Celebrity Solstice to be Named in Sparkling Celebration

Celebrity Cruises today announced the Godmother of the most widely-heralded cruise ship to enter the market this year, Celebrity Solstice. Atypically, she’s not a star of stage and screen; instead, she stars in a field of enormous importance to Celebrity Cruises: the world’s oceans.

Professor Sharon L. Smith, the first ocean scientist ever to serve as Godmother of a cruise ship, will join Celebrity executives today to name the brand’s sleek, 2,850-guest ship in formal ceremonies at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“We are genuinely privileged to have such a remarkable woman serve as Godmother of this remarkable ship,” said Richard D. Fain, Chairman of Celebrity Cruises and Chairman and CEO of parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. “Sharon Smith is exceptional in ways well beyond her academic achievements.”

A magna cum laude graduate of Colorado College, Smith earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from Duke University, holds two additional honorary doctorate degrees, and a master’s degree from the University of Auckland, where she also was a Fulbright fellow.

A biological oceanographer, Smith has traveled the world in research expeditions from Polar Regions to the Arabian Sea. She has devoted her career to studying some of the smallest components of food webs, with a particular focus on zooplankton and how their life cycles are tuned to physical forces, such as day length in the Arctic or summer monsoons in the Arabian Sea.

Celebrity Solstice will embark on its inaugural season November 23, on a series of seven-night Eastern Caribbean cruises roundtrip from Fort Lauderdale. In spring 2009, the stunning new ship will introduce a series of romantic 10- and 11-night Mediterranean sailings roundtrip from Rome.