Kate’s obvious appetite for the cruise industry and savage levels of workaholism shone through during our chat. “I’ve found that if I go to a captain’s dinner, I spend three hours with eight people, which still leaves 2,900 other people. We don’t pick on those minorities, we celebrate them.” And on-board Kate refuses to follow conventional protocol, doing away with the “captain’s table”. “On our ships we have 75 different nationalities, so we are all a minority of some sort. It’s a scary thought to leave the familiarity of a home and go to sea, but it is the greatest adventure you will ever go on.”ĭespite working in what is traditionally a male-dominated environment, Kate is adamant that she has never experienced sexism in the workplace. She has clear advice for other women wanting to follow in her seafaring footsteps: “Just do it. In September 2015 she became Summit’s commanding officer – the first American woman to captain a modern megaship – before moving to Celebrity Equinox in 2018 and on to her current ship, the billion-dollar Celebrity Edge, in 2019. The response Kate recalls is typical of her: “Hell yes” was the answer.

She was asked if she would become captain of Celebrity Summit. In 2015, Kate got a call from Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, the president of Celebrity Cruises, a cruise brand under the Royal Caribbean Group. In 2003, she moved to Royal Caribbean as a second officer, where she saw more scope for career progression, and she spent the next 12 years at the cruise giant “working my way up”. “They said I wasn’t qualified to be a bartender, as I had never served a drink in my life, but took me on as a third mate.” Kate documented life on-board, in the midst of a pandemic, for her 230,000 followers on Instagram – – which she views as her “digital photo album” and “also a way we can represent what’s really happening”. You have access to fresh air and sunshine, and it really makes a difference.” She immediately moved her stranded crew into guest balconies “to have them experience what our guests experience.

She explained: “When we started to see difficulty involved in repatriating crew, one of things I really wanted to do was to be on board until the last crew member went home.” Kate chose to remain on the ship, anchored off the Bahamas, rather than return to her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. The woman at the helm of Celebrity’s flagship, Celebrity Edge, was supposed to sign off for three months of shore leave last March. Kate McCue – who became the first American woman to captain a megaship at the age of 38 and accessorises her uniform with black platform patent Christian Louboutins – may be pretty, but she’s also gritty.

Celebrity edge captain