Royal Caribbean lead the field in this years Readers’ Choice Platinum Award, which was awarded by Celebrated Living magazine. The magazine is described as "The Luxury Magazine for American Airlines Premium Class Passengers" and ranked a few different cruise lines but in the end, Royal Caribbean garnered the top choice.

"Despite its name, Royal Caribbean International has expanded beyond steel bands and limbo contests to make the whole world its oyster, including sophisticated operations in Asia and the Pacific as well as traditional itineraries in Alaska, Europe, and, yes, the Caribbean. Coming this December is the Allure of the Seas, sister ship of 2009’s spectacular 18-deck Oasis of the Seas, currently known as the world’s largest cruise ship."

Considering the competition for this award included cruise lines such as Seabourn, Princess, Norwegian and others, it's definitely an award that Royal Caribbean is sure to be proud of.

Royal Caribbean Vice-President of government relations for the Caribbean and Latin America, Michael Ronan, told Bahemian newspaper The Tribune, that in 2011 Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines will "be back up over 800,000 passengers" brought to the Bahamas.  That figure is over 100,000 more than in 2010, thanks in part to the anticipated delivery of Allure of the Seas.

These figures include stops in Nassau, Freeport and its Bahamian private islands.  The news comes after a report that Oasis of the Seas was rumored to be ending stops in Nassau, but Ronan said the change was merely due to a difference in Western and Eastern Caribbean itineraries, where Oasis of the Seas only stops in Nassau on it's eastern Caribbean trips.  Ronan went on to explain that once Allure of the Seas became operational, it would start rotating Nassau calls with the Oasis of the Seas on a schedule that would be maintained through Spring 2012, with one of the ships stopping in Nassau opposite the other.

"With the Oasis vessels, we are significantly increasing the number of passengers that are going to be coming," Mr Ronan told Tribune Business. "We will be back up over 800,000 passengers in 2011. This year, I think we will be in the 700,000 in change, because we're still waiting for the arrival of the Allure, which will put us with a full year of Oasis class ships in Nassau every week. Last year, 2009, we bottomed out."

For the people of the Bahamas, the more cruisers that stop by, the better for the local economy.  For cruisers, a better economy in the Bahamas typically means less crime and better upkeep of the city (that's a generalization).  

Bethsaida Sandoval, a Royal Caribbean vacation planner in the Miami, Florida office, was arrested yesterday on 24 counts of burglary and one count of racketeering.  She allegedly broke into homes of customers that were on a Royal Caribbean cruise and along with her husband, would go around in her black SUV to these homes when they knew no one was home.

"She and her husband, John Lopez, later broke into nearly two dozen homes and took off with flat-screen televisions and other expensive items, the report said."

It goes without saying that this is a terrible crime and if she is found guilty in court, then I hope she receives the time in jail that she will deserve for not only breaking the law but betraying the trust of so many Royal Caribbean fans.

Destination weddings, or weddings that take place somewhere other than home, have always been an intriguing option for couples looking to tie the knot but according to a recent report by thestar.com, weddings on cruise ships have increased in popularity by 10% in the past few years because of affordability, the convenience of having your wedding and honeymoon in one place, and the exotic locations you can have your wedding held.

Valery Rene, manager of on-board revenue for Royal Caribbean says that they handle "about 1,000 weddings a year and can meet many other special requests.”  Certainly it's hard to argue with the price as the average cruise wedding ceremony and reception with Royal Caribbean costs about $10,000 for a 100-person event, excluding the cruise costs and airfare for sailing guests. Considering the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is now between $21,000 and $24,000, that is a real bargain.

For those looking to get hitched on their next cruise, the basic wedding package on Royal Caribbean starts at about $2,000 and includes three hours of planning with a consultant, priority check-in, non-denominational official, ceremony, recorded music, bridal bouquet, marriage certificate, photographer (but not photos; they’re purchased separately) and more.

“We help the couple decide whether they would like a shipboard or shoreside wedding and then choose which destination and ship that works for them and their budget,” says Rene. “We often do weddings that cost more than $20,000 and a recent lavish wedding we did was well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were about 180 sailing guests.”

Given all that $10,000 gets you, it's hard to go wrong with that option and it's hard for your wedding guests to argue with "forcing" them to go on a cruise.

For all you financial mavens out there, there's good some good news.  It turns out that while we all enjoy our cruises aboard Royal Caribbean, it's actually a good company to invest in (beyond the money you're already giving them for your next cruise!).  SmartTrend ranked Royal Caribbean (RCL) as the best investment in the top five companies in the Hotels, Resorts & Cruise Lines industry as measured by relative performance.

• Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL) ranks first with a gain of 6.5%
• Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE:WYN) ranks second with a gain of 5.31%
• Home Inns & Hotels Management (NASDAQ:HMIN) ranks third with a gain of 4.95%.
• Carnival (NYSE:CCL) follows with a gain of 4.67%
• Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE:GET) rounds out the top five with a gain of 4.55%.

• Great Wolf Resorts (NASDAQ:WOLF) has a potential upside of 121.2% based on a current price of $2.26 and an average consensus analyst price target of $5.
• Red Lion Hotels (NYSE:RLH) has a potential upside of 40.4% based on a current price of $6.41 and an average consensus analyst price target of $9.
• Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE:GET) has a potential upside of 35.7% based on a current price of $24.37 and an average consensus analyst price target of $33.06.
• Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL) has a potential upside of 35.7% based on a current price of $28.52 and an average consensus analyst price target of $38.69.
• Morgans Hotel (NASDAQ:MHGC) has a potential upside of 29.1% based on a current price of $7.02 and an average consensus analyst price target of $9.06.

There's been a slew of articles all over the interwebs all about the Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks alliance and it seems everyone has an opinion on it.  MSNBC posted an article about the fight for families cruise lines are now engaging in with Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks, Norwegian Cruise Line and Nickelodean and Disney all vying for families to choose their ships.  The premise is that these alliances are hoping the kids will influence their parents to choose a cruise line, an idea we first posted about last week.

Anyone who doesn't think that the Royal Caribbean deal is about competing with Disney has their head in the sand.  Is Royal Caribbean looking to go head-to-head with Disney in terms of characters? Maybe not.  But what Royal Caribbean is trying to do is not cede the entire family cruise with young children demographic to Disney.  An under reported benefit of the Dreamworks deal is that Royal Caribbean also gets the rights to show the Dreamworks film library on board its ships.  That's a big bonus for kids who will be able to watch Shrek or Kung Fu Panda ad nauseum in their staterooms.

I know there's a lot of backlash from cruisers who are concerned their next cruise will be filled with character based entertainment that will ruin their cruise.  If you consider what Disney does on their ships the crux of character integration on a cruise ship, on Disney ships, you really have to go out of your way to see a character, much less interact with one.  You can be in the pool, or on the sun deck or at dinner and never see one.  The character entertainment on Disney is very compartmentalized and I imagine Royal Caribbean will have a similar model as well. 

How much of an impact this alliance will have remains to be seen but this deal shouldn't be vilified or feared.  Rather, it looks to be (on paper) a good deal for both sides and hopefully something that will fatten Royal Caribbean's bottom line, which in turn helps us all.

It's become a tradition before your cruise to get that packet of cruise documents in the mail that you will need for embarkation onto the ship.  It's a traditional part of the cruise planning process that's about to change completely.  Back in March 2010, Royal Caribbean announced they were doing away with the paper based cruise documents in favor of an e-ticket, that they've called "eDoc".

Royal Caribbean Director of Sales and Marketing Services Angela Stephen describes the eDoc as a "customized mini-website, pre-cruise planner, get-excited-about-your-cruise, and brag-to-your-friends-and-family-what-an-incredible-vacation-you-are-about-to-take” type of document.   The eDoc is basically a better means of marketing all that Royal Caribbean offers (read: activities that cost extra) to the cruiser who may not have been aware of it.  Given that the majority of cruises never visit cruise planning sites like this or Cruise Critic, they are unaware of many aspects of cruising until they got on board the ship.  The eDoc seems to be an attempt to educate guests about what is available on the ship before they board the ship so that they can book ahead of time.

Click here to preview what a sample eDoc looks like

For those that miss the old paper documents, you can order them for $35 per person, although Stephen mentions only 5% prefer the printed version (more like only 5% are willing to shell out the money for it, as opposed to expressing an opinion on the matter).  

What do you think of the eDoc idea?  Do you like it? Do you prefer the old way?  Share your thoughts!

Earlier today, Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks announced their "strategic alliance" together to bring select characters from the Dreamworks film library to Royal Caribbean ships.  The obvious conclusion many have made from the deal is that the move is to counter Disney's character driven ships along with Norwegian Cruise Lines' addition of Nickelodean characters to their ship.  The idea seems great and obviously a push to convince families to sail on Royal Caribbean, but I think there's more here than just the characters and Shrek and his pals are merely the icing on a cake that has been baking for a while.

To the average observer, it seems like the Dreamworks deal with Royal Caribbean is a grand plan to add characters to the ships and get families to book with Royal Caribbean instead of other ships.  That makes sense....if all the cruise line prices were the same.  Considering that the Norwegian deal with Nickelodean was signed less than a year ago and in the press conference Royal Caribbean mentioned the deal with Dreamworks had been in discussion for longer than that, the move looks more like an attempt to counter Disney.  After all, Disney is the leader among children branding and what kid doesn't want to be on a ship with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and friends?

There's just one little problem for parents who want to take their kids on a Disney ship. Price! Disney cruises are almost always more expensive than a typical Royal Caribbean cruise of equal length.  Disney justifies the higher price by calling it "the Disney difference", where their premium branding commands a higher price tag.  If you're planning the next family cruise, it's hard to convince the kids that a cruise on Royal Caribbean is a better deal when the kids just care that the Disney ship has lots of characters and other fun related activities.  

With the Dreamworks deal, it gives Royal Caribbean some collateral to work with in the ever competitive task of marketing to kids.  Now, they can flaunt characters from Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, films that have resonated with this generation of youth, and so when parents have to plan their next cruise, it's a far easier sell to kids with these contemporary characters and the price difference between Disney and Royal Caribbean should be big enough for most to look to Royal Caribbean.

The alliance has a lot of hype going with it as Royal Caribbean is proud of the deal, but I really see the deal as being that final piece in the puzzle that they needed to get families to choose Royal Caribbean over other lines that have traditionally done well to attract the family demographic.  If now you have the kids begging their parents to go on the ship that Shrek is on, I think it's a far easier sell for families to book it, especially given the price difference.  Disney's prices were decent when times were great, before the great recession.  Today, it's a different financial landscape and if you can save a few hundred dollars, it's well worth it and now, families don't have to sacrifice the things that kids love too.

It's always interesting to look back to the reasons why you become loyal to one brand over another.  Sometimes it's inherited, such as a car brand or cereal your parents bought when you were growing up so you simply followed the family tradition.  When it comes to which cruise line we choose, being fans of Royal Caribbean makes the choice a little more interesting to figure out why we "go Royal" when we choose our cruise vacation.

Above all else, I fell like Royal Caribbean offers a balance in nearly every aspect of the business.  Are there cruise lines that are cheaper? Yes.  Are there cruise lines that offer more? Yes.  But why do we end up with Royal Caribbean?  I think it goes to balance.  The cost of what we pay for what we go is the best balance in terms of value for the dollar.  Royal Caribbean cruises tend to be competitively priced but at the same time, the product we get doesn't make me feel like I've taken the cheap road.  Given the price I pay and what I get for it, I feel like there's that perfect balance of value.  I feel like the product (the ships, service, etc) are of great quality while the price is something I'm comfortable paying.  Even the brand new Oasis of the Seas, which carries with it a higher price tag for novelty, isn't really that bad a price when you consider the product you get.  

Beyond just what you pay, Royal Caribbean offers that balance of activities, both on board the ship and at its ports.  I can definitely tell that with the last few classes of ships to debut (Voyager, Independence and Oasis), there's been a focus on building ships that just aren't floating hotels.  They continuously are adding more entertainment, such as shows, physical activities, and more.  With the recent announcement of the Dreamworks deal, it's further proof that Royal Caribbean is not resting on its laurels but rather, trying to innovate in a highly competitive industry and as a consumer, I can definitely see that the fine folks behind the scenes are actively working on improving things.

When you finish any vacation, there's definitely a difference between thinking "that was a good vacation" and "that was a good vacation. I can't wait to go back again!" and I definitely think those of us who call ourselves Royal Caribbean fans fall into the latter category.  We have great times on board the ships and even in the middle of a vacation we're on, we're already thinking about how we can book our next vacation back on a Royal Caribbean ship.  The only way that sort of thought pattern occurs is when that balance of product is just right and clearly Royal Caribbean  has left a lot of cruisers thinking the very same thing, "let's go again!".