Ancient ruins, stunning architecture, blue-domed churches, amazing food and entertainment. All of that and more was what we experienced in this 2026 Celebrity Xcel Mediterranean Cruise Itinerary. What an amazing time! This page is where we’ve collected every trip report from the sailing, in order. We cover Barcelona before boarding, every port along the way, our final day in Athens, and everything in between. We even threw in a look at the Retreat experience and a full dining recap at the end.
Celebrity Xcel Mediterranean Cruise Itinerary – Trip Reports
Celebrity Xcel Mediterranean Cruise Itinerary – The Ports
The Backstory
Back in April, 2025 we traveled to Europe for the first time. Hesitant as we were to travel by land, figuring out transportation and hotels, we instead booked a cruise aboard the Celebrity Apex taking us from Barcelona, Spain, through the Strait of Gibraltar stopping in Lisbon and then Porto, Portugal, with one more stop in La Coruña, Spain before ending in Southampton England. In addition to those ports, we spent two amazing days touring Barcelona before boarding, and two more whirlwind days in London after disembarking. Everything we experienced is in our collection of Celebrity Apex Barcelona to Southampton (2025) trip reports.
Not long after we came home, a familiar itch to cruise Europe returned, and we began researching Celebrity’s 2026 itineraries. One particular sailing stood out: a Mediterranean cruise aboard the brand-spanking new Celebrity Xcel, which departed Barcelona, this time sailing east with ports in Valletta (Malta), Kusadasi (Turkey), and the Greek islands of Mykonos and Santorini before ending in Piraeus (Athens).
While we are all about the destinations, it was also incredibly cool that this cruise would be aboard Celebrity’s newest Edge-class ship, which had not yet launched when we booked. A couple of months later, Celebrity announced the ship would be ready early and added a preview cruise, which we couldn’t resist. You can find those trip reports right here.
What’s next
Check out these two recent posts, and don’t forget to subscribe to be notified when new trip reports go live! We’ve got some upcoming Disney content as well as another cruise coming up this year!
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