I recently tried out the “Magic Carpet” onboard the Celebrity Edge. The Magic Carpet is an orange platform that sticks off the side of the cruise ship. I was able to record a video 14 storeys above sea level!
I’ve been following this ship’s journey since before she was launched, and ever since I saw her for the first time in the shipyard, I’ve had some big questions!
The first question of course being “What on earth is that orange thing on the side of the ship for?!”
When I learnt that it was called the ‘Magic Carpet’ my questions moved from what to why. Why would a cruise line add this to the side of the ship?
I didn’t know what it would be used for and I wondered how on earth the cruise ship could stay afloat with this hanging off one side.
The Magic Carpet weighs over 90 tons, you’d think something that big and heavy would affect the balance of the ship.
Boarding the Celebrity Edge
As soon as I saw the Celebrity Edge docked in Barcelona I was amazed by the structure.
The orange really stood out against the blue ship and sky and the rectangular shape looked so different to the curves of the rest of the ship. She certainly looked very different to the other cruise ships in port!
I boarded on deck 5 and headed straight up to the top deck to have a look around at the strange platform. At this point, the Magic Carpet was on deck 15 besides the pool, but I knew that it could – and did move regularly.
Stepping On to the Magic Carpet
I did wonder if it might feel scary being that high up with nothing below me, but thankfully it didn’t feel scary at all.
It was so easy to walk onto the area that I almost didn’t realise that it was any different from the rest of the ship. It certainly didn’t feel any less stable.
My first impression was that it was much bigger than it looked from land, I suppose that does make sense. It’s roughly the size of a tennis court and is 20 ft wide and 110 ft long.
Celebrity say that up to 100 guests can fit on the Magic Carpet at one time. I think that would be tight – but I’m sure they’ve managed it before!
I knew that I wanted to come back later in the day to have a drink and I was looking forward to finding out what else the carpet was used for.
(There isn’t actually any carpet on the Magic Carpet by the way!)
The deck can move all the way from deck 2 up to deck 16.
I suppose it’s like the flying carpet from Aladdin. I was on this cruise with my Mum and she did keep calling it the “flying carpet” and given how it moved though, she wasn’t far wrong.
I headed to my cabin on deck 7, and I noticed that we had a brilliant view of the Magic Carpet from our “Infinite Veranda” window.
As it was being used as a bar at this time I could see people in there drinking and they looked tiny!
Dinner on the Edge
As I found out more about the cruise I learnt that they did also use this area for dinner.
The Magic Carpet is turned into a speciality restaurant called “Dinner on the Edge” on some evenings. It comes in at a cost of $129 per person.
It’s safe to say that I didn’t eat here during the cruise as I try my best to be a budget-conscious cruiser. Even without doing this, there was plenty of time that I could spend on the magic carpet.
Drinks on the Magic Carpet
I started to wonder why Celebrity had built this – there was no doubt that it was a unique feature for the ship – but Celebrity Edge already has 7 bars.
It wasn’t as if it desperately needed another bar – and they didn’t have the space on the ship so they had to extend outwards!
Celebrity Edge is 308 metres long, holds almost 3000 people and is 16 decks high – so she’s a fairly big ship.
At the time of launch, Celebrity described the platform as:
“The Magic Carpet – The worlds first Cantilevered Floating Platform”
Celebrity Cruises
I’d seen the bar part but hadn’t yet had the chance to use it for what I think is its best purpose, as a tender boarding dock.
We had a drink on the magic carpet and sat in the comfortable seating. I noticed how some seats were fixed nearer the bar and how some could be moved when they needed to be.
On three sides of the bar are big glass walls so we had amazing views across the ocean.
I never felt nervous being up there, but I do understand why some people do. The glass is only halfway up on the far side so when we sat here in the evening we would often be able to feel the breeze.
This was really nice as it was hot every day of our cruise. We did have one day of wind – and I did enjoy a walk around the magic carpet that day too!
It was a great place to watch the sunset and usually wasn’t too busy. I think because it’s up and away from the other bars a lot of people forgot about it.
Lots of cruise ships have glass walkways where you walk over a glass floor on the top of the cruise ship and you can look down to the decks and sea below.
If this bar had a transparent floor, I’d have found that nerve-wracking! But as I couldn’t see down to the sea, only out to the ocean, it didn’t worry me at all.
I didn’t think too much about it, I just enjoyed it as a bar – I was still wondering how the ship didn’t tip over though!
The Magic Carpet is Also Used as a Tender Platform
Sometimes on cruises, the cruise ship will not dock at the land and instead, everybody has to use what are called “tender boats” to get into the town.
The tender boats are sometimes the ship’s lifeboats and they can also be boats from the place that you are visiting.
Usually, you’ll have to go down into the crew areas of the ship to board the tenders and everybody will end up lining up in the corridors. It very much feels like an afterthought and I’ve never really enjoyed boarding a tender before, it’s just a thing you have to do.
That was all about to change onboard Celebrity Edge though. I was keen to give tendering a go.
The first two days of our cruise were tender ports in Cannes and Portofino. We collected tickets from a bar on deck 5 and waited for our number to be called so that we could board the tender.
We headed down to the area that is called “Destination Gateway” and from here we were led out onto the Magic Carpet. This was now being used as a platform from which we could board the tender boat.
The tender boats could pull up right alongside and we could all just walk onto the boat. This made the whole process much easier and faster than usual and it was really cool to see it in this new form.
Most of the seats from the Magic carpet were put away but it didn’t look too different.
The magic carpet could be moved down when needed and moved up again for dinner. I never actually saw it move, but I’ve been told it doesn’t take long.
You can’t ride on the Magic Carpet when it moves up and down the ship. I wish you could – but I understand why Celebrity wouldn’t allow that.
As we sailed away on the tender boats we had a great view of the whole ship and the complete Magic Carpet structure. The design definitely makes the ships look unique and the Edge class are instantly recognisable.
Find out all about my impressions of the Magic Carpet, but watching this video next:
Other Edge Class Ships With Magic Carpets
Celebrity Edge has “sister ships.” These are ships of the same design, size and class. They are called the Celebrity Apex and Celebrity Beyond. There is another sister ship, Celebrity Ascent, launching soon. She will also have a Magic Carpet on one side.
Why the Extra Weight On One Side Doesn’t De-stabilize The Ship
You’d think that with something like this on the side, that has a full bar and lots of seating with guests, the ship might be heavier on one side than the other.
I assumed that the ship would have had something to counteract the weight on the other side of the ship but it turns out that a counterweight isn’t needed at all.
Although the Magic Carpet is heavy, coming in at over 90 tons, it really isn’t that heavy compared to the rest of the cruise ship. As a percentage, the weight is tiny.
When they designed the ship they just had to take into account for the weight of the Magic Carpet when planning the other things that are inside the ship.
The weight of the magic carpet is pretty consistent, apart from the addition of guests now and then so really it isn’t as big a problem as you would think.
Estimates of the deadweight tonnage of Celebrity Edge which is between 9000 and 13000 tons.
Even at the lower end of that estimate, the magic carpet is only 1% of that, so not a big problem.
“Deadweight tonnage” of a ship is defined as a measurement of the total contents of a ship – including cargo, fuel, crew, passengers, food, and water
Celebrity Edge might seem like a big ship but by cruise ship standards she’s actually not.
I’ve been on much bigger cruise ships – and I recently cruised on an Italian Megaship called the “Costa Smeralda.” To find out what that cruise was like, and how much I paid for it (spoiler alert not much at all!) check out this video next:
Before You Go!
Celebrity Edge offers luxury cruising, and arguably some of the best food at sea. To find out everything i ate whilst onboard, and learn more about the many restaurants and eateries onboard, read this article next:
Everything I Ate on my Celebrity Cruise (Photos and Menus) – Food Review
To read my full review of the ship, food, entertainment, and more, click here:
Celebrity Edge Full Cruise Review (Food, Ship, Entertainment and More)
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