Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain spoke at the keynote speech of the CruiseWorld convention and had a very direct message to travel agents that sell Royal Caribbean cruises,  "our fortunes depend on your support."

TravelWeekly reports that Fain's speech was about the role travel agents play in guiding people looking to book a cruise. Fain noted, "the vast bulk of cruising is still purchased through the travel agency community."

To illustrate his point, Fain used an analogy of shopping for a dress with his youngest daughter and how someone knowledgable in the product can make a difference in sales.

"I know what dresses are; everybody knows what vacations are. But people need to be guided."

Exploring the beautiful island of Barbados is no easy task so on a recent cruise to the island on Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas we wanted a tour to see the highlights of what the island offers. For this reason, we tried Tyrone Griffith tour.

Description

Tyrone Griffith is a man that runs a small bus tour of the island of Barbados.  He's one of those guys that has generated a small following on the internet thanks to a number of favorable reviews from recent cruisers.  Essentially, it's the 21st century equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising.

We were suggested the tour by someone in our Cruise Critic mix n mingle group (a collection of Cruise Critic members on the same cruise that all decided to meet up) and the premise of the island tour is a 3-4 tour of Barbados.  

The tour originally cost $35 per person but due to our group size (about a dozen people), the price was reduced to $25 per adult (kids were free!).  The tour includes opportunities to see or stop at 

• Kensington Oval (cricket stadium)
• Mount Gay Rum Distillery
• Holetown (site of the first settlers)
• Oldest church on the island
• Cherry Tree Hill
• Morgan Lewis Windmill
• Bathsheba
• St. John's Parish Church
• Gun Hill Signal Church
• Optional beach stop at Carlisle Bay

Like all group tours I've ever done, the tour offers roundtrip bus service to and from the cruise port.  The buses are enclosed, air conditioned vehicles and offer beer, water and rum punch at no additional cost.

Comments

Given what the tour offers and the price, it sounded like a great value.  Most tours we found to be much more expensive and renting a car or getting a private tour would have easily exceeded the $25 per person cost Tyrone Griffith's tour offered so we gave it a try.

We met our group and the tour right at 9am in the cruise terminal area.  Given this was a tour of people we had never met before, it's always a little awkward at first getting to know everyone but after an hour or so we were all joking.

After a small "paper work" issue (nothing worth reporting here), we all hopped into our van for the tour.  We took this tour in September and it was quite hot and humid.  The van was air conditioned but quite frankly, the air conditioning was weak and while it was better than no air conditioning, it was not exactly cold.  Speaking of the van, we were really packed in and crowded.  Technically the van had space for all of us but sitting in the last row, it felt very crowded and I would not describe it as comfortable.

Another issue was the beer, water and rum punch was not immediately available when the tour began.  We did eventually get what was promised, but it took an hour or so before that happened which bothered me.

As for the actual tour, we did see everything that was listed.  We did not stop at every place, with us driving by some places and stopping at others.  Frankly that's fine with me as stopping at every place would have taken far too long.  The tour driver was sure to announce things and describe them as we passed by and was able to answer the questions we had for him.

We stopped a number of places but the highlight of them was actually a golf course because hidden among the tees were a group of green monkeys that we were able to feed.  These are wild monkeys but it was something none of us had ever done before and it was a very cool experience.  Our driver brought bananas with him and give them to us to feed the monkeys, who were more than happy to take the food right out of our hands.  Amazing.

Barbados is a beautiful island and many of the other stops offered really terrific views and scenery.  By the end of the tour, it was almost like, "oh look, another beautiful view."  

At the conclusion of the tour, the driver gives everyone the option of being dropped off at a local beach or being brought back to the ship.  Beach goers will get a pre-arranged pickup time to be brought back to the ship as well.

Like all group bus tours, it's a different touring dynamic than when you tour somewhere on your own and that's something you have to be prepared for.  You move at the pace of the slowest person in your group and not all stops are going to interest everyone equally.  But if you go with a "go with the flow" mentality, it can be a good experience.

Overall, Tyrone Griffith tour was a fun experience that had some great views.  We managed to make friends with a few of the people on the ship, which was an added bonus.  It's really hard to go wrong with the price despite some of the issues the tour suffered from, including the beverages not being available immediately, the weak air conditioning and crowded bus.

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Phone number: (246) 233-3168

Royal Caribbean is offering guests a new sale on 2014 cruises.  From November 8 through November 29, 2013, Royal Caribbean will offer balcony staterooms for the price of ocean views and ocean-view staterooms for the price of interiors aboard a Bahamas, Bermuda, Caribbean, or Europe cruise, departing March 1 through October 31, 2014.

In addition, vacationers who take advantage of the offer also can receive a savings of $1,000 per stateroom when the book a balcony or suite-category stateroom on a seven-night or longer Europe itinerary and purchase their air travel through Royal Caribbean ChoiceAir. 

You can choose a 2014 Bahamas, Bermuda, Caribbean or European cruise to take advantage of this deal.  

Vacationers can book a balcony stateroom for the price of an ocean view aboard Adventure of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Brilliance of the Seas, Explorer of the Seas, Freedom of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Jewel of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas, Oasis of the Seas, and Serenade of the Seas. Ocean-view staterooms aboard Enchantment of the Seas, Grandeur of the Seas, Legend of the Seas, Majesty of the Seas, Splendour of the Seas, and Vision of the Seas will be priced the same as interior staterooms. 

The limited-time pricing for ocean-view and balcony staterooms are available worldwide. The Royal Caribbean ChoiceAir offer is available for new and individual U.S. and Canadian bookings. Guest must provide option code SNT1 at time of booking and air travel must be purchased through Royal Caribbean ChoiceAir by Dec. 15, 2013 in order to receive the $1,000 savings per stateroom. Details and more information will be available at www.RoyalCaribbean.com/Upgrade on Nov. 08, 2013. 

Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in Australia, has returned to Sydney today to begin her second season there.

Voyager of the Seas will offer a two-night "sampler" cruise before embarking on a 14-day cruise to the Pacific Islands and New Zealand before returning to Sydney.

Luke Aerowsmith, Voyager of the Seas' cruise director, says the ship's offerings are catered towards the Australian passengers' tastes.

"We have fewer deck chairs out on deck for Australians," he said. "Brits like to spend all day lying in the sun but Australians don't. But they do like to have a barbecue out on the deck so we'll do that.

Voyager of the Seas is based in China during the northern summer and travelled to Sydney via Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Darwin and Brisbane.

Adam Armstrong, Royal Caribbean's commercial director for Asia-Pacific, says the company would like to bring more big ships to Australia, but the country's infrastructure lags behind the needs of modern megaliners.

"We really need to be catering for more of these big ships," Armstrong said. "Rather than them being an anomaly, making one call every two weeks as it is with this ship, we want the facilities in Sydney to be capable of taking big ships every day of the week, every year. So there is a bit of catch-up to be done."

Puerto Rico's Governor announced plans to expand the cruise pier in Old San Juan to be able to handle cruise ships carrying 6,000 passengers.

The plan according to Alejandro Garcia Padilla will be able to accomodate Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas, which will visit San Juan in December 2014, with nine more visits scheduled for 2015.

The new pier expansion will cost $8.7 million and will extend the pier by 182 feet as well as build a new baggage inspection office.

Quantum of the Seas will be 167,000 tons and carry at least 4,180 passengers when she begins sailings in November 2014.

It's here! This week's Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast episode is now available to listen to.

Episode 14 is now available for downloading and this week, we look at when to book a Royal Caribbean cruise.

In this episode, we compare the pros and cons of booking a Royal Caribbean cruise well in advance or waiting to the last minute.  Matt has come up with the good and bad for both options to let you decide which method will work best for you.  It's not an easy decision but there's benefits to going either way.

We also have a lot of great listener emails, tweets and Facebook messages to share this week!

Here’s the podcast page for Episode 14. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS 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!

Royal Caribbean announced today that its Quantum of the Seas godmother Kristin Chenoweth will be the center of attention onboard their parade float during Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year.

Chenoweth is a Broadway and television star and is well known for her ability to sing.  It's unclear yet what Chenoweth will be doing besides waving to the crowd.  Many expect her to perform a song as part of the festivities, although this remains to be seen.

Chenoweth will appear on the parade float that Royal Caribbean is calling, "A World at Sea" that depicts three “WOW” moments found only on Royal Caribbean, including the cruise line’s signature FlowRider surf simulator, thrilling zip line and iconic rock climbing wall.

The 87th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade airs nationwide on NBC-TV on Thursday, November 28, 2013 from 9 a.m. to noon in all time zones.

Royal Caribbean has selected AIMS Innovation to monitor its Microsoft BizTalk system, at the cruise line's Florida headquarters and aboard its cruise ships.  Royal Caribbean will use the AIMS for BizTalk multi-tenant solution to monitor and manage the large bursts of traffic and information downloads that occurs when its cruise ships come into port. From its Florida "mission control", Royal Caribbean can check the status of each ship's BizTalk Solution, no matter where it is in the world.

Max Schmidt, vice president of IT Infrastructure, Operations and Information Security for Royal Caribbean, commented on the new deal, "In order to deal with bursts of information across our system, we needed a more flexible, intuitive BizTalk monitoring solution that could help us anticipate problems and lead us quickly to the exact location of errors to fix them in a short timeframe.  We chose AIMS for BizTalk because it gives us an effective tool to quickly and accurately monitor our data without using extensive resources to manage it or paying for expensive software customization."

Royal Caribbean will benefit from the deal in the following ways

• Decreases the cruise line's monitoring time. IT administrators only need to log into one environment to automatically get information from all the ships. Plus, administrators don't need to determine the operational threshold for each system.

• Prevents downtime. AIMS for BizTalk sends early warning alerts before downtime occurs and pinpoints the problem's exact location versus making IT staff guess which warnings are real.

• Learns and adapts to systems' behavior. AIMS for BizTalk modifies alerts over time dynamically "self learning" traffic patterns to make alerts more accurate over time. The dynamic nature of AIMS is critical to Royal Caribbean due to the varying loads during boarding and disembarkation which is considerably higher than normal operations. Other products gave us constant false alerts making our previous monitoring solutions unusable.

• Can easily and quickly be installed by any IT staff member. It takes 5 minutes without special training through Microsoft Azure cloud or a local install.

Royal Caribbean is taking steps to make it clearer to guests that book their cruises how their booking discounts are being applied.

Travel Weekly has a post about Royal Caribbean's new "Pricing and Promotions" upgrade that allows travel agents and guests to easily see where promotions are applied.  In addition, this change will improve the ability to combine discounts and keep track of which amounts are applied.

Royal Caribbean instituted this new program to show guests how their discounts are being applied throughout the booking process, from start to finish.  The end goal is to make things more transparent.

“In the past people would just call us and say ‘I’m over 55, what’s your rate for seniors?’” noted Diana Block, vice president of revenue management for Royal Caribbean International. "We might say, 'it’s $1,099.' They couldn’t see the value; that in the general marketplace it was $1,299 and that we were giving them a $200 discount.”

Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, has been quietly dealing with propulsion issues that is limiting the ship's top speed.

Cruise Critic first reported that over the last three weeks, the ship has had, "a significant reduction in the ship's speed".  The result of which has been less time at each port of call the ship makes.

Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez described the situation as, "Allure of the Seas currently has a small restriction on her top speed. All equipment is fully operational, and there is no impact on the maneuverability of the ship or on the safety of our guests and crew." 

The impact on guests has been less time at each port and in some cases cancelled shore excursions due to not having enough time to complete it.

It's not clear what exact issue is causing the slower ship speed, but it has not been a big enough problem to cancel any sailings or affect the onboard guest experience.