Royal Caribbean Blog

Officials from the U.S. Virgin Islands in St Thomas report that a tourist bus carrying at least 13 cruise ship passengers has collided with a parked vehicle.  The passengers, from Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas, collided with the parked car.

The accident occurred in an open-air "safari bus" on a steep road near the island's scenic Beacon Point.

St. Thomas Tourist Department spokeswoman Allegra Kean-Moorehead says one of the injured is a female passenger who had to be hospitalized with a hip fracture.  Twelve other passengers were released after being treated.

She also said that Serenade of the Seas is still expected to depart late Friday without the injured passenger.

Royal Caribbean's Chairman Richard Fain has personally looked around the new International Cruise Terminal in Singapore and likes what he sees.

Fain has been told that the new terminal will be ready for the arrival of Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas when she arrives on May 26 for her debut in Asia.  Previously the Singapore Tourism Board had only indicated that the new terminal would be ready in the second quarter of 2012.

"Because the ship is coming in late May, I was assured the terminal would be ready for the voyage of the ship," Fain said. "It's also very efficient. That's important in the cruise industry. It's gratifying to see how well-thought through the logistics are: How passengers come in, how luggage is handled, the supplies to the ship. There are commodious areas to handle all the activities that need to be attended to. They are all well-thought out in a progressive way."

Voyager of the Seas' first cruise from Dubai to Singapore is already sold out, which has exceeded expecations according to Fain.

Royal Caribbean's German branch had a record year in 2011.  The number of passengers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland grew from the previous year by 34 percent to 80,500.

The turnover of all three Royal Caribbean brands (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises) has increased by 40 percent according to Royal Caribbean's division head Tom Fecke during an annual budget presentation.

Besides capacity growth, the "Seefari" Mediterranean campaign and the "highly developed" Fly & Cruise supply contributed to the positive result. And also a broader basis in counter sales: 526 travel agents were added in the last year, according to Fecke. 

Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas will return to Bayonne, New Jersey one day late due to an onboard medical emergency.  Royal Caribbean expects Explorer of the Seas to return on Saturday, January 28 now after a passenger required medical attention.

Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez issued this statement, "The guest was initially treated in our medical facility, but required additional and urgent medical attention that could only be provided in a hospital," read the statement. Explorer, which is equipped with a helipad, has re-charted a course for San Juan, Puerto Rico, the closest port of call. A helicopter will meet the ship when it gets within 70 miles of San Juan. Estimated time is 5:35 p.m. local time."

"We will be assisting both the guests currently onboard and those boarding on Saturday, but do not have details at this time," said Martinez. "We wanted to put the notice on our website and on social media as soon as possible, to let affected guests know in advance." Additional information on the revised itinerary will be provided to passengers on Saturday at embarkation.

Passengers that were expecting to depart on Explorer of the Seas' next cruise on Friday are now asked to not arrive at port until 2pm on Saturday.

As part of its ongoing effort to revitalize its ships, Royal Caribbean has confirmed that Navantia at Cadiz, Spain will be the shipyard that will upgrade the facilities aboard Grandeur of the Seas.

This is the second Royal Caribbean ship to be upgraded at Navantia, following Splendour of the Seas which received similar upgrades.  All of these upgrades are part of Royal Caribbean's Royal Advantage program.

The work will consist mainly of jet and paint, pipe, steel scaffolding, improvements in propulsion systems, rudders, bow thrusters, anchors and chains, plus many odd jobs in the engine room. The duration of the work will be about four weeks, during which some 350 people will work at Navantia and its subsidiary companies.

Travel writer Keri Welham took three generations of her family on an 8-night Royal Caribbean cruise of the South Pacific to try it out. As she puts it, cruising isn't just for bingo-playing seniors and hyper-tanned singles.

Welham brought her toddler to the cruise, which presented a challenge since she felt a lot of the ship's amenities for children were aimed at older kids.  She did mention there wer children's play groups scheduled but had to be canceled due to sickness. She did manage to find stuff for her child in the form of a kids pool.

Welham enjoyed the Royal Caribbean staff too, "The Royal Caribbean staff – who made a lasting impression with their friendliness and willingness to help – dropped us off a backpack of age-appropriate educational toys from the onboard toy library, which helped the toddler settle into our room and bought us roughly 10 glorious minutes of silence each day."

Food was also a big hit, "Mealtimes were a dream. Instead of standing in the kitchen trying to fathom where her food whims might lie today, I could wander around the buffet grabbing just a mouthful of a variety of things and she'd try them all until we found something she wanted."

In all, it sounded like Welham enjoyed her cruise, "It was certainly challenging at times but the trade-off was a once-in-a-lifetime experience: We got to take our little girl to Tahiti, introduce her to the spectacle of a mammoth, rolling buffet, dress her up for formal dinners, swim on the top of a 90,090-tonne ship on sunny days, promenade around the decks while moored off Moorea, and watch her fall under the delicate spell of elderly ballroom fanatics on a dance-floor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean."

You can read the full report here.

The Costa Concordia disaster has prompted Royal Caribbean's CEO Adam Goldstein to post a blog entry about the incident and what Royal Caribbean is and has been doing to keep guests safe.

"Safety is a journey rather than a destination. We need to operate safely now yet constantly improve our safety. We need to hunt for lessons learned in every minor incident or accident. We need to apply those lessons learned across the fleet ASAP. This is a never ending cycle."

Goldstein said that half of the fleet's Captains and most of Royal Caribbean's Hotel Directors were meeting in South Florida over the weekend to discuss safety both today and in the future.  Goldstein promised to review all of Royal Caribbean's safety processes, technology and people to ensure no catastrophes befall Royal Caribbean.

Goldstein also promised more information to the public on what Royal Caribbean is doing to keep its ships and passengers safe, "In the upcoming weeks we will communicate by text and video about many of the key elements of safety. Many readers who know us well will not be surprised by our focus on and commitment to safety. Those who have less experience with us should learn some interesting and compelling facts about how we prepare our ships and crew for safe operation every day."

The terrible tragedy of the Costa Concordia has raised a lot of questions about cruise line safety and even the notion of are the big cruise ships that cruise lines like Costa, Carnival or Royal Caribbean sail still safe.  While there is no doubt in anyone's mind that what transpired in Italy with the Concordia was absolutely awful, I think it's time to rid ourselves of the notion that cruise ships aren't safe.

Here's a question: name all of the large cruise ship disasters you can think of ever.  Okay, there's obviously the Concordia and the Titanic.  But that's all I can think of.  The media is in a frenzy over trying to scare the public with these headlines of "Too big to sail?" or "How safe are our cities of the sea?‎" and they make it seem like large superliner cruise ships are sinking regularly.  Don't be fooled, the media is just looking to get as much web page hits and viewership numbers as possible since it's a story that a lot of people have shown interest in.

First and foremost, the Concordia disaster appears to be human error.  It wasn't like the engine blew up or the ship's guidance system veered off path or some other technical glitch. Rather, the Captain chose a path too close to shore.  It's no different than if an airline pilot decided to change the plane's altitude on his own. Had the Captain chosen a different route, the Concordia would likely be wrapping up her sailing for this week.

As a frequent passenger with Royal Caribbean I've always felt safe on their ships.  Unlike the Concordia, Royal Caribbean mandates their safety drill occur before sailing.  And I know I've seen the crew practicing using the life boats or other emergency procedures at least once a cruise while in port somewhere.  

While you can make an argument about the cruise lines' reputation for looking the other way for personal safety over the years, I disagree that these mega ships we sail on are in any way flawed.  Given the track record for cruise ships safety, especially over the last twenty years or so, I think the idea that large cruise ships are unsafe is absolutely wrong.