Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain spoke with CruiseMates about the company's decision to move more of its ships to Australia and the reasons for the change.  

In 2012, 2 Royal Caribbean ships (Rhapsody of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas) and 2 Celebrity ships will call upon Australia for a number of cruises.

Asked about the potential for over-saturing the Australian cruise market, Fain seemed confident that Royal Caribbean could easily adjust, "Keep in mind the flexibility of our product. If something does not work out we can always change our plans and put our ships somewhere else."

Asked if Royal Caribbean considers what other competitors are doing or if the decision to move ships to an area is based purely on Royal Caribbean, Fain responded, "We really just look at our own brand."

A large group of senior policymakers from Liguria and Genoa, with the Mayor Marta Vincenzi, Claudio Burlando, President of the Region and President of the Port Louis Merlo, welcomed with great enthusiasm the first stop in Genoa of Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas.  Mariner of the Seas will make seven stops during this summer, while 14 are expected in 2012, for a total of 60,000 passengers.

In addition, as announced by Lina Mazzucco, general manager Royal Caribbean in Italy, "the company could become a shareholder of the passenger terminal of the Maritime Station, saw the new commitment of the port of Genoa."

At the first port of Genoa, Mariner of the Seas was also the scene of an opportunity to present the Royal Caribbean's partnership with the Telethon Foundation, a group that conducts research on genetic diseases.  Along with the testimonial of the initiative in Genoa - Olympic gold medalists Valentina Vezzali, Juri Chechi, Antonio Rossi. Royal Caribbean's Director of cruises in Italy, Lina  Mazzucco has provided details of the collaboration, which will be held with regular donations by Royal Caribbean, charity dinner on board ships arriving in Italy, and hospitality on board for the regular meetings of researchers from the Foundation.

Royal Caribbean's associate vice president and general manager of Royal Caribbean in UK and Ireland Jo Rzymowska spoke at the Association of Women Travel Executive’s  Sunset Cruise and she emphasized the importance of diversity in the workplace.

When Rzymowska says diversity, she's talking about age, gender and experience diversity as the key tools to make a business successful and not gender quotas for the board.

“I feel strongly that women should earn their way onto the board, rather than through quotas. It’s not about how many women or men there are but about the diversity of the team.Too much of one thing isn’t good for you. Diversity of team, age, experience and new blood – that’s what makes a business.”

“There are lots of women in senior roles in cruise. Being a woman hasn’t hindered or helped me. Age and gender don’t matter. It depends how valuable you are to the company you work for.”

Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas will sail out of Xiamen, China as its homeport for the first time with its maiden voyage on Oct 19, 2011.  The cruise will feature five days and four nights itineraries.

Xiamen will become the fourth Chinese city Royal Caribbean has chosen to be a homeport once it conducts its cruises in October.  For its first cruise, Legend of the Seas will visit Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Royal Caribbean will continue to serve China with regular service in 2012 and will also add Voyager of the Seas to the mix as well later in the year.

A list of speakers for the TTA Worldchoice conference has been announced, which will take place at PortAventura from September 23-25.

Among the list of speakers, Royal Caribbean's associate vice-president and general manager UK & Ireland, Jo Rzymowska, will be part of the conference as a speaker.

Simon Hargreaves, managing director of TTA Worldchoice said: "We have a robust agenda with a number of excellent speakers both from within the trade and outside.

"The agenda has been designed to ensure that those attending get as much practical and tangible output as possible, and I am confident that they will leave PortAventura feeling inspired to use new marketing techniques to reach new customers, whilst building even stronger relationships with existing ones."

About 9,000 Romanians will travel this year on cruise ships worldwide, up significantly from a year earlier, when they were about 8,000 tourists. This translates to an estimated spending spree on cruises of over 8 million euros, versus 6.5 million last year, "said Nicholas Demetriade, World Travel travel agency owner.

According to Nicholas Demetriade, World Travel travel agency owner, the increase is due to large cruise ships that Royal Caribeann introduced to destinations in Europe, and the launch of he world's largest ship, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, with a capacity of 5400 passengers and 3,000 crew members.

On two vessels, launched two years ago, last year during ​​more than 100 Romanian holidays, Romains spent an average of 1000-1200 euros. Those in charge of cruise tourism say this has always been on an upward trend, not only in Romania but throughout the world. The proof is the large number of ships launched every year, becoming larger and with more features. John Base, croaziere.net company owner, said the most expensive holiday sold last year was a combination of three cruises to the torque, which lasted two months and cost 60,000 euros. 

If you've been cruising for a little bit of time, you probably remember a time when during the safety drills having to wear your lifejackets on your way to your station.  But Royal Caribbean has done away with the life jackets after confirming with the United States Coast Guard that a demonstration of how to use a lifejacket is all that's needed and actually wearing a life jacket is up to the cruise line.

Royal Caribbean's director of Maritime Safety & Compliance Christiaan Van Raalten discusses the change, “We started with the idea that if guests can proceed directly to their assembly stations without having to go back to their cabins to collect their lifejackets, it would greatly reduce congestion and help guests reach their assembly station much quicker.  We also were able to decrease the amount of time it takes to conduct a muster-drill".

Once Royal Caribbean stopped forcing guests to wear the lifejackets to the must-drills, other cruise lines including Celebrity, Carnival, Holland America and Norwegian followed along.

Bermuda’s Brazilian Football School and Bermuda’s Sports Management Group have formed a partnership called Soccer@Sea thanks to an agreement with Royal Caribbean.  The Soccer@Sea group board Royal Caribbean ships where they train to better their soccer skills as well as play local teams 5-a-side games and beach soccer tournaments.

Soccer@Sea founders Steve & Karen Everitt are excited for the group to begin, “We will be bringing teams of soccer players to Bermuda on Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships to play local teams. This will give all the kids a taste of international soccer. Also with us will be international soccer coaches giving Bermuda’s local players the opportunity to meet and talk with them about soccer in other parts of the world".

Royal Caribbean's Ocean Fund is partnering with the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI), the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and the Image Group to create a reference site never attempted before where the correlation between climate change and coral reef stress can be measured directly.

This new group is being headed up by Dr. Carrie Manfrino, an  Associate Professor of Oceanography at Kean University and CCMIs Director of Research and Conservation.

The study is setting out to determine the exact effect of rising temperatures and sea levels have on the stress coral reefs experience and if it is beyond sustainability.

The hope is the data collected will give scientists a better idea of the immediate effects of the changes on the coral reefs as well as help reef managers understand these threats so that they can more effectively conserve coral reefs and their associated flora and fauna.

Royal Caribbean discussed some of its environmental policies with the Sun Sentinel to help show their committment to reducing Royal Caribbean's environmental "foot print".

Royal Caribbean claims its cold storage room aboard Oasis of the Seas is the largest cold storage room of any ship in the world.  The cold storage room can be used to store many of the recycled items on the ship, such as hazardous waste, incinerator ash and cooking oil.

In addition, Royal Caribbean installed new photo kiosks to reduce paper waste from photos that were never purchased.  Royal Caribbean's Associate Vice President of Environmental Programs thinks the kiosks make sense, "Being environmentally-friendly is good business and every organization should strive to cut the amount of waste in their business".

Oasis of the Seas is also equipped with an advanced hull design with ecological coatings that reduce the water resistance of the ship, which has an effect of reducing the amoung of fuel needed.  Oasis also has an advanced energy management system to conserve power usage, and thin-film solar panels on its top deck.

Modern hull designs can result in up to 15 percent energy savings and ecological hull coatings up to five percent, according to the Fort Lauderdale-based trade group Cruise Lines International Association.

Pruitt said the Oasis is about 25 percent more energy-efficient than older ships in Royal Caribbean's fleet.