Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast Episode - Allure of the Seas Group Cruise Live Review

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported 3% of the guests and 1% of the crew aboard Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas have reported being ill during the February 21 - March 4, 2016 voyage.

The CDC report shows 125 guests and 16 crew members reported symptoms, such as vomiting or diarrhea.

In response to the outbreak, Royal Caribbean and the crew aboard the ship reported the following actions:

• Increasing cleaning and disinfection procedures according to their outbreak prevention and response plan,
• Collecting stool specimens from passenger and crew gastrointestinal illness cases for testing,
• Making daily reports of gastrointestinal illness cases to the VSP,
• Sending 4 Hotel and Housekeeping Operations Managers, 3 Public Health staff, one nurse from the cruise line corporate office to oversee and assist with implementation of the sanitation and outbreak response procedures,
• Sending 10 additional internal cleaning crew and 10 contract cleaning staff and equipment to the ship to assist in the execution of the ship’s outbreak response,
• Consulting with CDC on plans for their comprehensive sanitation procedures in Bayonne, NJ, including:
  • planning staged disembarkation for active cases to limit the opportunity of illness transmission to well guests, and
  • planning for sanitation of terminal and transport infection control procedures.

Two CDC Vessel Sanitation Program environmental health officers and an epidemiologist will board the ship in Bayonne, NJ on March 2, 2016 to conduct an environmental health assessment and evaluate the outbreak and response activities. Specimens have been collected and will be sent to CDC for testing.

Anthem of the Seas voyage was cut short, but Royal Caribbean reports the reasoning was not the illness, but a forecasted storm in the path of the ship.

Some #AnthemoftheSeas guests have experienced norovirus symptoms. About 10 per day from 6,000 total pop. Didn't affect decision to return.

— RCLcorp (@RCLcorp) February 29, 2016

We love new Royal Caribbean ships and really great looking photos, and today we have both!

Check out these five new photos of Ovation of the Seas taken at the Meyer Werft shipyard.

Photos by Björn Haß

Photo by Royal Caribbean

We're counting down the days until Harmony of the Seas debuts later this year with our 99 days of Harmony blog series. Each day we will post something about Harmony of the Seas to share with all of you!

Coastal Kitchen

Suite and guests and Pinnacle members can take advantage of a restaurant just for them aboard Harmony of the Seas, Coastal Kitchen.

Coastal Kitchen is a relatively new restaurant concept for Royal Caribbean, centered around the the idea of combining Mediterranean influences with California fresh food.

Royal Caribbean designed the restaurant to be all about fresh food. From Pacific Coast favorites like sea bass ceviche, to the Central Valley’s sliced avocado and homemade blueberry pie, to Med-inspired tastes like Serrano ham, whipped goat cheese and roasted grapes.

With seating for 135, simple décor, earth tones, wood accents and a vibrant, sunny ambiance, Coastal Kitchen is both casual and elegant, and brings a relaxed Californian feel to the Harmony of the Seas.

Coastal Kitchen will feature gourmet California-Mediterranean fare that are healthy and made with the freshest ingredients.

Of course, California is also known for its wines and at Coastal Kitchen you will find an extensive selection of vintages await by the glass or bottle from Napa as well as Tuscany.

Coastal Kitchen is a complimentary restaurant available to guests in Sea Class or Junior Suites. It will be included in your cruise fare and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post as we celebrate 99 days of Harmony!

The world's most innovative cruise ship, Ovation of the Seas nears completion as she floats out from Meyer Werft Shipyard in Germany.

Royal Caribbean Australia and New Zealand experienced a record-breaking first month of the year. January 2016 has seen the biggest month for sales since the company opened its local offices, eight years ago.

Bookings for its three brands – Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises – reached an all-time high, with an increase of 50 per cent in new bookings compared to the same period last year.

January 2016 also outperformed Royal Caribbean's previous record breaking month for bookings – June last year, when Australasia’s first ever new-build and the biggest ship to ever be based in Australia, Ovation of the Seas, went on sale – by 30 percent. 

In particular, the last week in January saw Royal Caribbean bookings almost double year-on-year.

“We said it would be a record-breaking summer and we’re excited to see booking volumes beat our own projections. Australia’s appetite for cruising with us continues on a very positive trajectory, driven by strong early booking offers and the biggest and best ships in the region,” said Adam Armstrong, regional commercial director for Asia/Pacific.

“In response to the increasing demand, this season we introduced three new ships – Explorer of the Seas, Legend of the Seas and Azamara Quest – as well as a brand new cruise line in Azamara Club Cruises; so for the first time, we have our trifecta of three brands sailing down under. All up, that represents 20% of RCL’s worldwide fleet – a very significant number and a testament to the strength of the Australian cruising market,” Adam continued.

Bookings on international sailings have shown substantial increases year on year; Alaska cruise bookings grew by more than 25% and Asia sailings increased by 10% when compared to the same month last year. But the most significant increase is reflected in local sailings – in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific – where bookings increased by more than 65% in January 2016 compared to January 2015.

The arrival of Explorer of the Seas made a big impact, with it and sister-ship Voyager of the Seas recording a third of all bookings created in January.

Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas will debut in less than 99 days and to celebrate, we are counting down every day with a brand new blog post all about Harmony of the Seas.

Bionic Bar at South Beach Wine & Food Festival

Royal Caribbean’s Bionic Bar was on display at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival last week.

Makr Shakr, the company that built the Bionic Bar, showed off their creation that is coming to Harmony of the Seas during the opening night of the festaival.

The robot bartenders did not miss a beat while mixing and shaking cocktails to the rhythm of the music, becoming a hot spot for selfie-snapping. 

The Bionic Bar will be featured on the world's newest and largest ship,Harmony of the Seas when she sets sail from Fort Lauderdale, FL in November 2016.

All photos by Royal Caribbean International

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post as we celebrate 99 days of Harmony!

Royal Caribbean is updating and simplifying its cancellation policy, in an effort to make the entire policy simpler to understand.

In a nutshell, the penalty schedule has been reduced from four unique schedules to now two penalty periods. In addition, for sailings 5-nights or longer, the cancellation period has been moved up from 75 days prior-to-sailing to 90 days prior-to-sailing.

The new cancellation guidelines will take effect beginning March 7, 2016. Individual and group reservations created after March 7th, 2016 will be impacted by this change.

Royal Caribbean decided to adjust its cancellation policy, "in an effort to better align with industry standards and to make the schedule simpler and more concise." The timing of this announcement was selected to coincide with the 2017/2018 deployment opening schedule.

Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas canceled the remainder of an Anthem of the Seas sailing due to a forecasted storm off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Royal Caribbean announced that the ship would return to Cape Liberty immediately to avoid, "a severe storm".  The decision was made to provide its guests with a comfortable journey back home.

Royal Caribbean is exercising extreme caution following an incident earlier this month, where Anthem of the Seas ran into a stronger than expected storm in the Atlantic that saw hurricane force winds and caused some superficial damage.

#AnthemoftheSeas will head back to Cape Liberty immediately to avoid a severe storm & provide guests with a comfortable journey back home.

— RCLcorp (@RCLcorp) February 27, 2016

Royal Caribbean released a statement regarding the decision, "The safety and comfort of our guests and crew is always our first priority."

"On a recent sailing, Anthem of the Seas experienced bad weather that was much worse than forecast; therefore, we want to be extra cautious about our guests' safety and comfort when it comes to weather in the area. That is why we have decided to head back to Cape Liberty immediately so that we can stay a safe distance from the storm."

Today is our last day of the cruise, and that is always a really tough day mentally because of the inevitability of the end of the cruise approaching.

Oddly, our children slept in quite a bit today to the point I had to get up to do some research for the blog by virtue of my alarm.  Clearly, the only way they sleep in is when we take a cruise.

I spent the beginning of my morning with tea at Cafe Promenade, followed by some work for the blog.  

At 11am, everyone in the group got together in Central Park to record an upcoming episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast. 

It was a lot of fun reminiscing about our time together and sharing experiences, recommendations and stories.  Look for that podcast episode to air next week.

For lunch, we headed down to the Boardwalk for Johnny Rockets.

The line to get in was very short, but the wait to get our actual food took a really long time.  Because the inside restaurant was full and the outdoor seating was nearly, if not completely, full.  We did not have much to do, but it took longer than usual to get our food.

Once the food arrived, it was quite good and I enjoyed my meal there.

Following lunch, it was time for naps for the kids right before we saw Ice Games.

Ice Games is the ice skating show on Allure of the Seas and it might just be the best ice skating show I have seen on any Royal Caribbean cruise.

The music, acrobatics and energy in the show were quite possibly even better than the ice show on Freedom of the Seas.

Following the show, it was back to the room to pack.  The worst cruise related activity ever!

I headed up to the pool deck one last time to see the sunset and while not the most beautiful ever, it is always really enjoyable to witness while at sea.

I also managed to find a little bit of time to go to the casino. I have spent the least amount of time ever in the casino on this cruise (much to my wife's joy) and managed to do quite well!

We dropped the kids off at Adventure Ocean and then proceeded to have our pre-dinner at Sabor for "one last guac".

We had margaritas and guacamole only and it was a great way to top off our cruise adventure.

With the end of the cruise, I cannot help but look back on our week aboard Allure of the Seas and think about what I liked, what went well and what lessons I learned for future cruises.

First and foremost, I would cruise again on Allure of the Seas in a heartbeat.  It is a wonderful ship with a great crew that offers an incredible amount of activities for guests to do.  If you ever have thought, "I wish there was more to do onboard", the Oasis class ships are perfect for you.

It is a credit to the crew onboard Allure of the Seas that they can provide such enticing and great entertainment throughout the day and night that so often, everyone kept saying, "I am not sure what to do because there are so many great possibilities."

I also thoroughly enjoyed cruising with so many wonderful friends that joined me for this group cruise.  Putting together group cruises is no easy task and I constantly wonder if what I have planned will be remotely fun and if people will have a good time.

I thought we had a fantastic group that all enjoyed the experience across many ways.  It seemed like as we said our goodbyes today that everyone felt a great loss at knowing we will not be congregating for drinks at the Champagne Bar, or spotting each other on a nearby balcony or running into one another in the hall.  I really felt like everyone had a great time onboard and would love to do it all over again.

A big thank you to everyone that has been following along on this live blog since day one and have offered up some great comments, questions and suggestions along the way. I am so lucky to be able to share this cruise experience with all of you and it makes me even more excited for our next cruise adventure on Navigator of the Seas in April.

If I shamelessly plug for a moment, I will note that we have two more group cruises lined up over the next 12 months and I am personally inviting each and every one of you to join us for it.  If you thought this live blog was fun, then the group cruises are definitely for you.

Once again, thank you for all of your support by reading these live blogs and I cannot wait to do this again very soon!

Live Blog Index

• Live blog introduction
• Day 1 - Embarkation day
• Day 2 - Sea Day
• Day 3 - Labadee
• Day 4 - Falmouth
• Day 5 - Sea Day
• Day 6 - Cozumel
• Day 7 - Sea Day