This past Friday, music superstar Taylor Swift performed aboard Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas and as you might expect, tickets for the show were a little hard to come by. Luckily, POPSTAR! Magazine & PopstarOnline.com posted this video they took from aboard the ship.
Royal Caribbean this week opened its new office in Mexico City, located on the Boulevard Manuel Avila Camacho, where employees working in sales, marketing and business operations of the three cruise brands operated by Royal Caribbean: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises Club.
Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, said the company appreciates its strong market position in Mexico and its new office will increase revenue, expand offerings of destinations and increase the number of passengers.
The Sun Sentinel newspaper "profiled" the leading cruise lines and described who each cruise line is best for. When it came to Royal Caribbean, the paper felt it was a great line for those that can't get enough onboard activities.
Super sports complexes at sea. More than just the young and the restless can enjoy this line's list of sports firsts: rock-climbing wall, surfing pool, ice-skating rink, bungee trampolines, boxing ring and a zip-line that soars high above the pool deck. With two sumo-size sister ships, the world's largest, the 252,000-ton Oasis, and Allure of the Seas, Royal Caribbean even has enough real estate for a suite of suites overlooking its "Central Park," a green space loaded with restaurants and a boardwalk.
Royal Caribbean is updating its customer loyalty program, the Crown & Anchor Society, offering guests new ways to earn points and new advantages. Starting today, members accumulate points based on the number of nights of their cruise and not according to the number of cruises they've taken. In addition, the program now has two new levels of membership: Emerald, between Platinum and Diamond, and Pinnacle Club - an exclusive club for guests who traveled more than 100 times with Royal Caribbean - after the Diamond Plus.
These new changes to the Crown & Anchor Society take effect for sailings on or after January 21, 2011.
Thus, every night on board ship, Royal Caribbean is equivalent to a point in the program and double cabins higher the score. All current members of the program will be transferred automatically to the corresponding level according to the accumulated number of nights and no associate will lose their current status.
Moreover, innovations also include new benefits, such as a free automatic upgrade to associates; customization preferences; States may indicate a "friend" to go out and earn the same $ 25 onboard credit.
"These latest enhancements to the Crown & Anchor Society will further help recognize our loyal guests when they sail with us," said Betsy O'Rourke, senior vice president of Marketing, Royal Caribbean International. "We continuously listen and respond to our members' feedback and have updated our loyalty program to provide a more equitable way for our members to advance to the next level. This program evolution is part of the Royal Advantage, our dedication to innovate our amazing ships and unprecedented programs to offer guests the best cruise vacation. It's important to understand that Crown & Anchor Society members will continue to enjoy all of their current program benefits and status, plus having the opportunity now to advance to the next tier even faster than before. For this one-time conversion, we have grandfathered everyone's status in the program."
To celebrate the incredible loyalty of program members, Royal Caribbean is introducing a limited time offer: 'Bring a Friend' and receive $25 to spend onboard. Members will be rewarded for introducing new guests to Royal Caribbean International for new bookings made between January 12 and April 30, 2011. The promotion will offer a $25 onboard credit per stateroom to Crown & Anchor Society members when sailing with their 'first to Royal' friends or family, for up to five staterooms per sailing, depending on the length of their cruise. Full details, terms and conditions and registration for promotion can be found online at www.RoyalCaribbean.com/BringaFriend.
For fans of the Beatles, there's the perfect cruise for you. The "Beatles Tribute Cruise" is sailing from Miami, Florida on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas. This Eastern Caribbean itinerary will feature
Laurence Juber, a guitarist known for his work with Paul McCartney in the Wings bandIf you consider yourself a big Beatles fan and want to join this cruise, you can register for the cruise
Royal Caribbean has scheduled to announce its fourth quarter 2010 financial results with analysts for Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 10:00am.
J.P Morgan expects "solid 4Q10 results" based on strong demand and ticket prices in the quarter. Despite rising price of crude and bunker fuel, J.P Morgan thinks the higher costs will be offset by "strong operating momentum" of Royal Caribbean's young and innovative fleet of cruise ships.
The call will be available on-line at the company's investor relations web site, www.rclinvestor.com. To listen to the call by phone, please dial (877) 663-9606 in the US and Canada. International phone calls should be made to (706) 758-4628. There is no passcode or meeting number. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same site for a month following the call.
The Cruise Passenger Ratings Survey, by www.cruise.co.uk, has awarded Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas the best service award. Adventure of the Seas has the distinction of being the only award winner not to sail from the UK.
Adventure of the Seas is a Voyager Class ship built in 2001 and is currently sailing out of San Juan, Puerto Rico before it moves to Malaga, Spain later this year to begin a Mediterranean itinterary.
Food prices around the world are on the rise, particularly for meat, sugar and coffee, and companies like Royal Caribbean are finding ways to deal with the problem.
Royal Caribbean Chief Executive Richard Fain says the cruise line is hedging increases in cattle prices, that hasn't fully offset its rising costs for beef. Since the fall of 2010, meat prices have risen for Royal Caribbean and since the steakhouses aboard their ships are the most popular according to Fain, it makes sense for Royal Caribbean to be concerned. Royal Caribbean serves about 53 million pounds of beef, poultry, lamb, veal and pork a year.
"Meat is important to our guests," Mr. Fain adds. "We aren't prepared to sacrifice the quality and we can't raise prices enough to reflect it, so it ends up being a cost we have to absorb." Royal Caribbean is also paying more for citrus fruits and fish, particularly shrimp, another popular dish on its cruises.
A great blogger Chris at Gadling.com has posted an in-depth look at the suites available on Royal Caribbean ships. Like so many of us, we're enamored with the idea of luxury and who doesn't dream about staying in a lavish suite on their next cruise? Because of the many suite configurations found throughout the fleet, Chris uses the Grand Suite aboard Freedom of the Seas as an example.
Grand Suites in Freedom of the Seas are 432 square feet in size. That's considerably larger than a standard balcony cabin on that ship which comes in at about 200 square feet. So right off the bat you have more space, accommodating up to five guests.
But it's not so much the extra space that matters with a Grand Suite as it is what comes with it.
The first stop on the luxury train is the restricted-access Concierge Lounge, exclusively for Suite guests and top-level members of the line's Crown and Anchor Society past-guest program. Inside this special area suite guests will find
Chris has posted lots more detail about the suites along with some great photos in his blog entry this week.
Cozumel, Mexico saw more than 2.9 million cruise passengers in 2010, which is the highest number in the last seven years, according to the state Tourism Department . This figure is the best record in the last seven years which surpassed the 2004 statistics, a period in which they were registered with 2.8 million visitors to the island. Cozumel lost a great deal of tourists after Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Helping raise Cozumel's numbers were the arrival in 2010 of Royal Caribbean's twin ships' Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. These two ships helped Cozumel beat tourist numbers in the same segment of tourism destinations in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, said the head of the state Tourism Department
Among other reasons, helping Cozumel's cause to bring back tourists, last year Michel Ronan, vice president of Royal Caribbean complimented Cozumel and Mahahual by describing the island as a safe cruise destination. This tourism department feels this puts them in the preference of companies to bring their clients.