Matt recorded this week's episode along with Beci Mahnken of MEI Travel while onboard Wonder of the Seas during the RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com group cruise!
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To celebrate my daughter's birthday, we spent six nights in a two-bedroom AquaTheater suite on the Wonder of the Seas.
The stateroom is one of the Star Class suites, which means it has the top benefits offered by Royal Caribbean and is one of the most palatial staterooms. For my family of 4, the price came out to $13,000 for the 6-night cruise.
We had originally booked Harmony of the Seas but Royal Caribbean changed deployments and swapped out Harmony for the cruise line's newest mega ship, the Wonder of the Seas.
Take a tour of spacious my hotel room at sea complete with views of the ocean and two bedrooms.
Let's take a look around my room complete with views of the ocean, two bedrooms, living room, and plenty of storage.
My suite is located on deck nine, near the Boardwalk neighborhood...
...an outdoor area that has dining and entertainment.
My stateroom is located at the end of the deck, which means it is a far walk to the elevators. But it has a ton of living space.
When I tapped my room key card and opened the door, I walked into the living room.
This suite has two bedrooms, let's start with the master bedroom.
It has a bed, desk, television, and so much closet space.
Next to each side of the bed are built-in outlets, including USB outlets.
The plush bed is surrounded by a wood structure with two large closets on the left of the bed.
The two full-size closets have hangers provided for you
We found the amount of closet space to be more than we needed, even on a seven night cruise
Like all staterooms, there is a safe for personal documents, cash, and any other valuables
The master bathroom has a shower and tub, with adjustable shower head.
All suites have a bathtub in addition to a shower (even Junior Suites)
The shower head can be detached, as well as moved up and down for optimal positioning
There's also a long, yet narrow, countertop with sink.
The other bedroom can sleep up to 4 people, with two pullman beds that can be opened from the walls.
The second bedroom has its own door, which makes for better privacy for anyone sleeping here.
It also has its own television, along with desk and mirror.
Across from the second bedroom is a full bathroom
Each shower has upgraded shower toiletries, including shampoo, conditioner, and body wash
Hand soap is included as well
The living room curtains and air conditioning are controlled by a touch panel, which you can use to open or close curtains.
Now let's move into the living room
The living room has a large couch, table with chairs, and comfortable chair
The table is the perfect spot for snacks or meals delivered by room service
There is also a large television in the living room
The in-room coffee maker can make a quick cup of coffee anytime you want
The "pièce de résistance" of the AquaTheater suite is the balcony.
There are two balcony doors, one in the living room and one in the master bedroom
All AquaTheater suites are on the back of the ship, with a giant wrap-around balcony that extends to both sides of the cabin
As the name implies, you can get perfect views of the AquaTheater during any of the evening performances
There is also a very large table for gatherings on the balcony
Royal Caribbean also included lots of chairs and loungers to use while on the balcony
Arguably the best benefit of this suite is the Royal Genie services, which provides VIP privileges to everyone staying in the cabin.
While not cheap, I felt overall the suite delivered on a luxurious space for my family with an expansive amount of living space that make it a good option for families looking to splurge.
More information:
Merry Christmas! The holidays are here, and so is our weekly round up of this week's Royal Caribbean news.
Royal Caribbean teased a celebration for its customer loyalty program that will include new offerings.
Coinciding with Crown and Anchor's 25th anniversary, guests can expect events to take place throughout 2023.
The celebrations will kick off by unveiling new, fresh and redesigned program gifts, along with onboard amenities, to recognize members’ loyalty to Royal Caribbean.
When you sail on an older cruise ship, there are some tradeoff's and benefits.
Older ships don’t offer nearly as much to do as ships but that doesn’t mean you should avoid old cruise ships.
In fact, many cruisers find that older ships offer a more relaxed cruise experience at a lower cost than new ships. Plus, older ships visit some of the most unique destinations offered by Royal Caribbean.
Once you start cruising a lot, it's easy to forget what it was like when you were a new cruiser.
Jenna took a friend on Liberty of the Seas, which was her first cruise ever.
They shared the good and the bad—about her first Royal Caribbean cruise.
The 480th episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is now available with an exclusive interview with Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty
Mr. Liberty shares where he sees things right now, and what the short term future holds for the cruise line!
Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.
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Have you subscribed to the Royal Caribbean Blog YouTube Channel? We share some great videos there regularly, all about taking a Royal Caribbean cruise! This week, we are sharing our latest video — How to choose the right Alaska cruise — and don’t forget to subscribe here.
I have an exclusive interview to share with you this week with Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty about where he sees things right now, and what the short term future holds for the cruise line!
Share with me your thoughts, questions and comments via...
Merry Christmas! The holidays are here, and so is our weekly round up of the articles and news we shared about Royal Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean confirmed it will have a new main dining room menu beginning in January 2023.
This is the first new dining room menu in over five years for the cruise line.
Royal Caribbean cautioned that the exact menu selections may change, so test menus that have been used so far may not be the final product.
The 479th episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is now available featuring an inside look at why Royal Caribbean is changing the main dining room menus.
Royal Caribbean Vice President Food & Beverage, Linken D'Souza talks about the dynamics of changing a dining room menu and what we can expect when it rolls out.
Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.
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Have you subscribed to the Royal Caribbean Blog YouTube Channel? We share some great videos there regularly, all about taking a Royal Caribbean cruise! This week, we are sharing our latest video — 8 Things I Won't Do Again on Royal Caribbean — and don’t forget to subscribe here.
Want to go on a cruise for cheap? We have some easy ways to enjoy a cruise for less than $100 per day.
Between planning in advance and avoiding certain onboard purchases, you can easily keep that cruise cost down.
Ready to book a Caribbean cruise in winter 2024?
Royal Caribbean released its year-round and summer Caribbean sailings for the 2024-2025 cruise season.
The new itineraries are loaded into Royal Caribbean's website and available for immediate booking.
There's been a change to one benefit for Diamond Plus members.
Royal Caribbean it has decided to rescind access to the Concierge Lounge due to overcrowding in the lounge.
Due to high counts of top-tier members on most sailings, Royal Caribbean had to limit access to the Concierge Lounge altogether.
Royal Caribbean is tweaking one of its most popular Crown and Anchor Society benefits.
The line announced two changes on Thursday that will slightly affect how the Diamond level drink vouchers work.
Both changes are intended to make redemption and tracking of this benefit easier.
If you are Diamond, Diamond Plus, or Pinnacle, you can get a set amount of complimentary beverages every day of your cruise, which includes alcoholic beverages.
Both of these changes go into effect on all sailings departing on or after December 16th, 2022.
The time of day when your Diamond drinks reset is the first change.
Royal Caribbean provides complimentary drinks each day to its Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle guests.
Prior to the change, your daily drink vouchers would get reset at midnight. This meant if you didn't use up all your drink vouchers before midnight, you'd lose them and any drinks consumed after midnight would count against the next day's vouchers.
Instead, Royal Caribbean is changing the daily schedule so that these vouchers are now redeemable from 5:00 AM to 4:59 AM the next day.
This means that your daily complimentary vouchers will now reset at 5:00 AM every morning allowing you to get more out of this benefit during prime hours of each day, including your after-midnight drinks.
The logic here is to allow the late-night festivities to continue past midnight, since most people think about the entirety of a night out as still the same day.
The other change is a formal announcement of a policy we heard was changing.
To make it easier to track how many drink vouchers you have left, Royal Caribbean is adding a tracker to the printed receipt that is given upon receiving your complimentary drink.
At the bottom of the receipt, there will now be a line of text which indicates how many vouchers you have used towards your daily balance, e.g., “C&A Beverage Voucher [# Used] of [# Total].” You’ll never lose track of your complimentary drink vouchers ever again!
This change was first announced in early November, when Royal Caribbean said it would start giving guests a paper receipt with the Diamond drink voucher redemption.
Prior to this change, there was no receipt to sign and the vouchers were all managed in the backend.
Giving guests a receipt allows for easier billing discrepancy tracking.
For instance, you ordered a $3 coffee and they may have applied your voucher – and you don’t learn about it until you’re at dinner, wanting that nice $13 cocktail and you’re out of vouchers.
Royal Caribbean provides complimentary drinks each day to its Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle guests.
Guests who are at a lower tier of Crown and Anchor Society (Gold, Platinum, or Emerald) do not qualify for the drink vouchers.
Drink vouchers are loaded automatically every day on a guest's SeaPass account.
This includes alcoholic and non-alcoholic options, and includes any beverage up to $14 per drink.
Royal Caribbean will replace Oasis of the Seas in Cape Liberty with the newer and slightly larger Symphony of the Seas.
The cruise line released on Thursday its Year-round and Summer Caribbean sailings for the 2024-2025 cruise season.
A very noticeable change for summer 2024 is Symphony of the Seas deployment to Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey. Many cruise fans were curious which ship would replace Oasis of the Seas since it was previously announced Oasis of the Seas was headed to Europe in 2024.
The new itineraries are loaded into Royal Caribbean's website and available for immediate booking.
Read more: How to choose the right Caribbean cruise sailing
Here's a look at the new itineraries and what you can expect if you'd like to book a cruise now.
Adventure of the Seas will sail from Port Canaveral, Florida and offer 6- and 8-night cruises that visit the Eastern and Southern Caribbean.
Enchantment of the Seas will sail from Tampa in the summer and offer primarily 7-night cruises to the Bahamas and Perfect Day at CocoCay.
Freedom of the Seas will sail from Miami between May and July 2024 offering short 3- and 4-night cruises.
Then in late July, she will move to Port Everglades, Florida and move away from short cruises to offer 6- and 7-night cruises to the Eastern and Western Caribbean.
Harmony of the Seas will remain in Galveston to offer 6-, 7-, and 8-night Western Caribbean cruises. Notably, the 8-night cruises will visit Perfect Day at CocoCay, which has not traditionally been offered from Galveston.
Icon of the Seas will sail from Miami. Her deployment was already announced when her sailings went on sale earlier this year.
Liberty of the Seas will offer longer cruises from Cape Liberty, with Bermuda and Eastern Caribbean cruises.
Liberty will also offer cruises to Bermuda and Canada/New England.
Vision of the Seas will continue to sail out of Baltimore, Maryland and offer 8-night Southeast Coast cruises along with 12-night cruises to the Southern Caribbean.
There are also cruises to the Bahamas and Bermuda, along with Canada sailings.
Wonder of the Seas will continue sailing year-round out of Port Canaveral with alternating Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises.
View all the new 2024-2025 year-long and summer Caribbean itineraries:
Royal Caribbean has not announced when the rest of the 2024-2025 cruises will be released.
Historically, Royal Caribbean typically releases its new itineraries in two batches: first around November/December, and then again in the spring around March/April.
Suffice to say, it is not likely to get anymore deployments before the end of the year. When Royal Caribbean does release a new deployment schedule, we will share that here on this site.
Booking a cruise more than two years in advance might seem crazy, but the reality is it's one of the best times to book a cruise.
There are two compelling reasons to book a cruise super early, especially when new itineraries are released.
First, certain stateroom categories that usually in high-demand will be readily available when new cruises are released. Suites are especially limited, and typically are the kind of cabin that get booked up quickly.
Second, some of the best rates can be found when booking well in advance.
Since cruise fares are based on supply and demand, prices tend to be lowest when new itineraries are released because inventory is at its greatest.
Combine the lower prices with bargain hunters looking for suites, and you'll find a lot of veteran cruise fans booking up highly sought after cabins on popular sailings, such as holidays.
Planning on booking a 2024 cruise? These stories will help:
Our exclusive interview with Royal Caribbean Vice President Food & Beverage, Linken D'Souza, to talk about the why, how, and when of the new main dining room menu changes coming in January.
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Royal Caribbean took a major stride toward sustainable cruising with its latest announcement.
In conjunction with the Finnish government, Royal Caribbean Group signed a deal with the Meyer Turku shipyard on Wednesday that commits a plan for the production of climate-neutral ships in Finland.
Both the cruise giant and Finland want to establish a roadmap for a maritime industry green transition as a way forward for innovative and sustainable shipbuilding in Finland.
The declaration was signed with the Finnish government, represented by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment (MEAE) and Meyer Turku Oy.
Today's announcement also secures the partnership Royal Caribbean Group already has with the Finnish government.
There are six tenants to today's deal:
"Our partners in Finland have helped us deliver some of the world's most impressive and sustainable ships of their time, including our newest ship debuting in January 2024, Icon of the Seas," said Jason Liberty, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group.
"This new partnership sets the stage for future innovations and allows us and the maritime industry to continue pursuing sustainability at the highest level."
This is yet another step by the Royal Caribbean Group to get to net zero emissions by 2050.
Known as its Destination Net Zero strategy, the company has plans to decarbonize its operations by 2050.
It also aims to reduce carbon intensity by double digits by 2025 compared to 2019 and the introduction of a net-zero cruise ship by 2035.
Carbon neutral means having a net zero carbon footprint, meaning that the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount removed.
This can be achieved through various methods, such as offsetting emissions through carbon credits or investing in renewable energy sources.
Essentially, it means that an individual, organization, or event has no net impact on the environment in terms of carbon emissions.
As part of Destination Net Zero, Royal Caribbean Group's approach includes:
With the new year nearly upon us, Royal Caribbean is looking forward to a new year of growth and its top executive seems very optimistic for what the future holds.
Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty took the helm of the company at the beginning of 2022 and has worked through guiding the company to rebound from the depths of the cruise industry shutdown.
There's no doubt things look better today on the company's balance sheet than a year ago, but beyond the numbers, what does he think of where things are going?
During the naming ceremony for Wonder of the Seas, Royal Caribbean Blog had an exclusive sit down interview with Mr. Liberty to get his sense of where things are today and what the future holds for the brand.
When asked about how he sees things at the moment, he feels confident in the sense things are returning back.
"All the assets that made us everything that made us so great pre-pandemic is all back," he started saying about the business today. "Our load factors are returning to normal, the experience is exactly what it was pre-COVID, if not even better. Our incredible crew are well trained and enthusiastic and ready to go."
In short, he sees the trajectory on the right course, "when we look at our business, whether it's corporately or by brand, everybody's accelerating."
When Mr. Liberty was the Chief Financial Officer in 2019, he told investors he regretted the company didn't spend more money on new ship orders during the financial crisis of 2008.
There is definitely regret that we have in terms of our pullback on our growth, we would all be talking about higher earnings numbers today, better return profile today, if we hadn't slowed down our growth or our investment efforts in expanding our global footprint, investing in different projects, that would have put us an even stronger position than we are today.
It seems to me given the financial slow down of today coupled with the fact Royal Caribbean Group hasn't placed any orders for new ships recently that history is repeating itself and if we can expect new ship orders soon.
One thing he mentioned was the time to build is different today.
"Back in the financial crisis, on average, it was taking about three or four years to get a ship when you ordered it, especially a ship that was not a new design. "
"The level of demand for new ships was so high that you had to order ships much further out in order to have access to those slots. So you were seeing people order ships six or seven years out."
"We have a little bit more runway here than what we had pre-pandemic or in the financial crisis."
"If you think about the Icon one's and the Icon two's, there's a little bit more breathing time for us to have to place in those orders because of that structural change pre-pandemic."
While he didn't commit to any kind of plan or reveal anything new, he did talk about the direction of growth, "we're going to grow our business over the next five years at about 6% a year."
"We have to get our footing here into 2023. But I think we want to continue to grow our fleet."
Just before the cruise industry shut down in 2020, Royal Caribbean had announced plans for a number of new port projects that would provide cruise ship guests more to do while ashore.
These plans included new private islands, beach resorts, and revamping a current private island. The promise was exciting new places to spend your day while on a cruise.
Then the world had to deal with Covid-19 and those plans seemed to fall to the sidelines as Royal Caribbean struggled with an extended shutdown coupled with crippling loans to stay in business.
But what about those other projects? Are they cancelled? Still planned? And when can we expect to see them?
"Certainly we had to put a pause on some of these things... but our ambitions around Perfect Days around the world, Beach Club concepts, are still very much there."
Mr. Liberty also pointed out that construction on land can take significantly longer than you might thing. Perfect Day at CocoCay took almost seven years, as an example.
I asked Mr. Liberty if it's fair to say all the projects announced pre-pandemic were in some status of pause or moving forward, as opposed to being cancelled.
"Yeah, there's nothing that has has been canceled."
Both Mr. Liberty and Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley both said the new adults-only beach expansion to Perfect Day at CocoCay is slated to open towards the end of 2023.
It's no secret that prices for travel are up in general, so what is Mr. Liberty's outlook on the price of a cruise and how that affects the average cruise ship passenger.
"Our customers tend to have a pretty strong personal balance sheet. They're not overly levered. And that space just in the US alone, has trillions of dollars of savings sitting there on the sidelines."
Coupled with the fact consumers are interested in experiences more so than acquiring things, along with demographic trends, he feels good about demand for a cruise vacation.
He also still believes the value of a cruise is second to none in the leisure travel market.
"The value gap between a cruise and land based vacation during the pandemic expanded quite a bit."
"As we increase our pricing, we're still at a significant value to what it would cost for you to have anything close to a similar experience on land. That's also why our pricing, what our guests are willing to spend on our ships, continue to rise because of the demographic secular trends as well as just that value gap to land based vacations."
Last month, Royal Caribbean Group signed a deal with PortMiami to build a new Terminal G cruise terminal.
Mr. Liberty said it won't quite be on the same scale as Terminal A in PortMiami, but it will help support the company's needs, "we have a lot of ships coming online. We need infrastructure. We need to make sure the experience from from when you arrive to getting on our ships is seamless and free and has no friction inside of it."
"That commitment to us is really just our commitment to our growth that we know is coming on."