Celebrity Cruises Captain Kate McCue operates in rare air.
She's the first female captain of a mega-ship, and she has become a media star. Her cat, Bug, has even become famous.
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In addition to working for Celebrity as captain of one of its newest ships, she also has endorsements and serves as a role model for young women everywhere who aspire to someday reach her level.
McCue has achieved things that others can only dream about. That, however, does not mean that she does not have a few areas where she gets a little bit jealous.
She talked about one such area in her most recent "Captain's Log" video.
Celebrity Cruises' Captain Kate has ship envy
Transcript:
Have you ever wondered if ship captains look at other ships and get vessel envy? Like, that's cool. I'd love to see that. It's not very often for me because, let's be honest, Celebrity Beyond is a $1.3 billion floating boutique hotel, but this morning I got that vessel envy.
Because when I started ships back in 2003, the very first mega yacht that I ever saw happened to be the largest in the world at the time, and that was the Octopus, which I haven't seen since 2003 until this morning docked in front of us in Bonaire. And the reason that I'm putting this "Captain's Log" out as soon as possible and as early as I can is because I'm kind of hoping that the captain of the Octopus will call up and be like, you want to have a cappuccino on board?
Yeah. Octopus is a 126-meter, 413-foot mega yacht built for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2003 for 200 million dollars.
At the time, she was the largest mega yacht in the world, and today she ranks around 26. She's now a private vessel that gets loaned out for exploration projects, scientific research, and rescue missions. She's still cutting edge, but back in 2003 she had some out-of-the-box features that no one had seen on mega yachts before, like a fully equipped medical facility and a recording studio for the likes of Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, Usher.
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Another key part of the brief was that all toys and tenders, including a helicopter, a submarine, and a float plane, could be concealed. That could be accomplished with a two-level, 36-meter-long, floodable garage opening at the stern. There's a yellow 10-person custom submarine and a 12-person 4D cinema.
Two helipads and a helicopter hangar for two. They have all the toys, including a remotely controlled submarine ROV that's able to dive 2,700 meters. So to the captain of Octopus, if you see this video, I'll be standing by on channel 16.
Call me.
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