Celebrity Cruises Revises Smoking Policies

In a move which seems to echo her Azamara sister brand's policy, Celebrity has announced that effective October 1, 2008, it will be revising their onboard smoking policies.

The new policy will disallow smoking in Celebrity's staterooms or on stateroom verandas. The policy also will reduce the number of public areas in which guests can smoke onboard.

"We are proud to be the first premium cruise line to set a new standard toward creating an environment of cleaner air on our ships," said Celebrity Cruises President & CEO Dan Hanrahan. "We pay careful attention to what our guests have to say, and approximately 90 percent of them have told us they are non-smokers. By increasing the number of smoke-free areas onboard while still designating areas for those who smoke, our aim is to make the onboard experience as pleasant as possible for all of our guests."

The new policy was created after Celebrity polled past guests. Designated indoor areas where guests can smoke cigarettes include the port side of one lounge per ship and a designated slot machine area in each ship's casino. The new policy also designates outdoor areas where guests can smoke. These include the port side of the pool deck and sundecks on each ship, the port side of the Sunset Bar on Celebrity Century and on Celebrity's Millennium class of ships, and the port side aft outside of Winter Garden on Celebrity Galaxy and Celebrity Mercury. Celebrity's new Solstice class of ships, launching with Celebrity Solstice late this year, will follow the new policy beginning with the first sailing. Celebrity Solstice's Lawn Club and the Sunset Bar at the Lawn Club will not allow smoking. Violations to Celebrity's smoking policy may result in a $250 cleaning fee charged to the guest's onboard account and may also be addressed through the line's guest conduct policy.

The new policy will go into effect on Celebrity's fleet on the first day of the first sailing to follow October 1.

Note that the Celebrity Xpedition is not part of this policy as it has had in place restrictions based on the Galapagos National Park requirements.

Personally, I'll admit that as a non-smoker who is very smoke sensitive, I applaud this move. Since ship design generally has a major traffic pattern to the show lounges passing through the casino, I've had to alter my route to go up or down a deck to avoid the congestion even passing through the casino can cause. It was a pleasure on Azamara to have a virtually non-smoking casino. I also view the non-smoking policy for the cabins and verandahs to be a strong safety move as well. I do recognize this as a pretty significant inconvenience for smokers, and I actually think it would have been a nice move to have the port side Promenade Deck also a smoking area (to make it easier for smokers to duck out of the dining room for a quick puff) in addition to the other designated areas. Perhaps Celebrity will consider that for the future.