Royal Caribbean is discussing with city officials of Tianjin, China to possibly open a new cruise talent training center in the port city.
Royal Caribbean plans to set up a Chinese cruise talent base at Tianjin Maritime College, which will be capable of training up to 100 students a month, according to Tianjin Daily newspaper.
Microsoft cited an interesting case study that highlights how Microsoft's software has helped other companies in their business operation. In the case of Royal Caribbean, Microsoft posted how their software has assisted in point-of-sales and food-safety inspections.
Microsoft's software has helped the cruise line improve profitability and cut its operating costs. This is accomplished by reducing food-inspection time from five to two hours as well as improving workflow throughout the ships.
Royal Caribbean began development of a new software solution when it was building its Oasis-class ships in an effort to improve the systems with a few key goals: improve the systems that support customer service, improve workflow, improve food safety and speed passenger payment transactions.
Microsoft's solution was to implement 35 handheld devices on Royal Caribbean's ships to monitor food and cooler temperatures and deploy an integrated POS solution based on Windows Embedded Compact, Windows Embedded POSReady, Windows 7, Windows Server and Windows Mobile.
Microsoft claims its solutions for Royal Caribbean are
You may have heard of a new marketing term called PANK, which stands for "professional aunt, no kids". It's a new term for single working women that are embracing their career and don't have any kids of their own, but enjoy spoiling their nieces and nephews.
A survey by KRC Research shows that 23 million American women are PANKs and will spend about $9 billion a year on nieces, nephews and other children with whom they have a special bond. For Royal Caribbean, this is an area the company has already identified as part of their overall strategy to bring families to their ships.
Royal Caribbean executive vice president for global sales and marketing, Lisa Bauer, is a PANK and knows the value this demographic has for the cruise line, "When targeting women with family themes, you don't have to be that granular if the marketing is good."
Bauer says the KRC study "reaffirmed" how Royal Caribbean markets their cruises to families in that there are many forms of what a family is these days. As a result, she said, the cruise line, "always a family brand," has recently adopted an advertising template that, when featuring women with children, doesn't call the woman Mom. Each person who sees the ad determines the woman's connection to the children, Bauer said.
Bauer points out that her own family is an example of that because members of her family travel in different groupings, and "that's how families act." It's not just two parents and two children.
We're very excited to kick off our first video blog episode that will take you through planning a Royal Caribbean cruise. This new video series will take you from start to finish how we're planning our upcoming cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas that is sailing an eastern Caribbean itinerary.
Let us know how you liked the video and any suggestions you have for our cruise!
For more videos, subscribe to our Royal Caribbean Blog channel on YouTube.
In a blog post by Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein, Royal Caribbean announced that at some point in 2013, the Crown and Anchor Society Ultimate Value Booklets that are distributed to passengers onboard their cruise in paper form will go to a paperless format instead.
The new coupons will be available right onto guests' Seapass cards instead of having to use paper booklets. We've heard that guests will be able to check which coupons they have available at any given time via the interactive televisions in their staterooms, similar to how passengers can already check their onboard spending accounts.
The change to electronic coupons is cited for its environmental savings but there's plenty of speculation the change has more to do with abuse of the coupons over the years. Often coupon books will be given to family and friends following a cruise to be used on another cruise or sold on sites like eBay. Officially, the coupon books must only be used by those the books are given to on that sailing only.
The Ultimate Value Booklets are given to passengers who are enrolled in Royal Caribbean's Crown and Anchor Society (a brand loyalty reward program) and have sailed with Royal Caribbean at least once.
No word on when exactly this change will happen, but we can expect it sometime "soon" in 2013.
Do you like the change to e-coupons? Let us know in the comments below.
Citing "unprecedented demand", Royal Caribbean has changed its 2013/2014 cruise season in Australia and New Zealand replacing two cruises to New Zealand and Queensland with voyages to the South Pacific.
Royal Caribbean also added a "sampler cruise" to the schedule.
Royal Caribbean says the changes were made to accommodate the demand for cruises to the Pacific Ocean and for shorter itineraries.
An example of the change is a 14-night Voyager of the Seas cruise to New Zealand, due to depart on January 10, replaced with a three night ‘cruise to nowhere' followed by an 11-night trip to Fiji and New Caledonia.
An 11-night Rhapsody of the Seas voyage to Queensland, departing Sydney on February 11, has also been axed and replaced with a South Pacific sailing, calling at Noumea, Mare and Isle of Pines, New Caledonia, Luganville and Vanuatu.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Australia commercial director Adam Armstrong said passengers booked on the cancelled itineraries will be offered alternative voyages.
Sevastopol, Russia first deputy chairman of SSGA, Deputy CDF Regions Party Sergey Savenkov announced on television that Royal Caribbean is ready to invest $300 million in the construction of a new passenger terminal for the Black Seas port.
"One of the biggest passenger cruise companies in the world, Royal Caribbean is considering working in Sevastopol." said Savenkov.
Savenkov said a Vice President from Royal Caribbean met with him and are working with officials to reserve land in the vicinity of Cape Crystal to build a new terminal.
He added: "There is a very serious project of the passenger terminal at Cape Crystal. Royal Caribbean is willing to invest in the construction of the terminal 250-300 million dollars in the first phase. "
According to him, the negotiations between the Sevastopol authorities and Royal Caribbean are in the active phase.
Royal Caribbean has launched a new sale for all of its 6-night or longer sailings for the new Wave Season. Wave Season refers to the time in the first few months of the year when cruise lines see their biggest surge in bookings for the year to come.
Royal Caribbean is offering customers who book a 6-night or longer Bahamas, Bermuda, Caribbean, Europe or Transatlantic sailing in 2013 up to $400 onboard credit per stateroom.
For Bahamas, Bermuda, Caribbean & Transatlantic Sailings
For European sailings
Bookings must be made between January 1, 2013 and February 15, 2013. Offer is valid on 6-night or longer Bahamas, Bermuda, Caribbean, Europe, and Transatlantic sailings between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013.
Royal Caribbean offered an inside look at how they use software to manage their fleet of cruise ships to CIO.com. It's always interesting to see how Royal Caribbean manages to perform its daily operations given how many thousands of passengers it has to accomodate.
The case example begins with Allure of the Seas, where Royal Caribbean director of software engineering Jose Machado and IT manager James Defendis offered a tour of the ship's IT resources.
Royal Caribbean provides the software to run the hotel, from reservations to guest relations to point-of-sale software at the shops. In addition, Royal Caribbean provides Internet for guests, email for employees and, as well as software to count the number of checked-out towels at the pool.
As an example of how Royal Caribbean develops its technology quickly, the 32" wayfinder LCD screens throughout the ship are developed using emerging Linux touchscreen technologies. To get this product to their ships quickly, Royal Caribbean essentially "rents" expertise to accelerate the development process. The applications that will never be seen by guests, on the other hand, including staff email, the reservation system or the towel check-out, have a lower priority, he says. They need to function, and the cost of maintaining them needs to be stay lower than the cost of a rewrite.
Royal Caribbean has deployed iPads to every suite onboard Allure of the Seas as well as Oasis of the Seas. Challenges with having iPads work the way the company want popped up immediately.
Beatriz Rivero, the project's program manager, describes operational challenges such as testing streaming video on multiple devices on a floor running simultaneously. (To address this, Royal added routers and reserved extra bandwidth.) The devices also have cameras, which pose a privacy risk: Next week's guests seeing last week's guests personal photos. Royal deals with this by treating an iPad like a pair of bed sheets—each device is replaced with a fresh one and wiped. Meanwhile, the technology group is working with vendors to lock down local-save features.
Our friend Beci from MEI-Travel took a cruise on Liberty of the Seas last month and shared these great photos with all of us from her cruise. Here's a quick look around the ship!
Inside Johnny Rocket's
Pool play area
Special wine dispensers in Vintages
Looking down the Royal Promenade
Christmas decorations on Royal Promenade
Boxing ring in gym
Swinging chairs on pool deck
Solarium pool
Pool deck
Casino
Schooner Bar
Looking up at the elevators
FlowRider
Vintages Wine Bar
Looking down from elevators
Hoof & Claw bar
Cupcake Cupboard
Cupcakes!