The Grass Really is Greener on Celebrity Solstice

Celebrity Cruises recently announced an industry-first on their newest cruise ship, Celebrity Solstice, as 2,130 square meters of its top deck surface would be covered with real growing grass set in an innovative new country club environment known as “The Lawn Club.”

The half-acre Lawn Club on Celebrity Solstice allows guests to enjoy bocce ball and croquet, practice their putting, picnic with a basket of wine and cheese or simply feel the grass between their toes while sailing the oceans of the world. The area will also feature the Hot Glass Show -another first in the industry- developed in collaboration with The Corning Museum of Glass.

President of Celebrity Cruises Dan Hanrahan said: “We want our guests to experience the unexpected, like the thrill of sinking a putt on a freshly manicured lawn in the middle of the ocean.”

Celebrity worked with design firm Wilson Butler Architects to design the entire club area, then engaged a team of landscape architects and irrigation specialists along with turf and soil scientists at the University of Florida. They conducted extensive research and tested a variety of grasses to determine which can withstand the winds, sun, shade and temperature variations that will affect the grass and soil as the ship sails in the Caribbean. The Lawn Club is over three times larger than New York Rockefeller Center’s 668-square-meter ice-skating rink, and 2.4 times the size of Centre Court at England’s Wimbledon Lawn & Tennis Club, which is 902 square meters.