Royal Caribbean released today its 2017-2018 Alaska season cruise sailings.

Crown and Anchor Society members are getting a 24 hour head start at the available sailings before the general public. 

Sailings are open for cruises on Explorer of the Seas and Radiance of the Seas, departing out of Seattle and Vancouver.

In addition to the new sailings, Royal Caribbean is offering a Seek & Save deal, where guests can get 30% off their 2017 cruise along with free upgrades.

The Seek & Save deal must be booked between February 16 and Apri 3, 2016 and is valid on sailings departing on or after Mar. 16, 2016.

Offer includes 30% off the standard cruise fare for all guests in a stateroom; all stateroom categories.

In addition, for new sailings deployed during the Offer Period that depart on or after May 1, 2017, the Offer includes a Free Upgrade within the stateroom meta-category (for example from a D8 to a D1, interior to interior, or ocean view to ocean view).

Free Upgrade refers to booking a stateroom for the price of the lowest available category within the same stateroom meta-category type.

Upgrade offer excludes Panoramic, Family, and Suite staterooms.

Offer is combinable with Crown & Anchor discounts, NextCruise offers, and Shareholders benefits. Any dollar off discounts or promotions, such as Crown & Anchor discounts, are applied first, followed by Offer, which is applied to final balance. Offer is not combinable with restricted rates (for example, Seniors, Residents, Military) or any other offer or promotion, including, but not limited to, Standard Group, Interline, Travel Agent, Travel Agent Friends and Family, weekly Sales Events, Net Rates.

Offer excludes all China departures.

Offer available to residents of the United States and Canada.

Dancing with the Stars fan favorite Carlos PenaVega will be onboard Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas to host celebratory activities when the ship launches in May 2016.

Grease is the headline show onboard Harmony of the Seas and the all-new, never-before-seen stage production, specially adapted by Royal Caribbean Productions, will boast a soundtrack of crowd favorites such as “Summer Nights,” “Greased Lightnin’,” “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” “Born to Hand-Jive,” “Beauty School Dropout” and more.

As part of PenaVega’s partnership with Royal Caribbean he’ll lead a number of Grease-inspired special activities onboard Harmony of the Seasduring inaugural events in Southampton, England. These include teaching guests the hand jive, presiding over a dance competition, giving an exclusive performance of “Greased Lightnin’,” and more.

Royal Caribbean Productions brings unmatched entertainment onboard their ships. Meet Christi Coachman-Orengo who began as a dancer onboard Royal Caribbean and now leads the production team to bring this award-winning entertainment to life.

Hope you had a great week (maybe one week closer to your next Royal Caribbean cruise?) and you had a chance to keep up with what's new with Royal Caribbean this week. But if not, here's a roundup of this week's news.

The big news this week was Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas had its first media preview of its progress at STX France shipyard.

Harmony of the Seas is set to debut in a few months, and members of the European media were allowed to check out her progress and the result was a lot of great photos of her inside and outside.

In addition, Royal Caribbean posted photos of the ship's progress and we saw a video of a computer simulation of what the Ultimate Abyss will look like.

There was a lot more Royal Caribbean news this week, so here is what else happened

Royal Caribbean News

• Ovation of the Seas was floated out successfully.
• Royal Caribbean CEO Michael Bayley offered an update on Anthem of the Seas.
• Two more Royal Caribbean ships are getting a refurbishment in 2016.
• A 5-day WOW Sale began this weekend.
• Royal Caribbean released a cool video infographic all about SeaPlex.
• Royal Caribbean is supporting a new cruise terminal in Brisbane, Australia.

99 Days of Harmony

To celebrate the countdown until Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas debuts, we kicked off a brand new blog series, 99 Days of Harmony, that looks at what makes this new ship so amazing.  

Each day we are posting a new blog post all about Harmony of the Seas, so here's what you might have missed this week.

• Grease
• Ultimate Abyss
• Wonderland
• DreamWorks Experience
• Harmony of the Seas Construction Update

Stay tuned to Royal Caribbean Blog each day for a brand new post all about Harmony of the Seas until she debuts (91 more days!).

Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast

The 133rd episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is now available and we're reviewing a podcast listener's recent cruise on Navigator of the Seas.

In this episode, Matt invites podcast listener Ethan to discuss his family's first Royal Caribbean cruise and why he chose to cruise on Royal Caribbean as well as why they picked Navigator of the Seas.

Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.

Royal Caribbean Around the Internet

Travel Weekly reports the storm Anthem of the Seas hit was a "weather bomb".

Shermans Cruise offers a first look at Harmony of the Seas.

Cruise Hangout has a look at all the Ovation of the Seas float out videos.

CruiseFever has 10 reasons why you should take a Royal Caribbean cruise.

Earlier this week, Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship floated out of its Meyer Werft shipyard and already we found a lot of really beautiful photos of this new ship and wanted to share them.

The talented photographer, Björn Haß, sent us these great shots of Ovation of the Seas.

All photos by Björn Haß.

If you like an ultra-high definition video to go along with your beautiful photos, check out this great 4K video of Ovation of the Seas' float out.

A video has been posted online that shows what appears to be be a computer generated simulation of what the Ultimate Abyss slide will look like.

The video was originally posted at ShipMonk.

Royal Caribbean has said the Ultimate Abyss is more than 150 feet above sea level and offers side-by-side slides that send guests down 10 decks at a rate of 9 miles per hour.

We love sharing Royal Caribbean photos that our readers took on their cruise vacations, so each week we ask everyone reading this to send us your best, favorite and fun Royal Caribbean photos to share with the world.

This is our weekly fun opportunity to show off these really well taken shots and give everyone else a "quick fix" of a Royal Caribbean vacation.

Let's take a look at this week's batch of photos!

Let's start things off by going to South America with a photo by Dave Rimington of Rhapsody of the Seas arriving in Punta del Este, Uruguay.  Bueno!

Next up is a great view of Labadee, as seen by Matthew Hull from his stateroom.  I would never get tired of this view!

No Friday Photos is complete without a sunset photo (or at least I hope there is at least one), and here is Independence of the Seas docked in Port Everglades by Michael.  Beautiful!

April E sent us this photo and said, "Can you guess which ship this photo was taken on? This is one of my favorite cruise photos!"

We will round things out this week with this photo by Rich Triplett of an early morning view from their aft balcony on Radiance of the Seas looking back as Jewel of the Seas comes into Skagway, Alaska.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their photos this week. Have a great weekend and be sure to send us your photos so we can post them next week by using this form.

Royal Caribbean is kicking off a 5-day WOW sale, where guests can get up to $200 to spend at sea on top of the current 30% off deal.

This WOW sale runs between February 20-24, 2016.

The new WOW sale is valid on all sailings departing on or after March 21, 2016, with the exception of all China departures.

Guests can get 

• Up to $200 onboard credit
  • Cruises 5-nights or less: $50
  • Cruises 6-9 nights: $100
  • Cruises 10-nights or longer $200
• $50 for 5 nights or less, $100 for 6-9 nights, or $200 for 10-nights and longer
• 50% Reduced deposit
• Combinable with 30% off every guest, every ship offer

Offer is combinable with standard/full fare and restricted rates (for example, Seniors, Residents, Military, BOGO, Upgrade, etc.), 30% Savings Offer, and Next Cruise offer. Offer is not combinable with any other offer or promotion, including, but not limited to Interline, Travel Agent, Travel Agent Friends and Family, weekly Sales Events, Net Rates, Shareholder Benefits, and Crown & Anchor Discount programs or rates.

Offer is available to residents of United States and Canada.

Our newest podcast episode is out to help give you a quick "audio escape" to a Royal Caribbean cruise!

Episode 133 is available for downloading which has a review of a listener's experience on Navigator of the Seas last week.

Podcast listener Ethan is back to share his family's experience on Navigator of the Seas.  Ethan talks about the ports he visited, his stateroom and everything he did onboard Navigator of the Seas.

Here’s the podcast page for Episode 133. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Stitcher or on iTunes!

Take a listen and as always, let us know what you think! Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes and leave your comments below!