of the Celebrity Xpedition, which travels to the Galápagos Islands and has a capacity of 160 passengers and crew. Celebrity’s newest ship, Celebrity Reflection, has a carrying capacity of almost 4,500 passengers and crew and was launched in October 2012.
In 2004, Celebrity, through its parent company RCCL, made a public commitment to install advanced sewage treatment systems on its entire fleet of cruise ships by 2008, and of its 11 ships, all 11 have installed advanced sewage treatment systems, resulting in an A for the company’s 100 percent sewage treatment score. In determining the air pollution reduction grade for each cruise line, only ships that dock at a port that currently has shoreside power (thereby avoiding burning dirty fuel in port) were considered. In total, 0 percent of Celebrity’s ships that dock at a port with shoreside power are plug-in capable, giving the company an F in this category. While Celebrity operated two ships with advanced sewage treatment systems in Alaska in 2010, it chose to discharge sewage from those ships outside of Alaskan waters, thereby avoiding Alaska’s strong water quality standards, giving Celebrity an ‘N/A’ for water quality compliance in Alaska.
Celebrity Cruises - Cruise Ship Fleet
| Ship Name | Total Persons on Board | Destinations | Sewage Treatment | Air Pollution Reduction | Water Quality Compliance | Final Ship Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celebrity Century | 2970 | Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Mediterranean, Mexico, U.S. East Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Constellation | 3305 | Arctic, Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Mediterranean, Mexico, South America, U.S. East Coast, U.S. West Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Eclipse | 4391 | Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Mediterranean, Mexico, U.S. East Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Equinox | 4391 | Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Mediterranean, Mexico, U.S. East Coast, Africa, Middle East, North Africa | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Infinity | 3361 | Alaska, Antarctic, Canada, Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, South America, U.S. East Coast, U.S. West Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Millennium | 3367 | Alaska, Canada, Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, South America, U.S. West Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Solstice | 4391 | Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, U.S. East Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Summit | 3311 | Canada, Caribbean, New England, U.S. East Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Xpedition | 162 | South America | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Reflection | 4470 | Caribbean, Europe, Mediterranean, U.S. East Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
| Celebrity Silhouette | 4391 | Caribbean, Europe, Mediterranean, U.S. East Coast | A | F | N/A | C- |
Grading methodology for the 2012 Cruise Ship Report Card
Friends of the Earth’s Cruise Ship Report Card ranks 15 major cruise lines and 148 cruise ships -- Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Costa Cruises, Crystal Cruises, Cunard Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Oceania Cruises, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Royal Caribbean Int’l, Seabourn Cruise Line and Silversea Cruises -- according to three environmental criteria: Sewage Treatment, Air Pollution Reduction, and Water Quality Compliance.
- To determine a cruise line’s Sewage Treatment grade, we compared the number of cruise ships in the cruise line that have installed advanced sewage treatment systems against the total number of ships in the cruise line.
- To determine the Air Pollution Reduction grade for each ship in a cruise line, only ships that dock at a port and plug in to available shoreside power hookups were graded.
- To determine the Water Quality Compliance grade for ships operating in Alaska, we used 2010 notices of violation issued for individual cruise ships to each cruise line by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Ships were given an ‘N/A’ if they traveled to Alaska but avoided Alaska’s strong water quality standards by discharging outside of those protected waters.
- The grades for each of the criteria were averaged to calculate the Final Grade for each cruise line.