If necessity is the mother of invention, Icon of the Seas has a lot of children.
Royal Caribbean designed Icon as a "white paper cruise ship", which means it was build from start with no pre-conceived notions or basis on other ships.
In developing the ship, new ideas for Icon required changes and improvements to Royal Caribbean's standard operating procedure on other ships. As a result, a number of innovations and improvements came out of the process.
The ship's cutting-edge advances were heralded by Heather Bishop, VP, Digital Product at Royal Caribbean Group, and Jennifer Goswami, Director Product Development at Royal Caribbean Group. Both spoke at Seatrade Global conference in Miami earlier this week.
In recounting what makes Icon different, we counted 14 different improvements Royal Caribbean came up with just for Icon of the Seas.
Chat with Guest Services in the app
Making it easier for passengers is an overarching goal with these improvements, starting with giving guests a way to bypass the Guest Service line.
Within the Royal Caribbean app, guests can chat directly with Guest Services.
Before you get an officer, you'll first interact with an AI Bot, that can help answer the common questions guests want to know, like "What can my SeaPass do?" and "How do I access Wi-Fi?".
The "Human in the Loop" features adds the ability to connect you to an actual agent, without having to physically visit Guest Services.
Read more: Royal Caribbean's clever idea using AI to get help on the world's largest cruise ship
No photo kiosks
You'll notice there are no photo kiosks on Icon of the Seas, because everything is handled within the Royal Caribbean app.
Traditionally, there was a photo area to go and view all the photos you took with the ship's photographers. That area has been repurposed for something else, and instead, you can view photos within the Royal Caribbean app.
"We were analyzing where there were points in the vacation where guests kind of had to stop what they were doing," Ms. Bishop explained. "One of those is typically towards the end of the sailing, as they've accumulated photos, they would have to go down to the kiosk. And so there was a large crowd of people at the kiosk towards the end of the vacation."
Moreover, the team felt most people wanted their photos on their phone to be able to easily share with friends and family. By removing the kiosks and making it digital, you could eliminate lines and get people what they ultimately want.
Another traditional kiosk that's been removed are the shore excursion kiosks.
Taking away that space allows for a larger Royal Promenade, which is one of the nice ancillary benefits many guests note with Icon.
Destination elevators
One of the most noticeable improvements is how efficient the elevators are on Icon of the Seas, thanks to the destination elevators.
"Elevators, while kind of not always the flashiest of technology, have been an absolute smash hit for Icon," Ms. Goswami stated.
"When you're waiting outside of an elevator for three, four, five minutes, we call them microwave minutes where they feel like the longest minute of your life," she said.
Instead of pressing a button to wait for an elevator, guests push a button for which floor they want to go to and are assigned an elevator.
The change improves upon a problem that has plagued all cruise ships, and Royal Caribbean knew they couldn't go with traditional elevators on a ship planned to be even larger than the Oasis Class ships.
Read more: Icon of the Seas vs other Royal Caribbean cruise ships
Aquadome
Royal Caribbean sought to create a neighborhood on Icon that "evolves throughout the day", and the Aquadome is the result they came up with.
Encompassing more than 33,000 square meters and extending from Deck 14 to 20, the AquaDome neighborhood is truly one-of-a-kind.
"We wanted to have one space that feels completely different at 9 a.m. versus 9 p.m.," Ms. Goswami explained.
"When you walk into the Aquadome during the day, you hear the waterfall we have. All of our technology is actually off intentionally because we really want it to be a quiet space."
"As the day transitions, we really turn it on. It comes to life. It feels like a different space."
Overhead is the dome itself, and it weighs 367 tons and is comprised of 12 different modules that are made of steel, glass, and aluminum panels.
Though projection mapping isn’t new, they’ve enhanced it during Aquatheather shows.
"We've added so much more flexibility to create our entertainment programs within the Aquadome, because it's now an enclosed space."
Stateroom attendant app
One focus on Icon was providing crew members with products to help them be more efficient and provide better service.
A new stateroom attendant app replaces the pads of paper they would traditionally carry around to track their progress between cabins.
"Now we have an application for them that they can use to keep track of what rooms have been cleaned, and they get an alert if our guests have requested an item for their stateroom," Ms. Bishop said.
Guests can scan a QR code in their stateroom to indicate if they need additional towels, if there's an issue with the plumbing in their room, and that will send an alert to the stateroom attendant app, and they'll be able to provide service right away. This avoids having guests trying to flag down their stateroom attendant, or trying to find a phone to contact somebody.
Express boarding
Royal Caribbean has been working on making the embarkation process as easy as possible, and Icon of the Seas offers an express boarding option.
If you complete all the pre-embarkation check-in steps via the Royal Caribbean app, you'll get an enhanced SetSail Pass that gets you through the check-in process even faster.
Read more: Royal Caribbean check-in process
To qualify for it, you need to do the following within the Royal Caribbean app (not the website):
- Scan your passport (don't manually enter it)
- Take a selfie photo
- Enter all the personal information, including a credit card
- Complete the health questionnaire
Then when you at the terminal ,you can go through our express boarding lanes.
Port agents with iPads
Speaking of a faster embarkation process, the port agents within the cruise terminal are now given iPads to help speed up the boarding process.
With up to 7600 guests coming through the terminal on embarkation day, the last thing Royal Caribbean wanted was people going up to a counter and forming lines.
These iPads can be used to view guest information, make updates, and get them checked-in.
"It also gives us the flexibility to move around and move the flow of guests around in the terminal," Ms. Bishop said.
Read more: 30 cruise ship embarkation day do’s and don’ts
Apple Pay
Something else new in the app is the ability to use Apple Pay and the ability to store up to four credit cards in a wallet.
"If you're laying in bed at night, like most of us probably do, thumbing through on your phone, dreaming about your vacation, now you don't have to get up to go find your credit card if you want to book a shore excursion or buy a beverage package, it's all right there in a couple of taps and really easy to do."
Virtual queues
Eliminating lines was something Royal Caribbean was targeting on Icon, and another area of improvement is for lines at NextCruise.
"Oftentimes, that area gets busy towards the end of the sailing, and so Jennifer's team looked at, how do we create this amazing, amazing lounge space for our company?"
The fix was to create a virtual queue, so if it does get busy (especially at the end of a sailing), the team working there can put guests into a virtual queue.
"You can relax comfortably in the chair with your drink and wait for your name to appear at the top of the board until you're until it's your turn."
"For you" section in the app
Something else you might notice within the Royal Caribbean app is a new button labeled "For You", and it makes personalized recommendations for things like shore excursions, beverage packages, onboard activities, etc.
It does things like suggest a beverage package if you haven't purchased one, or create shore excursion recommendations.
In addition, there are better push notifications in the app on Icon.
"If you're getting close to your vacation, we offer great deals, great cruise, and we don't want you to miss out on that. So we're doing a lot of personalization around our push notifications as well."
Leveraging AI
Artificial intelligence isn't new to Royal Caribbean, but it's being used more on Icon of the Seas.
"We've been using AI for things like food waste to make sure that we are doing modeling to make sure that we have enough food to keep our guests full and happy, but also reducing waste and not over, over ordering food," Ms. Bishop said.
Read more: How 6,000 Meals a Day Are Made on the World's Largest Cruise Ship
"We also use AI and generative AI now in our customer self-service... in order to provide the most efficient service for our guests, we want to get them the quickest answer as possible."
In short, it helps get guests answers to basic questions like hours of operation, or schedule of events.
Digitalized departure
The app on Icon of the Seas also helps make getting off the ship on the final morning easier.
Guests can make a departure time request within the app, and then they will see when it's their turn to depart the ship in the app.
Read more: 8 reasons to get off your ship as early as possible on disembarkation day
A better pool experience
Not everything new on Icon has to do with technology. One focal point for this ship was to provide more connectivity to the ocean.
In the planning process, Ms. Goswami's team discovered in their research passengers felt cruise ships didn't provide much of a way to enjoy the ocean, "One of the most fundamental things that I think caught everybody off guard was that guests, while they're on the ocean, don't feel connected to the ocean."
"So you will see that now, even from the Royal Promenade all the way up, you can see the water."
In addition, the team made another change compared to what you might find on the Oasis Class ships. Icon has a centralized hub for the pools.
"We also pushed our pools outward so that you can see the water while being in the water, but also creating different kinds of experiences."
"We do have one large pool when you want a party. We have smaller pools when you don't feel like a party. We've created different experiences that you can have across seven days."
A true crew neighborhood
Another important innovation for Icon was giving crew members a better experience.
Royal Caribbean centralized what crew members need while working and living onboard Icon, "They don't need to leave and go all the way aft for an experience. Everything that they have, their cafe, the food, the bars, they're all forward," Ms. Goswami described.
Royal Caribbean worked with crew members to better understand their needs and come up with what would benefit them.
Read more: Photos show the secret crew-only areas on Icon of the Seas
