16 Ways to Create Your Own Wellness Cruise

Designing a wellness-focused cruise vacation lets you sail away into relaxation while staying committed to your health and well-being. You’re in an environment with a state-of-the-art fitness center and an exciting range of classes waiting to be enjoyed. The running track has the best views you could wish for. The spa is yours to explore, with everything from luxurious body wraps to massage to rejuvenating facials to try.

There’s a choice of world-class restaurants, each one with healthy options that make no compromise on flavor or presentation. On Celebrity’s ships, there’s even an entire stateroom category, AquaClass, geared to guests who want to focus on a healthier vacation. Your wellness journey at sea awaits.

Elevate Your Experience to AquaClass

AquaClass staterooms and Aqua Sky Suites are a wellness-lover’s dream. These beautiful veranda staterooms and suites have been designed to create the ultimate in relaxation.

You’ll find a pillow menu, Celebrity’s renowned eXhale bedding, a plush cotton robe and slippers, and eco-friendly bathroom products. There’s a massaging shower head in the bathroom, and daily bottled water delivered by your stateroom attendant. A yoga mat is provided for your private practice, and there are even wellness channels on the TV.

The wellness immersion extends beyond the stateroom. AquaClass guests enjoy included access to the Sea Thermal Suite or the Persian Garden, so you can enjoy the steam rooms, saunas, and divine heated loungers. You’ll also have access to complimentary fitness classes and discounts on spa treatments, which can be arranged by your dedicated spa concierge.

AquaClass guests dine in Blu, which offers imaginative, fresh dishes with a healthy twist. Try the zucchini carpaccio or signature baby spinach salad with Roquefort cheese. Pan-seared filet mignon with celery puree and green asparagus is another treat, as is the classic Blu cheese soufflé. All these delicious dishes can be accompanied by organic or biodynamic wines.

Indulge Yourself With a Spa Treatment

Our cruise ship spas have extensive menus, embracing everything from high-tech facials and anti-aging treatments to nature-inspired programs inspired by the destinations we visit.

Try the Thousand Flower Detox Wrap, enriched with green tea seed oil and Nordic peat, which harnesses the healing powers of nature.

Soothe stress with a zero gravity wellness massage, using an advanced treatment table that allows your therapist to work on every muscle group. Invoke the healing traditions of Japan in the Iyashi Dome Experience, using infrared to aid detoxification and enhance muscle recovery.

Or drift away during the Ocean Spa Wave Massage, during which you’re wrapped in a preparation of healing sea plants and marine algae while floating on a cushion of water and inhaling calming aromatherapy oils.

You’ll also find, on Edge-series ships, state-of-the-art IV treatments to boost vitamins and minerals. All our ships carry acupuncturists and Chinese medicine experts, too, who can apply traditional techniques to treat anything from insomnia to arthritis.

Try State-of-the-Art Classes

You’ll find all the latest classes in our Fitness Centers to entertain you on your wellness cruise, from the challenging F45 to HIIT, Bungee Fitness, Cardio Boxing, and Pulse Barre, a low-impact, total body workout.

Get the endorphins flowing in a Ryde class, a group indoor cycling session, where you can push yourself as hard as you want. Or go it alone; on selected ships, you’ll find Peloton bikes, where you can join a remote class or put headphones on and lose yourself in the music and intensity of an instructor-guided workout.

Can’t choose a class? Or do you want to try them all? Then our class pass could be the answer, giving you unlimited access to our fitness classes. Choose an AquaClass stateroom or Aqua Sky Suite and the class pass will be automatically included in your vacation.

Read: Best Activities on a Cruise Ship for All Ages

Soothe Mind & Body

If you prefer something more meditative and lower impact, you’ll find a range of yoga and meditation classes on every one of our ships. There are even breathing technique classes. Join any of these to focus on balance, relaxation, and inner peace. Sometimes, yoga classes take place on deck in the sunshine and fresh air.

If you’ve chosen an AquaClass stateroom, you will find your own yoga mat in the closet, so you can practice your sun salutations in private on your own veranda.

Unwind With Saunas & Steam

Every Celebrity ship has a beautiful thermal suite of saunas, steam rooms, sensory showers, and heated loungers. On Edge-series ships, this blissful space is called the Sea Thermal Suite, while on Solstice and Millennium-series ships, it’s the Persian Garden.

In the Sea Thermal Suite, you’ll find aromatic steam, salt healing, crystal therapy, and infrared saunas, as well as a traditional Hammam, for which you can complete the Turkish-inspired experience with black soap and a special application mitt.

It’s easy to while away hours in these serene environments, dividing your time between the different experiences and the heated loungers, or dreamy cocoon basket chairs in the Sea Thermal Suite.

Tell Us About Special Diets

Celebrity’s chefs can cater to most diets—just let the ship know in advance what your requirements are, from vegan to dairy or gluten-free. Once you’re on board, you can meet with the maitre d’ of your chosen restaurant and go through your dietary requirements. Celebrity is committed to the Dine Aware program of food allergy safety training, so our crew is extremely careful.

If, for example, you have a seafood allergy, you can arrange to have the menus for the main dining room delivered to your stateroom every morning, highlighting any dishes you should avoid.

Read: What Is Food on a Cruise Really Like?

Make the Most of the Menu

Celebrity’s menus are clearly marked with symbols indicating gluten-free, lactose-free, vegetarian, and no added sugar. A menu item with a green tick has been designated Fit Fare, meaning it’s a healthier choice offering balanced nutrition with no compromise on flavor.

You might want to try roasted carrot cumin salad in the main dining rooms, for example, the salmon poke in Raw on 5, or grilled branzino with garlic spinach in the Rooftop Garden Grill.

In Eden, the fine dining specialty restaurant on Edge-series ships, there’s an entire plant-based tasting menu, offering such delicious delicacies as golden beet-tomato ceviche, fennel bouillabaisse, and dry rose petals masala curry with falafel and coconut rice.

Start Your Day in the Spa Café

Whether you’ve been for an early morning workout, a sunrise run, or simply love the uplifting zing of fresh-pressed juice, the Spa Café could be your happy place on your health cruise. Here, you’ll find delicious, nutrient-packed juices such as orange, carrot, and ginger, or vibrant beet, strawberry, carrot, and apple to fire you up for the day.

Enjoy a turkey wrap or creamy avocado toast. There are fruit platters, granola bowls, and tasty gluten-free muffins, too.

Assemble Your Own Super Salad

You’ll find no end of delicious options in the light-filled, marketplace-inspired Oceanview Café, with every kind of diet catered for, from low fat to gluten-free and low carb. It’s easy to choose healthy options when you dine here—or to try a little of what makes your mouth water and pair it with healthy choices.

At lunch and dinner, you’ll find a magnificent salad bar where you can create a rainbow-colored bowl, topped with anything from nuts and seeds to hummus, feta cheese, guacamole, roast chicken, followed perhaps by fruity sorbet, a low-calorie ice cream, or a fruit plate.

Run in the Fresh Air

Whether or not you’re a runner at home, there’s something special about the running track on the upper deck of a cruise ship. The salty air, the sound of the waves, the cry of seabirds, the wind in your face—how could you not feel good running in this environment?

Even if you don’t run, a few laps every day at a fast-paced walk, enjoying the scenery and communing with the sea, is good for body and soul.

Take Up Pickleball

Pickleball, the fitness craze of the moment, is fun, easy to start as a beginner, and a great sport to try with friends. You’ll find pickleball courts on nine of Celebrity’s ships, each one with a panoramic ocean view.

All gear is provided, so you don’t need to bring anything with you. Make up a four with friends, or challenge fellow cruisers to a game.

Consult an Expert

Perhaps you’re starting your wellness journey during your cruise, in which case, why not kick off with some expert advice? InBody 570 is a system that, via bioimpedance, a gentle electric current that is passed through the body, reveals exact measurements of your body fat, muscle, fluid retention, and metabolic rate. It can be a great starting point for setting goals.

Our fitness professionals can also come up with a personalized nutrition plan for you. A cruise, contrary to what you might imagine, is a fantastic place to start a new healthy eating regime as you don’t have to do any meal planning or food preparation. It’s all done for you.

Each of our Fitness Centers also offers personal training. Our experts will assess your level of fitness and come up with a customized regime for you for the duration of your cruise. Who says you can’t return home toned, fit, and feeling like a million dollars?

Read: How to Stay Fit On a Cruise

Dance the Night Away

Dancing is a great way to burn calories. Fortunately, there are plentiful opportunities to dance on any cruise with Celebrity, from late nights in The Club to impromptu dance parties in the Grand Plaza. Put on a pair of headphones and join one of the epic silent discos in sultry Eden on Edge-series ships, or a Dueling DJs disco on Solstice-series.

Pack your finest metallic party outfits and head up on deck on Celebrity Ascent for the regular Shine the Night party, dancing by the pool under a canopy of Caribbean stars.

Choose a Fitness-Friendly Itinerary

If you like to keep active and are bursting with energy, think about ways to keep this up when you go ashore. Some itineraries lend themselves to fitness. Head to the great outdoors of Alaska, for example, and you can fill your week with hiking, kayaking, ziplining, rock climbing, and dog sledding.

Choose the Caribbean and try a different sport every day. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to pack snorkeling, swimming, kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding, windsurfing, rainforest hikes, and horseback riding into one week.

Many of our excursions are designed with active travelers in mind. In Stavanger, Norway, you could join a guided hike to the famous Pulpit Rock, or learn the technique of Nordic walking. From Zadar, Croatia, there’s hiking in the dramatic limestone scenery of the Paklenica National Park, or canoeing on the Zrmanja River.

Head to South America and join a trek through the Magallanes National Reserve outside Punta Arenas. In sunny Bermuda, rent a bicycle and cycle the Railway Trail, a disused railroad that’s now an 18-mile boardwalk and hiking trail with tantalizing ocean views.

Go Running in Port

As any keen runner knows, there are running communities worldwide that recommend safe, fun, and scenic routes in different cities. So pack your gear, fire up your favorite running app, and head ashore.

There are some fantastic urban and suburban runs to try in Europe. In Copenhagen, you can plan a route around the Kastellet neighborhood and the colorful 17th-century Nyhavn waterfront. In Barcelona, you can run all along the waterfront, the city on one side and the Mediterranean on the other.

In Athens, heat permitting, jog around the base of Acropolis Hill, much of which is pedestrian-only. Running inside the ancient walls of Dubrovnik is tricky as the city is always busy, but there are some great trails along the coast and through pinewoods, with the walled city as a backdrop.

Just remember, on any run, to run with a buddy, stay safe, carry water, and try to avoid busy roads. Be sure to get back to the ship on time for departure, too.

Commune With the Sea

There’s something healing and reviving about the ocean. Take a moment every day to gaze at the waves and take in the views. You may have a favorite spot on deck, like the Sunset Bar, or on Edge-series ships, one of the comfortable sofas on the Magic Carpet, or a quiet spot in the light-filled Eden lounge. Take a stroll around the deck before you retire for the night and watch the moonlight reflecting off the waves.

Or simply soak up the sea views from your private veranda. Order room service breakfast and enjoy the sunrise, or toast the night to come with a glass of champagne as you watch the sunset.

Read: Cruises vs. Resorts: Which Is Best?

Ready to embrace wellness at sea? Browse Celebrity’s cruises and plan your healthy dream vacation.