Royal Caribbean is planning on sending Grandeur of the Seas for a five-week upgrade that will cost $48 million to the Navantia ship yards in Cadiz, Spain.

The changes coming to Grandeur of the Seas include

• technological upgrades
• new entertainment offerings
• a new Diamond Lounge for Crown & Anchor Society loyalty guests
• a Concierge Lounge for suite guests and top-tier loyalty guests
• a transformed Viking Crown Lounge
• an overall refreshment of furniture, carpet, upholstery and staterooms
• new dining venues including
  • Giovanni's Table
  • Izumi 
  • Park Cafe
  • Chops Grille
  • Chef's Table
• Addition of Royal Babies and Tots Nursery for children ages 36 months to six years old
• Ship-wide WiFi
• Outdoor video screen overlooking the pool deck

The renovation is part of Royal Caribbean's planned fleet revitalization and is the third of six Vision-class ships that will be fully renovated.

Grandeur of the Seas will finish its refurbishment on May 31, at which point she will embark upon an 11-night Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona, Spain.

Royal Caribbean has been awarded the title of "Middle East's Leading Cruise Line" once again by the World Travel Awards.  This marks the third consecutive win for Royal Caribbean.  

The 19th annual World Travel Awards gala event took place on April 30th, 2012 at the Jebel Ali Golf Resort & Spa in Dubai, and was attended by hundreds of travel executives from around the world.

Helen Beck, Royal Caribbean's Regional Director, commented on the award, "Our crew is focused on delivering a great vacation experience and personalising the service they provide to each and every one of our guests. In fact, this year marks the ten year anniversary of our ‘Gold Anchor Service’ programme, which is the framework for delivering the Royal Caribbean International experience. Our guests consistently tell us that this type of special interaction with our crew and the exceptional service they receive creates memories that last a lifetime and are the reason they keep coming back to us."

Royal Caribbean has announced the Winter 2013-2014 itineraries for Explorer of the Seas.  Explorer of the Seas will continue sailing out of Cape Liberty, New Jersey where it is home ported throughout the year.

Explorer of the Seas will begin with an 11-night Southern Caribbean cruise, departing Nov. 3, 2013, which calls at San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Antigua and St. Kitts. Vacationers also can choose a range of nine- or 10-night itineraries that take guests to three paradisiacal Eastern Caribbean ports, plus Labadee, Royal Caribbean’s private beach destination on the north coast of Haiti. Eastern Caribbean ports include San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Kitts and Samana in the Dominican Republic.

In addition, passengers can choose to cruise on 7-night cruises to the Bahamas, with stops at Nassau, Bahamas; Port Canaveral, Fla.; and Royal Caribbean’s private island CocoCay. The Dec. 22 and 29 departure will see guests celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Day, respectively, at Nassau; while the Mar. 21, 2014 sailing will offer guests an eighth night at sea.

In April 2014, Explorer of the Seas will offer a pair of five-night Bermuda and nine-night Bermuda and Caribbean itineraries. The shorter sailing features an overnight at Kings Wharf, while the longer itinerary calls at Kings Wharf, St. Maarten, San Juan and Labadee.

Royal Caribbean has selected managed communications specialist Harris CapRock Communications to handle its fleet-wide communications.  

The five year deal provides hybrid satellite and terrestrial communication systems that will enable Royal Caribbean to improve overall communications performance while enhancing guest experience and crew morale.

For its part, Harris CapRock will deploy a fully managed VSAT and terrestrial communications system that will enable access to Royal Caribbean's corporate network and business applications, broadband internet, and telephony services.

The hybrid service combines Ku-band, C-band and shore mobile connectivity, designed so that the ships can switch from one preferred platform to another to maximise service availability and avoid downtime. Each ship will be equipped with two or three of Harris CapRock's stabilised VSAT antenna systems.

After Royal Caribbean refurbishes Brilliance of the Seas in the spring of 2013, it plans on sending her to the United Kingdom later that year.

Brilliance of the Seas will offer eight 12-night cruises to Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea out of Harwich, England starting May 15, 2013. These voyages will include stops at Copenhagen; Stockholm; Helsinki; Talinn, Estonia; Gothenburg, Sweden; and an overnight in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Brilliance of the Seas also will operate a single 11-night Norwegian Fjords and Iceland itinerary departing July 27, 2013 that will call at Bergen and Geiranger, Norway; Lerwick/Shetland, Scotland; Klaksvik, Faroe Islands; and Reykjavik, Iceland (for an overnight stop). The ship will be based in Harwich through Aug. 31, 2013, when it will depart for Boston on a 15-night itinerary that will include calls at Le Havre, France; Portland, Dorset, U.K.; Cork (Cobh) and Dublin, Ireland; Klaksvik; and Reykjavik.

Brilliance of the Seas is scheduled to spend the summer 2012 sailing to Northern Europe out of Copenhagen and Amsterdam. 

Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas will visit Cadiz, Spain this year and will be the largest ship to ever dock at the port.  The ramifications of which will bring over 31,500 cruise passengers to the city and have a direct and indirect financial impact of "more than 1,800,000 euros."

Liberty of the Seas arrives in Spain after serving the Caribbean cruise season and will also visit Mediterranean ports after Cadiz of Malaga, Valencia and Barcelona.

Royal Caribbean is building up its selection of beers available on its cruise ships to offer its passengers an even greater variety of choices.

In the past year, Royal Caribbean has been adding new beer choices to the menus of bars and pubs found across its fleet.  Included are small US brewery beers such as a wheat beer from Oregon's Widmer Brothers brewery and an India pale ale from Washington state's Redhook brewery.

Royal Caribbean's director of fleet beverage options BOb Midyette commented on the additions, "We thought we'd define what is state of the art and what is world class (in beer choices) to provide some diversity to our guests."

The new beer menu is available on half of its ships and features more than 40 beer choices, which is up from about 25 a year ago.  The ships featuring this expanded beer selection include all five of its Voyager class ships, its three Freedom class ships and its two new Oasis class ships. Royal Caribbean's newest pub, the Quill & Compass, debuted last year on the recently revamped Radiance of the Seas.

Royal Caribbean was awarded the "Team of the Year" award in the 2012 Call Center Management Association Awards.  The award recognizes, " the excellence and first class performance of the guest and trade services call center team of the collective cruise line business."

Royal Caribbean beat our competitors including Aviva, Barclaycard, DHL, Asda and Virgin.

Head of guest and trade services Michelle Johnson said: “This is the second year Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises have entered the Call Centre Management Association Awards and the second year that we’ve walked away with one of the night’s top awards.

“It’s a great reflection of the hard work carried out by the whole team and a true recognition of our dedication and commitment to ensuring our guests are number one in everything we do.

“This award firmly places our business as one of the leading customer service organisations out there and I couldn’t be prouder of the team.”

Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship, reported a "fire of short duration in the engine room," a spokeswoman said

The ship was sailing from St. Maarten to  Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale when an engine fire broke out at 7:45 pm on Friday, said spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez..

"The ship's high fog system was immediately activated, which contained and extinguished the fire."

No passengers or crew members were injured and the ship sailed to Port Everglades without any assistance. The cruise scheduled to return on Sunday.

Royal Caribbean reported its first quarter 2012 financial results and characterized it as better than expected.  In addition, they updated its guidancefor the remainder of 2012.

Royal Caribbean's net income for the first quarter 2012 was $47 million versus $78.4 million in 2011. Revenues improved to $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2012 compared to $1.7 billion in the first quarter of 2011 as a result of capacity increases and yield improvements.

As Royal Caribbean expected, booking activity continued to improve over the span of the last few months.  Cumulative bookings since early February have been down mid single digits, although gradual improvement continues. Bookings from the United States have been running ahead of same time last year for the past four weeks.

Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain commented on the results, "First quarter results were satisfactory given the difficult and uncertain operating environment and we continue to see gradual improvement in the demand for our great vacations.  We did not expect the impact of the tragedy to be long term and we are seeing evidence the effects are waning."

Bookings for the fourth quarter of 2012 and for 2013 sailings remain strong, with both load factors and pricing running ahead of same time last year. In addition, the company has seen an increase in summer demand for its Pullmantur brand's tour product.