Sister to Celebrity Solstice, Equinox and Eclipse, Celebrity Silhouette joins the Celebrity Cruises fleet in July 2011. Like her sisters, Celebrity Silhouette will feature Qsine, Martini Bar & Crush, the iLounge Internet center, the Lawn Club and veranda views in 85 percent of staterooms.
Celebrity’s Solstice-class ships are some of the most beautiful and distinctive megaships ever built, offering super-modern styling, sophisticated spas and relaxation areas, a wealth of fantastic dining options, beautifully designed staterooms and suites, and a vibe that feels much more upscale than you’d expect, given Celebrity’s competitive pricing.
Launched in 2011, Celebrity Silhouette is the fourth of the Solstice-class ships. Measuring 122,000 gross tons and carrying 2,850 guests at double occupancy, she’s a huge but exceptionally well laid out vessel with an interior design that really flows from room to room, creating a unified feel.
With Silhouette, Celebrity began pushing the envelope of the original Solstice-class design, re-imagining some of the Solstice-class’s signature spaces and adding new venues to make the experience even more rich, modern, and beyond the ordinary.
Lawn Club & Pool Deck On Celebrity Silhouette
The Lawn Club, for instance, the half-acre real grass lawn that’s long been the iconic Solstice-class venue, has been rethought and re-engineered to be both more relaxing and more social.
At one end, of the space, a new restaurant has been designed to offer a casual, backyard barbecue experience. At the other end there’s a casual breakfast and lunch spot and an art studio, while to port and starboard, the lawn is rimmed by the Alcoves, eight semi-private, shaded cabanas that can accommodate two to four guests, and offer plush seating, themed picnic baskets, WiFi, and an a la carte beverage menu.
Nearby, there’s a row of hammocks for the ultimate shuck-off-your-cares experience. On the lawn itself, guests can play croquet, putt around some golf balls, play a game of bocce, or take a little picnic.
A couple decks down, Silhouette’s pool deck is one of the most serene and resort-like in the cruise industry, its two pools surrounded by 25-foot A-frame canopies that have luxurious day beds at their bases and large cantilevered awnings up top, providing shade for chaise lounges spread out along two decks. Forward of the pools is a glass-ceilinged, adults-only Solarium offering a lap pool, cushioned teak lounge chairs, and a super-relaxing atmosphere.
Public Rooms On Celebrity Silhouette
Inside, Silhouette feels like a spread in an upscale lifestyles magazine. Her Grand Foyer is designed as an homage to grand ocean liner cruising, while fifty feet up a full-size, 20-foot tall tree sits suspended in a planter, adding a hint of surrealism.
Opposite the tree, the Hideaway was designed to be like a treehouse for adults, a place to go where you really want to get away from it all. There’s super-comfortable seating for just 30 people, plus two raised “nests” for the lucky guests who get there first.
Other rooms onboard run the upscale gamut, from the Napa-inspired Cellar Masters wine bar to the fashion-world Martini Bar and Crush — the former with a perpetually frosted bar, the latter with an ice-filled table from which bartenders dispense sample pairings of vodka and caviar.
Michael’s Bar, a staple aboard Celebrity’s ships from the beginning, has been re-imagined here as a gourmet beer and whiskey bar, serving a menbu of up to 50 international beers, plus fine whiskeys, scotches, and cognacs.
The ship’s AquaSpa is done in beautiful minimalist style, all clean lines and soothing colors. Besides massages, facials, and other traditional treatments, the spa menu includes acupuncture, teeth whitening, Botox wrinkle treatments, and other trendy options. For a different kind of trendy option, guests can surf the web, buy the latest iPads and iPods, or take a class from an Apple-certified professional at the iLounge, a sleek, modern technology space developed in association with Apple.
For kids, Silhouette offers a large, light-filled children’s center and separate teen center near the very top of the ship.
Dining On Celebrity Silhouette
In all, Silhouette offers six restaurants plus a buffet and several snack and light-meal options. The main restaurant is the Grand Cuvee Dining Room, designed as a dreamy crystal fantasy by celebrity designer Adam Tihany. Another Tihany design, the Tuscan Grille, is an upscale steak-and-pasta venue.
Qsine is a playful, imaginatively designed space serving food from an eclectic international menu, with an emphasis on creative presentation. Murano serves continental cuisine in an elegant, romantic setting, while Blu serves light and healthy menu items to a clientele that’s drawn almost exclusively from guests booked into the ship’s spa-oriented AquaClass staterooms (plus other guests when there’s availability).
Up at the top of the ship, at the forward edge of the Lawn Club, the Lawn Club Grill is an interactive, highly social, indoor-outdoor restaurant that’s centered around grilling. Guests can grill their own meats and seafood and make their own pizza along with Celebrity’s professional chefs, or sit back and have the chefs do all the work, washing it all down with a bucket of beer or a pitcher of sangria.
Evening Entertainment On Celebrity Silhouette
After dinner, guests can head forward to the 1,115-guest Silhouette Theatre, which was designed with a rounded stage to bring performers closer to the audience, plus complex gear up above that lets aerialists fly out over the audience’s heads.
Just down the corridor, the smaller Celebrity Central is a performance venue for late-night comedy shows, films, and other entertainment, while Quasar is the ship’s dedicated disco/nightclub, done up in a streamlined, space-age look.
For a quieter vibe, you can hit the Ensemble Lounge, which offers after-dinner jazz, or Cellar Masters, a Napa-inspired space that does wine tastings by day and casual relaxation by night.
Celebrity Silhouette Staterooms & Suites
Silhouette’s staterooms are an evolution of the standard cruise cabin, from their shape and ergonomic design to their thoughtful details and amenities. In all, Silhouette offers private balconies on 85% of her cabins, and each is big enough to fit two deck chairs and a table. Inside, in each standard stateroom, one wall bulges outward to give more maneuvering room around the foot of the bed, whose mattress is designed with rounded corners to make moving around it even easier. Beds are also higher than normal, allowing more luggage storage beneath, and are surrounded at the wall by a tall headboard that has an unobtrusive little cabinet that’s perfect for purses and other small items. In the bathrooms, the shower stalls are larger than the cruise ship norm and have little foot rails that make it easier for women to shave their legs. There’s also a nice collection of little drawers, cabinets, and other nooks for storing toiletries.
Suites range from the 300-sq.-ft. Sky Suites, which are larger versions of the standard 194-foot veranda cabin, to the 1,291-square-foot Penthouse Suites, each of which has an enormous living room, wrap-around balcony with whirlpool tub, and palatial marble bathroom.
Between her standard stateroom categories and her suites, Silhouette offers a middle ground in the form of her 130 adults-only AquaClass staterooms, which promote a “wellness” experience through things like special music/sound and aromatherapy options, jetted bodywash showers, pillow menus, and perks like free use of the spa’s Persian Garden aromatherapy steam room and relaxation room, and access to the wellness restaurant Blu.
Travel agents can find pictures and videos of the Silhouette on Ralph’s site, www.avidcruiser.com.
An avid traveler and an award-winning journalist, Ralph Grizzle produces articles, video and photos that are inspiring and informative, personal and passionate. A journalism graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ralph has specialized in travel writing for more than two decades. To read more cruise and port reviews by Ralph Grizzle, visit his website at www.avidcruiser.com
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