The Royal Yacht Britannia

When planning started for the 2021 festive season, staff at Royal Yacht Britannia in Leith wanted to create a Christmas for the ages to make up for the pain of the being closed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The attraction was closed to the public the previous Christmas, meaning it had been more than two years since the boxes of baubles and garlands had been brought out of storage. To welcome the public back onto the yacht, the team wanted to do something really special and knew that to get it right, some additional expertise was going to be needed...

About the project
Jennifer Campbell, Senior PR and Marketing Executive at the Royal Yacht Britannia, explained: “We had our own decorations already, but after being used for many years they were starting to look a bit tired, and with everything that had happened over Covid we all needed a bit of a festive boost, just as much as our visitors.

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When we met with Charlotte, we could tell straight away that she ‘got’ us and how to really bring some magic to Britannia while also being sympathetic to her history and status. We knew we wanted to inject a bit of glamour into the ship and to really give it a wow factor.

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Jennifer Campbell,
The Royal Yacht Britannia

Some of the highlights installed by the Adesso team were two lavishly decorated Christmas trees at the foot of Britannia’s signature main staircase as well as a canopy of lights over the Veranda Deck.

All the work was carried out while the Yacht was open to the public, meaning staff got instant feedback from onlookers, all of which was extremely positive.

However, creating a Christmas wonderland on a floating ship brought with it some unique challenges for all of those involved to overcome.

Jennifer added: “Because we are located in a man-made basin of water, it is affected by the water level of the Port of Leith and the ship will occasionally list to the left meaning that some days we come in and all our drawers are open. This also affected things like the positioning of Christmas trees as they would look squint when we were listing and had to be adjusted.

“Also, we’d never had lights like these on the Veranda Deck before, so we had to find a way to bring power to them, however now it's in place it will be much easier moving forward.”

Looking to the future, the team at Britannia has formed a good working relationship with Adesso and actually bought their decorations outright to use for many years to come. Both parties are now looking for ways to work together again - potentially on Britannia’s sister ship, Fingal, also docked in Leith.

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Many of our trustees have links to the Royal Household and they all agreed that everything Adesso did was in keeping with The Queen’s own tastes.

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Jennifer Campbell,
The Royal Yacht Britannia
Make it a moment to celebrate

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