Royal Caribbean Adam Goldstein outlined some new details about the new class of Royal Caribbean ships that is on order in a recent blog entry.  While Goldstein can't divulge details about the ship quite yet, he did clue us into the process they are engaged in that will bring Royal Caribbean its next new ships in about 3 years.

Royal Caribbean has a department that specializes in these new ship designs called "Fleet Design & Newbuild", although Goldstein notes that is more commonly referred to as simply "Newbuild".  Newbuild is also involved in ship upgrades, such as the one that is going on right now for Radiance of the Seas.

The new Project Sunshine class ship design is being headed up by Executive VP Harri Kulovaara and chief designer Kelly Gonzalez.

The design process involves the Operations, Marketing and Executive Steering committee divisions of Royal Caribbean.  The Executive Steering committee is made up of Adam Goldstein, Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain and Harri Kulovaara.  They meet once a month for a day to go over "critical aspects of the project".  The executive steering  committee normally meet in Miami, but for the May meeting, they flew out to Germany to the Meyerwerft shipyard for a meeting there.

Goldstein reiterated that Project Sunshine should be ready sometime in 2014.

Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein will be at Seatrade South America May 30 & 31, 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Goldstein will along with Pierfrancesco Vago (MSC Cruises), and Alfredo Serrano (Ibero Cruises), give weight to the discussions about the market for cruises and the peculiarities of South America, especially Brazil .

This is the first time the South American continent has received the largest gathering of the cruise industry. 

Royal Caribbean's Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Fain received a 59% increase in his salary in 2010, which brought his annual paycheck to $8.6 million.

The reason for the increase in pay was mostly due to a cash incentive payment of nearly $4.1 million, about $2.9 million more than the previous year's amount.

Fain's base salary remained the same for the third straight year at $1 million and the cruise line's financial results were better in 2010 than in 2009.

In a proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Royal Caribbean stated, "Executives were rewarded for their contributions to this positive performance through payment of performance based annual bonuses above target levels".

The other four executives for Royal Caribbean saw their 2010 bottom lines rise as well from 18.5% to 48.9% thanks to increases in cash incentives.  Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's CEO Adam Goldstein saw the biggest increase, who received $4 million and was second to Fain in total compensation for the year.

At the cruise industry conference and trade show Cruise Shipping Miami 2011, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein indicated that the recession has forced Royal Caribbean to send more ships to markets outside of the United States, such as Europe, to seek higher revenue.

Before the recession, cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean got most of their customers from North America but the economic quagmire pushed the cruise giant to look abroad and encourage new source markets.  It's a strategy that Goldstein indicated would not be changing any time soon.

Europe, in particular, has been a target of Royal Caribbean as Goldstein sees it as a market that can provide much of the growth needed for Royal Caribbean to continue to grow.

A record 15 million people worldwide cruised in 2010 and 2011 is expected to exceed that number, thanks to higher demand outside of North America as well as a largely untapped market of potential cruisers in North America of which only 3 percent of the population has cruised.

According to Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein, Royal Caribbean will begin adding cabins for single cruisers to some of its older ships.

"We are going to be revitalizing our older ships such as Radiance of the Seas and Grandeur of the Seas, and so we will have opportunity to create spaces for single travelers then. It is definitely something that we are looking at.”

For those looking to get a single cabin on a newer ship, such as Allure of the Seas or Oasis of the Seas, you're going to have to keep waiting as Goldstein mentioned these and other newer Royal Caribbean ships will not receive this update.

So why the change? Royal Caribbean is considering adding single cabins because of the increased demand from people who travel alone. Most ships are designed with cabins for 2 or more people; single travelers have to pay a single more if they want to go on a cruise.

Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein, speaking to Travel Weekly on Allure of the Seas's debut, says that the performance of the United Kingdom market is now a vital factor in the overall success of Royal Caribbean.

“The market must come through for us on these types of initiatives.  It’s not like 25 years ago when we were interested in the UK but in the final analysis the US performance would determine the company’s performance. We are now reliant on the UK to perform overall. When you must perform for the company to perform it’s a very different environment that it just being something nice to talk about."

Royal Caribbean will become the biggest cruise ship operator in Europe in 2011, in terms of the number of beds available.  Royal Caribbean will pass Italian-style Carnival brand Costa Cruises.  Royal Caribbean believes the international nature of its product is unrivalled and it will soon have 50% of guests sourced outside of the core US cruise market from 40 different nationalities.

“Royal Caribbean’s versatility is unmatched in the world of cruising. Anywhere we go with our 22 ships, it’s identifiably a Royal Caribbean experience and only we are able to flex our product so consumers of all nationalities are really pleased by what they are experiencing,” said Goldstein.

Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein said in a recent interview that Royal Caribbean's newest megaships, Allure and Oasis of the Seas, are drawing a much younger age group than traditionally seen. 

On an overall basis the average age of an RCI cruiser is 44. ... But on Oasis and Allure, the average age of people booking and taking trips is 39 or 40. We're seeing a much heavier family involvement on these ships. I believe the family vacation experience on these ships is competitive with anything that exists on land.

In addition to younger people going on a cruise, Goldstein was convinced that overseas cruising (outside the United States) is a place of tremendous growth for the company.  In fact, next summer, Royal Caribbean will have 11 of their 22 ships in Europe.

The biggest trend in the cruise industry right now is globalization. That is what's happening. For the first 30 years of the cruise industry as we know it, the American market was very dominant, and although marketing took place in other countries, particularly the U.K., it was limited. For the most part, people had to travel long distances to get on cruise ships and they were mostly occupied by U.S. customers. In the last 10 years, that has started to change in a meaningful way.

CNN interviewed Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein to talk about where Royal Caribbean is right now and its future.  Topics of the interview included the state of the cruise industry, the arrival of the Allure of the Seas and an unusual debate over which really is the largest cruise ship.  Here are some highlights of the interview from Adam.

There will always be some percentage of the business that comes in the form of discount. It's the nature of the business that there will be some of that, but I think it's fair to say that while there still are attractive offers and discounts available on the marketplace today, they're not as broad or as deep as what we were doing in the midst of the recession or in the deepest part of the recession.

Goldstein on adding Starbucks to other ships in the fleet: We need to see what happens here because this is a test case.  We're focused on Allure of the Seas and then if it is a big success we'll look at other possibilities.

Goldstein on adding ships larger than Allure: In the near term, no. We don't have any current plans to go beyond Oasis class. In fact, we've said that we're not currently thinking of adding to Oasis class.

Mainlinemedianews.com interviewed Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein about his childhood, growing up in Maine.  He attended New Eagle Elementary, Valley Forge Middle School and Conestoga High School and generally looks back fondly on his early years in Maine, "learning French at Conestoga opened up an incredible world of opportunities for me. I was also a committed member of the cross-country and track teams and I am still in touch with my coach 33 years later. The discipline of running under Coach Ramsey was extremely important to my development."

So how did Goldstein come to work for Royal Caribbean and become it's CEO?  He started off in 1988 as the vice president and corporate secretary to the Board of Directors. A year later an opportunity in the marketing department opened and he jumped at it and would become the vice president of international sales and marketing.  By 2005 Goldstein was named president and in 2007 president and CEO.

“I didn’t imagine that anything like this existed in business,” said Goldstein. “The company is 12 times larger than it was when I started. Royal Caribbean has become the leading cruise brand in the world. They are building ships that couldn’t have been built when I started.”

Last month, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein announced that Royal Caribbean was pulling Mariner of the Seas from it's Los Angeles port in favor of moving her to Europe to help with the ever rising demand.  This decision leaves Royal Caribbean without a ship cruising the Mexican Riviera at the moment and needless to say, it's left some folks upset.  Mariner of the Seas replaced Vision of the Seas, which also left it's Mexican Riviera route in favor of Europe.

The problems many have lay in a few categories.  First, there is no option for fans of Royal Caribbean out of Los Angeles.  Those in the western United States are without an option for a nearby ship that serves warm water ports.  Second, many Royal Caribbean fans in the United States are upset over the trend of much of the Royal Caribbean fleet heading to Europe to chase the all mighty Euro and the demand there for cruises. Third, many who have gone on Mariner of the Seas report that the ship is routinely full and that it's not like she was sailing half empty.  All of these concerns have left many with a combination of anger, disgust and frustration.

Royal Caribbean clarified its position on the move in a blog post by Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein when he acknowledged that while Mariner of the Seas was meeting its capacity while in Los Angeles, it was still being moved to Europe because "we are unable to generate acceptable levels of performance for Mariner of the Seas. We are obligated to our shareholders to deploy her where she can earn superior returns".  

For most in the United States, European cruises are interesting options, but ultimately too expensive for most given the high cost of airfare just to get onboard the ship as well as the time off needed for such vacations.  The problem of Mariner of the Seas leaving is compounded by the fact that there is no ship scheduled to replace her yet, and if you do live in a western state, it means you must travel east for warm water cruises, which adds extra cost for travel.  On the one hand, it's hard to blame Royal Caribbean for doing what they're doing.  After all, they are a corporation and their first goal is produce profit for their shareholders (as any publicly traded company does).  On the other hand, the cruise industry is built upon the notion of building customer loyalty and Royal Caribbean has demonstrated a strong will to retain its customers for future cruises.

So what do you think about the decision to move Mariner of the Seas to Europe?  Is Royal Caribbean justified in moving it, and many other ships to Europe to make larger profits?  Or should Royal Caribbean stem the flow of ships east and maintain the fleet it has serving the western hemisphere?