We love seeing talented photographers take some amazing photos while aboard Royal Caribbean ships and Bryan Sargent, a New York City photographer, brought his camera aboard a recent Royal Caribbean cruise aboard Oasis of the Seas.
Check out all of his great photos here.
The Washington Post has posted an in-depth look at Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas' cruise director Ricky Matthews and how Ricky has made the job his own.
“My job is to provide the best entertainment and to keep everyone busy,” said the 39-year-old Jamaican of his position with Royal Caribbean. “I need to be able to make the people move even if they’re sleepy.”
Matthews describes his job as captain, head chef, steward, waiter and comedian. He spends his day overseeing the many activities that are occurring around the ship. For Matthews, it's all about setting the tone for passengers, "First impressions are important, so he strives to set the proper tone — fun, fun, fun — from the outset. During the first hours of the cruise, he strolls the decks like a one-man pep rally, waving his imaginary party flag. He joshes with guests and charms the female persuasion with endearing greetings of 'Hello, ladies.' They fall under his spell, as do their husbands."
Matthews' schedule with Royal Caribbean is also interesting, he spends two months at a time working for the cruise ship and then receives two months off to visit family or friends.
He has spent a considerable amount of time working for Royal Caribbean. Prior to Oasis of the Seas, Matthews worked on Majesty of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas and Serenade of the Seas. He occupied the cruise director chair on Oasis of the Seas from March to June, filling in for another cruise director on holiday.
You can read the entire look at Matthews' daily life aboard Oasis of the Seas and see exactly what his job entails.
O3b Networks announced it has signed a multi-year deal worth multi-millions of dollars to provide Royal Caribbean with high-speed satellite-delivered broadband service. By the summer of 2013, Oasis of the Seas will benefit from O3b's enhanced connectivity at sea that claims it will be like being connected to fiber at home or in the office.
Royal Caribbean will be the first cruise company to utilize O3b's new maritime offering O3b Maritime, which delivers the reach of satellite and the speed and latency of fiber at a fraction of the cost of conventional providers. O3b is enabling maritime service providers to offer affordable fiber-like capacity across the Caribbean and ocean regions around the world. Providing unparalleled bandwidth, O3b's steerable satellite beams will provide cruise industry passengers ultra-fast Internet communications throughout their voyage.
Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein commented on the deal, "Royal Caribbean is committed to delivering the most contemporary vacation to our guests, and that includes pushing ahead for onboard technological advances that offer the modern conveniences that guests enjoy on land. This milestone agreement with O3b Networks enables us to provide our guests with unprecedented Internet service at sea aboard Oasis of the Seas and potentially in the future aboard other ships in our fleet."
Royal Caribbean's performance of Hairspray will be performed live at the Tony Awards this year. The cast aboard Oasis of the Seas will take place in the ship's Opal Theater and broadcast live to the show.
Royal Caribbean has been named an official partner of the 66th Annual Tony Awards, which will be part of the live broadcast airing on CBS from the Beacon Theatre in New York City on Sunday, June 10, 2012.
Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein commented on the news, "We couldn't be more excited to partner with the Tony Awards to give the audience a taste of our genuine Broadway productions, which include Saturday Night Fever, as well as the Tony award-winning musicals Hairspray and Chicago: The Musical. These amazing performances, along with a host of other entertainment options including our unparalleled DreamWorks Experience, our dive and aqua shows plus ice skating performances, afford our guests an unparalleled vacation that is second to none."
Royal Caribbean has released their schedule of cruises to the Caribbean for 2013-2014 and are now open for bookings.
Royal Caribbean is planning cruises for Oasis of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Freedom of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas and Serenade of the Seas to bring a total of 140 sailings across 31 itineraries what will make stops at 20 different ports.
New to the schedule will be cruises out of New Orleans, Lousiana aboard Serenade of the Seas. The first cruise out of the Big Easy will be a 9-night Caribbean cruise on December 12, 2013 that will stop at Key West, Nassau, Labadee & Ocho Rios. Following that cruise, Serenade will alternate between 7-night cruises to the Bahamas and Western Caribbean.
It will be business as usual for Oasis and Allure of the seas. They will continue their popular 7-night western and eastern Caribbean cruises out of Port Everglades, Florida.
Also calling Port Everglades home will be Independence of the Seas, who will offer 6-night cruises to the western and eastern Caribbean.
Freedom of the Seas will continue to operate out of Port Canaveral, Florida and alternate between 7-night eastern and western sailings.
Finally, Navigator of the Seas will debut in Galveston, Texas with two western Caribbean cruises. Both are 7-night sailings and one itinerary calling at Falmouth, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, while the other at Roatan (Honduras), Belize City (Belize) and Cozumel.
One of the largest cruise fan websites, CruiseCritic, has released the results of the 2012 Cruisers' Choice Awards and Royal Caribbean has walked away with a number of prizes for its ships.
Among large cruise ships, Royal Caribbean was nominated in many categories and won the following categories:
Photo by René Gaehner from Oldenburg, Germany
Royal Caribbean is bringing back the Royal 5K race this year and will take place twice. First, the event will take place in Falmouth, Jamaica in April 2012 aboard the Allure of the Seas. Next, in December 2012, Royal Caribbean will hold the Royal 5K in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, onboard Oasis of the Seas.
These cruises that include the Royal 5K race will also offer passengers other activities including
The Royal 5K package price is $25.
The first Royal 5K was held back in December 2010 in St. Maarten.
The Today Show Travel listed their favorite cruise ships for families and five of Royal Caribbean's newest ships made the list.
First up is Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. The sheer number of amenities are notes for fun things for kids.
The two largest ships at sea each have pretty much everything you need to entertain the kids: a sprawling H2O Zone water park, a pair of rock-climbing walls, a miniature golf course, two surfing simulators, a basketball court, an ice-skating rink, and a hand-carved wooden carousel.
The Freedom-Class ships were also mentioned, including Freedom of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas and Independence of the Seas.
Aside from a huge playroom and video arcade aboard the Freedom-class ships, kids can't enough of the H2O water park, rock-climbing wall, ice-skating rink, surfing simulator, mini golf course, and basketball court. Kids of all ages love the Ben & Jerry's ice-cream parlor and the Johnny Rockets diner on board for burgers, fries and milkshakes (both venues at an extra charge).