In March 1993 Celebrity Cruises had placed an order with the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany for a new ship that was eventually delivered as MV Century.

Celebrity Cruises decided to utilize the option for additional vessels, but changes to the overall design were made to the subsequent ships compared to the Century.

Therefore, the second ship, MV Galaxy, was given a 15.4-metre (50 ft 6 in) longer hull compared to the Century, and the galley and pantry areas were completely redesigned.

During the 1997 northern hemisphere summer season the Galaxy relocated to the west coast of North America to operate week-long cruises to Alaska from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

On 2 June 2001, while departing Amsterdam in the Netherlands for a two-week cruise the Galaxy touched bottom on an outskirt of Forteiland at IJmuiden[8] due to heavy northwesterly squalls,[citation needed] resulting in major damage to the port side propeller.

[6] Following withdrawal from Celebrity Cruises' service, the ship sailed to the Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany where she received a € 50 million refit to modernise her facilities and cabins to make her better suited for the needs of the German market.

[1][7][14] On 10 August 2014, the 76-meter-long service supply vessel Princess Marseilles struck the Mein Schiff 1 in the port of Bergen, Norway.

In the evening of 12 October 2014, around 9 p.m. a fire broke out in the incinerator on deck 3 while the cruise ship was en route from Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca with more than 2000 passengers.

[19] The primary dining area on board the Marella Explorer can host 1,088 diners on a single seating, and is decorated in the art deco style utilized on ocean liners from the 1930s onwards.