Last month, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein announced that Royal Caribbean was pulling Mariner of the Seas from it's Los Angeles port in favor of moving her to Europe to help with the ever rising demand.  This decision leaves Royal Caribbean without a ship cruising the Mexican Riviera at the moment and needless to say, it's left some folks upset.  Mariner of the Seas replaced Vision of the Seas, which also left it's Mexican Riviera route in favor of Europe.

The problems many have lay in a few categories.  First, there is no option for fans of Royal Caribbean out of Los Angeles.  Those in the western United States are without an option for a nearby ship that serves warm water ports.  Second, many Royal Caribbean fans in the United States are upset over the trend of much of the Royal Caribbean fleet heading to Europe to chase the all mighty Euro and the demand there for cruises. Third, many who have gone on Mariner of the Seas report that the ship is routinely full and that it's not like she was sailing half empty.  All of these concerns have left many with a combination of anger, disgust and frustration.

Royal Caribbean clarified its position on the move in a blog post by Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein when he acknowledged that while Mariner of the Seas was meeting its capacity while in Los Angeles, it was still being moved to Europe because "we are unable to generate acceptable levels of performance for Mariner of the Seas. We are obligated to our shareholders to deploy her where she can earn superior returns".  

For most in the United States, European cruises are interesting options, but ultimately too expensive for most given the high cost of airfare just to get onboard the ship as well as the time off needed for such vacations.  The problem of Mariner of the Seas leaving is compounded by the fact that there is no ship scheduled to replace her yet, and if you do live in a western state, it means you must travel east for warm water cruises, which adds extra cost for travel.  On the one hand, it's hard to blame Royal Caribbean for doing what they're doing.  After all, they are a corporation and their first goal is produce profit for their shareholders (as any publicly traded company does).  On the other hand, the cruise industry is built upon the notion of building customer loyalty and Royal Caribbean has demonstrated a strong will to retain its customers for future cruises.

So what do you think about the decision to move Mariner of the Seas to Europe?  Is Royal Caribbean justified in moving it, and many other ships to Europe to make larger profits?  Or should Royal Caribbean stem the flow of ships east and maintain the fleet it has serving the western hemisphere?

You may have heard of specialty cruises where groups of people go cruising together, but the big trend that the media loves to talk about are "cougar cruises", where older women (over the age of 40 or so called cougars) look for younger men (in their 20's or so) to meet and the idea is women find young men for "companionship" while the young men find a woman who has financial stability, among other things.  This past May, Mariner of the Seas hosted the second cougar cruise but it didn't seem to be a huge success.

"But 20 or so other so-called "cougars" have taken the bait and signed on for what is billed as the second-ever International Cougar Cruise, a week-long Mexican Riviera sailing out of Los Angeles in May. From the get-go, the more vocal among the 25 or so "cubs" along for the ride are grousing about the lack of "Demi-ness" among the cougar contingent. And the more snarly cougars shoot back that there isn't necessarily a lot of Ashton-ness on display, either."

There have been specialty cruises like singles cruises that hope to offer potential soul mates the opportunity to find love while in paradise and there's been some controversy as to the validity of these events.  Personally, I think a lot of hype comes with this sort of news and the reality is it's not the sexy romp that some may lead you to believe.

Obviously we all love a good cruise and there's a great reason to book your next cruise to help support he people of Haiti, who were devasted by that mega earthquake earlier this year.  Given that Royal Caribbean stops in Labadee, it makes sense for fans of Royal Caribbean to get together to help out a great cause.  A group called "Cruise 4 Haiti" is organizing a group cruise where a portion of the cost of the cruise will go straight to some really great charities that are assisting the people of Haiti that were affected by the earthquake.

I know it's only Tuesday, but take a virtual trip to Oasis of the Seas and check out this interesting video tour of Royal Caribbean's newest ship!

Technocrati posted a really interesting article about how social media (Twitter, Facebook, et al) were a great means of generating hype about their latest ship, Oasis of the Seas and how other cruise lines are taking notice now.

Travel trade publication Travel Weekly reported that as of a couple of weeks ago, 10 million unique visitors made their way to OasisoftheSea.com. Additionally, the publications reported that a whopping 200,000 people in a 24-hour period tuned in to watch videos of the Oasis captain, more viewers than Anderson Cooper drew on CNN in the same time period.

I really think Royal Caribbean has been doing a great job with social media, especially on Twitter.  What contributes to their success is the fact they use Twitter not just as a one way means of letting their customers know when a sale or something is going on, but as a communication medium where they actually respond often to those who tweet to them.  In addition, you have the CEO of Royal Caribbean posting on a blog (and it appears to actually be him, not some intern) and it all contributes to making the customer feel like they have a connection to the company.  Bravo RCI!

We're going to start a new series of blog posts that go through the latest blog entries by Royal Caribbean's CEO Adam Goldstein and give an opinion on them, as well as offer you an opportunity to share your thoughts.  Our first entry will deal with the post made on June 6, 2010.

First, the current Ultimate Value Books (a.k.a. coupon books) expire on June 30th and the new ones will arrive before then. In the interim, we’re giving our guests immediate access to the three most significant new or augmented benefits: Internet, laundry and photo. An insert will be placed in the coupon book onboard until the new ones arrive. On most ships the books will arrive in the next two weeks. Legend of the Seas will get her books in late June.

This move is pretty self explanatory and makes sense.  With the recent announcement of changes to Crown and Anchor Society benefits, it's smart of Royal Caribbean to not leave anyone "caught in the middle".

Second, some of our shareholders who are Crown & Anchor members are displeased that the shareholder benefit cannot be used together with Crown & Anchor discounts, including the new onboard booking bonus. We are sorry that this is the case but we cannot modify our approach in this area. In order for the onboard booking bonus to be as robust as possible and to be used together with the Crown & Anchor discounts, we could not allow the shareholder discount to also be used together with it. Please bear in mind that the reason to own our stock is that you believe the stock represents a good investment in connection with your personal investing strategy. The cruise benefit is a nice opportunity to have, if applicable, but not a reason to own the stock.

This was a really surprising response and I found it pretty honest.  He could have just thrown out marketing talk and ignore the issue of Royal Caribbean shareholders complaining about not being able to use their shareholder bonus discount on top of the Crown and Anchor discounts, but instead gave a pretty honest response of you own stock to invest in the company, not get discounts on cruises.  That being said, that isn't going to make those that were complaining happy but, the man has a point!

We have received comments from members who want the benefit of the new onboard booking bonus retroactively applied to previously made bookings. I hope most of you appreciate that we needed to pick a time to introduce this benefit and that there would always be customers who had booked not long before the implementation date. There is no way to draw a line on retroactivity and so the bonus is applicable for eligible bookings made on or after our June 1st announcement.

I think Adam made the fairest choice here by being fair to no one.  I can understand some would be upset if they booked onboard a future cruise a few days before this announcement or a few weeks, but the truth is you got the best deal possible at the time of booking.  If they went back to 2 weeks prior, then everyone who booked 3 or 4 weeks or longer would be up in arms.  There would never be a date range that would make everyone happy unless you went back really, really far and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Returning to DreamWorks, we are really excited about this major step forward in our entertainment and programming. DreamWorks is the leader in animated films and Royal Caribbean International is the leader in cruising. Although these companies have worked in very different spaces, they have in common vision, inspiration, creativity, scale and global reach. Not to mention that both companies’ products make people happy.

I posted my thoughts on the merger in an earlier post, but it makes sense that Adam would be playing up this major alliance that Royal Caribbean entered into.  I was reading some comments on the deal around the net, and there are people who say they don't care about characters and don't want their future cruises filled with the characters.  My response to that is simply if you've been on a Disney Cruise, you know that if you never want to see the characters, you won't.  The meets and other character events are held at specific locations and specific times, so it's not like you'll find Shrek roaming the halls looking to give out hugs.

Are you an aspiring chef? Looking to combine your love of cooking with your passion for cruising? Well, Royal Caribbean has the contest for you.  The "Allure of the Seas Culinary Challenge" offers wanna-be chefs the opportunity to become the next Chef de Cuisine of 150 Central Park, the signature restaurant onboard Allure of the Seas, the cruise line's newest ship which will make her debut in December 2010.

If you are a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America with an AOS or BPS degree, then you can enter this contest by creating an original recipe you think could be the next signature dish at 150 Central Park restaurant and create a video of you cooking this dish.  Entries must be received by Sunday, June 20 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

For those of us who can't cook (hello fellow bad cooks!), Royal Caribbean will open the contest up to online voting, which begins on Monday, June 28 at 12:00 a.m. ET and ends on Sunday, July 11 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Consumers can vote once per day for his/her favorite chef.  The top five entries with the highest number of votes, as well as one entry selected by the contest judges, will become finalists and will be invited to participate in a final challenge held at The Culinary Institute of America's Hyde Park campus in New York on August 5 & 6.  The finalists will compete to cook a three-course meal for a panel of judges before a winner is selected to become the next Chef de Cuisine.

Full contest details, deadlines, rules and other important information.  Good luck to anyone who enters!

Royal Caribbean is putting on the full court press with it's marketing department by sending our mailers to inform their Crown and Anchor members about the recent changes to their loyalty program.

Earlier today, Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks announced their "strategic alliance" together to bring select characters from the Dreamworks film library to Royal Caribbean ships.  The obvious conclusion many have made from the deal is that the move is to counter Disney's character driven ships along with Norwegian Cruise Lines' addition of Nickelodean characters to their ship.  The idea seems great and obviously a push to convince families to sail on Royal Caribbean, but I think there's more here than just the characters and Shrek and his pals are merely the icing on a cake that has been baking for a while.

To the average observer, it seems like the Dreamworks deal with Royal Caribbean is a grand plan to add characters to the ships and get families to book with Royal Caribbean instead of other ships.  That makes sense....if all the cruise line prices were the same.  Considering that the Norwegian deal with Nickelodean was signed less than a year ago and in the press conference Royal Caribbean mentioned the deal with Dreamworks had been in discussion for longer than that, the move looks more like an attempt to counter Disney.  After all, Disney is the leader among children branding and what kid doesn't want to be on a ship with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and friends?

There's just one little problem for parents who want to take their kids on a Disney ship. Price! Disney cruises are almost always more expensive than a typical Royal Caribbean cruise of equal length.  Disney justifies the higher price by calling it "the Disney difference", where their premium branding commands a higher price tag.  If you're planning the next family cruise, it's hard to convince the kids that a cruise on Royal Caribbean is a better deal when the kids just care that the Disney ship has lots of characters and other fun related activities.  

With the Dreamworks deal, it gives Royal Caribbean some collateral to work with in the ever competitive task of marketing to kids.  Now, they can flaunt characters from Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, films that have resonated with this generation of youth, and so when parents have to plan their next cruise, it's a far easier sell to kids with these contemporary characters and the price difference between Disney and Royal Caribbean should be big enough for most to look to Royal Caribbean.

The alliance has a lot of hype going with it as Royal Caribbean is proud of the deal, but I really see the deal as being that final piece in the puzzle that they needed to get families to choose Royal Caribbean over other lines that have traditionally done well to attract the family demographic.  If now you have the kids begging their parents to go on the ship that Shrek is on, I think it's a far easier sell for families to book it, especially given the price difference.  Disney's prices were decent when times were great, before the great recession.  Today, it's a different financial landscape and if you can save a few hundred dollars, it's well worth it and now, families don't have to sacrifice the things that kids love too.