Celebrity Xcel Cruise Ship Review: Photos, Shows, Entertainment, Book

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For decades, cruise ship entertainment has mostly lived in the background — something you stumbled into after dinner, not something you planned your night around. Celebrity Cruises is here to flip that script.

The brand-new Celebrity Xcel, which set sail November 2025, doesn’t just offer entertainment – it centers around it. The ship pairs elevated, personalized vacations with a lineup of live music, dance, theater, and immersive experiences that feel closer to your favorite arts festival than an all-inclusive resort. Think Broadway-level productions, lively nightclubs, and interactive performances where you’re part of the show, all without ticket queues, surge pricing, or standing in a parking lot wondering why you didn’t just Uber home earlier.

“I think there’s kind of a rumor that dancing on ships can be quite easy,” offers Kieran Jeffries, a Celebrity Xcel cast member returning for his third year with the company. “I’ve never believed it. I definitely had to step it up when I came here,” he says. “It was more impressive than I could have imagined it to be, and that’s why I keep coming back.”

It’s a rare cruise that understands something fundamental: travelers are looking for itineraries that go beyond relaxation –  they want to be entertained on multiple levels. And that’s why Celebrity Xcel is shaping up to be the cruise to book in 2026.

Jeffries is part of the inaugural cast for Celebrity Xcel, which boasts the most ambitious entertainment lineup the cruise line has ever attempted. The offers encompass “three original theater productions, two interactive club shows, elevated dance parties, live music across multiple venues, and four rotating destination festivals inside a new venue, dubbed ‘The Bazaar,’ all powered by more than 75 resident performers,” according to the brand.

The standout? The Bazaar. It’s less “watch from your seat,” and more “drop yourself into the middle of it.” Inspired by the destinations on your itinerary, this multi-level venue turns performances into something closer to a cabaret-meets-street-show hybrid. The performers move around you, the costumes are bold, the drinks are delicious, and the line between audience and action is intentionally blurred. You’re not watching the show, you’re in it.

Or you can catch more theatrical shows like Between Takes, which takes you behind the scenes of 1920s Hollywood complete with stunts and choreography; Chapters, which takes audiences on a journey as different scenes and stories unfold on stage; and Mainstage, a live concert experience inspired by the world’s biggest music festivals. These are productions that deliver genuinely Broadway-caliber entertainment in state-of-the-art theater – in the middle of the big blue sea.

“I don’t want to say it’s a Hollywood show because that’s automatically what your mind is going to gravitate towards,” teases Oskar Rodriguez, Celebrity Cruises’ director of creative and theatrical production, about Between Takes. “The great thing about this show is, yes, we touch on Hollywood, but it’s done through the lens of what happens when you yell ‘Cut.’ So we’re literally taking the audience behind the scenes. It’s Between Takes, because we start with a huge opening number, and from there we go ‘Cut’ and then all of our dancers go from being in front of the camera to stopping, where they go to put their makeup back on, or to a corner to have a smoke. The production also journeys through a time lapse from old Hollywood to modern days.”

How is a cruise ship pulling off such ambitious productions? Simple answer: they hired the real deal.

The creative team reads like a Hollywood call sheet. Adam Murray, who directs and choreographs Mainstage, won a World Choreography Award for his work on Rocketman and shaped the movement in Ready Player One and Cruella. Lukas McFarlane, the Director and Choreographer behind Between Takes, consistently works in TV and film on projects like The X Factor, ITV’s The Voice and Netflix’s new show, Dance Monsters. Jerry Reeve, the creative producer behind Between Takes, has staged performances for Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, and even the King’s Coronation. 

The ship’s productions were developed by the aforementioned names and creative teams whose résumés span Broadway, film, television, and global arena tours. And it shows. There’s nothing slapped together here; no half-baked revues or bargain-bin choreography. These are shows rehearsed for months, designed with intention, and executed to perfection. 

“When you go to school for years to study performing arts, these are the shows you want to do,” offers Bettina Lobo, a Celebrity Xcel cast member who was trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City and now performs on the ship. “I got here and I was like, ‘Wow, these are Vegas-style shows, with full productions,’” she says. 

To wit: “We’re dancing, we’re moving sets, we have huge beams that are flying up in the air, we’re changing costumes – sometimes eight times in an hour – and we’re running around and singing,” Lobo says. “I really didn’t understand the scale of what I was signing myself up for but it’s been amazing.”

Behind the scenes, the level of care is just as intense. From closed-door creative meetings to auditions to the daily lives of onboard performers, the process reflects a standard of excellence rarely seen on ships of this size.

Lobo says she’s appreciated the way the team has incorporated her Latin heritage into the productions, something that no doubt resonates with the international guests and audiences on the ship. In fact, Lobo’s heritage became the foundation for a pivotal design decision in one of her previous Celebrity Cruises shows: “On my last ship, we had a whole section added in Spanish just because I’m Venezuelan,” she shares proudly. “The director was like, ‘You speak Spanish, let’s do something with that.’ And now there’s an entire section where British girls are having to learn how to speak Spanish,” she laughs, adding that she’s grateful the team “encouraged me to take this as an opportunity to put your stamp on a project.”

Celebrity Xcel performer Ryuya Kuwasaki, meanwhile, started as an acrobat before training in gymnastics and parkour in Denmark. Though he considers himself an athlete first, he was intrigued by the opportunity to bring his skills to a whole new audience next to the actors, dancers and singers on stage. “I have no background in acting but I’m interested in how I can bring parkour to the storytelling aspect of the show,” he says. “The cool thing here is that every person has different talents and we get to share them and we get to bring them to the show,” he continues, “and that makes the show even more special and fun.”

On a ship, every detail matters: the wardrobe, the set design, the lighting cues, the technology humming behind the scenes. And the team here has worked hard to make sure everything works seamlessly together to deliver a high-calibre show for the crowd each night.

When costumer Vicky Gill was tasked with creating outfits for the new Celebrity Xcel productions, the BAFTA-winning designer says she had to approach it much differently than the theater productions and television shows she has worked on before (including the popular Strictly Come Dancing).

“When you’re performing so much, the costume has to take a beating—it’s daily wear and tear. We have huge elements like beams and climbing in some numbers too, so materials have to hold up,” she explains, “and they do!”

And, she adds, “There are things you don’t even think about. All materials have to be non-flammable because we’re on a ship. And it’s not just about making a costume look good—it’s about making it functional, safe, and able to fit performers as the casts change over the years. It’s really impressive how the wardrobe team handles all of that.”

Echoes production designer Dominic Tolfts: “The things that you won’t see or appreciate as an audience member is how these things get broken down, how they’re built backstage, how they store them, all of those things we have to consider. And that’s sort of a challenge,” he says. Still, when the sequences come together, Tolfts says “it’s all quite dramatic, and really exciting.”

Aside from the artists on stage and the sets that whiz and whirl around them, the ship features a massive “110-foot curved kinetic LED screen, supported by kinetic lighting, laser video etching, projection mapping, and pyrotechnics,” per Celebrity Cruises. The effect is immersive in a way that feels closer to Las Vegas’ Sphere — minus the vertigo and the $400 ticket. Once you sit down, you forget you’re on a ship. You’re dropped into another world, and when the final bow hits, the only problem is realizing you have to wait until tomorrow night to do it again.

“There’s this level of cleverness and artistry and surprise within the productions that’s very unique to Celebrity Xcel,” says Lisa Lehr, vice president of entertainment for Celebrity Cruises. “Our guests are just drawn at every turn and will have a gasp and a connection to the content.”

Of course, Celebrity also understands that not everyone wants to commit to a full-length production, or that sometimes the casino does sound more appealing than interpretive dance. That’s where the Xcel Dream Makers program came in, an industry-first initiative that invites vacationers worldwide to craft their dream vacation experience aboard the new cruise.

Ahead of its inaugural season, vacationers across the globe directly influenced entertainment choices onboard: voting on costumes for Chapters, shaping the energy of the Saddle Up Saloon party, and helping guide the themes of The Bazaar’s Viva festival. Another way Celebrity wanted to ensure you’re not just watching, you’re participating.

Want more chaos (the good kind)? Wander into a late-night dance party where you can practice your line dancing to country music hits, or don your most shimmering attire as the clock edges towards midnight at the electric “shine the night” party. Compete in games against fellow passengers for bragging rights that somehow feel very serious at sea.

Back to The Bazaar, because it deserves the encore.

This venue transforms throughout each sailing with four destination-inspired festivals: Carnival, Aqua, Viva, and Flora, “celebrating the cultures of the Bahamas, Mexico, the Cayman Islands, and the Dominican Republic,” per the brand. The space constantly shifts, so no two visits feel the same, which helps keep guests immersed in “on shore” experiences even at sea.

And yes, you should absolutely have a drink in hand while you’re there. The Bazaar’s bar looks like it wandered right out of a Baz Luhrmann film, because culture should be experienced with cocktails, it’s only right.

For the talented creatives, as well as the cast and crew who entertain passengers each night, getting to be a part of a new cruise ship launch is almost as exciting as the destinations the ship visits themselves. 

“My very first job out of college when I was 19 was as a dancer on a cruise,” says director and choreographer Murray, who got his start in London’s West End and worked as an assistant choreographer for the UK production of Wicked, before producing shows for Celebrity Cruises. “The friends that I made on that job are still some of my lifelong friends now, and it holds a special place in my heart, because I just never really performed at the level that I did on the ship ever again in my career. Like those guys are required to do way more on those ships than anywhere else in the entire industry,” he says, “from the styles that are required of you and being asked to sing or do solos as a dancer or sometimes you’re doing aerial. I just remember having such huge respect – and I still do – for those dancers and performers that are on ships around the world, knowing how hard they work.”

Jeffries adds that he appreciates the “quality of the shows we get to dance. And I’d say that’s something very different from what I’ve experienced on land,” he says, explaining that “the difficulty of the shows is something that’s always pushing me and always challenging me. That’s why I love performing with Celebrity,” he says, “because it’s always a challenge, it’s always a push. This is probably some of the hardest stuff I’ve done in my life but it means that while I get to do what I love, I’m also always improving and I’m always learning while I’m here. And then,” he concludes, “when you finish the show and everyone applauds you afterwards, you feel like, ‘Yeah, I deserve that,’ because you work your bum off to be able to do these shows.”

How to Book the Celebrity Xcel in 2026

If you’re looking for one of the most entertaining cruise experiences you can book right now, Celebrity Xcel should already be on your radar for 2026, and this is just the beginning of the cruise line’s innovative entertainment planning. In the inaugural season, Celebrity Xcel sails from Fort Lauderdale, offering seven-night itineraries between The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and Puerto Plata, St. Thomas and St. Maarten, with prices starting around $800 per person and scaling up depending on when and where you want to journey. And come Summer 2026, Celebrity Xcel heads to Europe with seven- to 11-night sailings out of Athens and Barcelona – meaning you can catch Between Takes one night and walk the Acropolis the next. It’s the rare vacation where the journey genuinely rivals the destination.

Book early, and you can also take advantage of promotions like Wave Season, that delivers some of the best value of the year.

One thing’s certain: after sailing on Celebrity Xcel, you won’t look at cruise entertainment or live performance the same way again.