World Travel Holdings (WTH), the world’s largest seller of cruise vacations, will be the first paying customer aboard the Celebrity Cruises’ Solstice, chartering the new ship for a two-night cruise before its inaugural season, the company announced Wednesday.
WTH operates 11 vacation-sales brands and partners with seven others, as well as many hotels and airlines.
The 2,850-passenger Solstice is scheduled to sail promotional, pre-inaugural cruises in mid-November before Massachusetts-based World Travel Holdings’ guests board the vessel in Ft. Lauderdale on Nov. 21. The Solstice was recently floated out from Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany and is scheduled to sail to Eemshaven, Netherlands on Sept. 27 for sea trials, and its eventual trans-Atlantic crossing.