Royal Caribbean Fans

Royal Caribbean has announced that as of March 1, 2013, all passengers will be charged an automatic daily gratuity for the crew members in the dining room and housekeeping team.

Royal Caribbean will add an automatic daily gratuity of $12.00 USD ($14.25 USD for Suite guests) to the onboard account of each guest to be shared by Dining Services Staff, Stateroom Attendants and Other Housekeeping Services Personnel. The new gratuity system replaces the previously optional gratuity guidelines and the distinct gratuity envelopes.

Passengers who have already prepaid their gratuities for their upcoming cruise will not be affected by the change.

The move by Royal Caribbean now mirrors what rival cruise lines Carnival , Princess, Cunard, Holland America and Norwegian have already instituted.

It has been over a year since Adam Goldstein wrote on his blog that more details on the secretive 'Project Sunshine' should emerge.

In his post on 27th December 2011, he said "we simply cannot begin to divulge ship features until we begin the marketing cycle for Sunshine which is still more than a year from now."

We predict that more information regarding features and the actual ship name should start being annouced between March and May.

According to Royal Caribbean Blog, Royal Caribbean recently applied for 6 new trademarks which look set to be choices for the ship names. These are;

• Anthem of the Seas
• Ovation of the Seas
• Passion of the Seas
• Pulse of the Seas
• Quantum of the Seas
• Vantage of the Seas

There is still no recent word from Royal Caribbean about when they expect to release more information, but from what we can already work out, it won't be all that long until that exciting information is released.

To stay up to date with the latest Project Sunshine news, subscribe to our site to be updated via email.

Royal Caribbean has confirmed that it will ditch its 5% online discount as part of plans to reduce base rate agent commission.

From January 1st, the new base rate of 10% will come into place. Royal Caribbean has pledged to offer more marketing funds to agents that do not sell purely on price.

The commission reduction is the second in the UK cruise sector in the last two years after rival Carnival UK cut its base rate to 5%.

Royal Caribbean UK general manager Jo Rzymowska said the line was determined to bring price clarity to the market and to work with agents to increase the profits of its brands.

Jo explained that “We will be taking our 5% online discount off our own website as from January 1st 2013, when we introduce the new terms to show how serious we are about doing all we can to ensure price clarity.”

The new commercial terms will only be applied to Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises.

Royal Caribbean will be sitting down with agents to negotiate bespoke marketing arrangements over the next few months tailored to their particular business models.

The reaction to the announcement has been broadly supported by agents.

Royal Caribbean has agreed a deal with CA Technologies to enhance the WI-FI on board their ships.

The deal will improve the connectivity to the internet whilst at sea on all 35 ships across the Royal, Celebrity and Azamara cruise brands.

The upgrade will allow passengers to have web access throughout the ship, with enough bandwidth to use email and social network sites, but not enough to stream videos.

Technology already plays an important role for Royal Caribbean guests, said the cruise line, ranging from interactive screens that provide ship maps and restaurant menus to facial recognition software that helps guests find their photos.

Bill Martin, who is the chief information officer for Royal Caribbean said “Guests want wireless access to the internet from their smartphones, tablets, laptops and games consoles the second they board the ship to access a range of services; it’s imperative that we provide them the best possible experience with those services.

“Our investment in technology has increased dramatically. Thanks to CA Technologies Business Service Innovation approach, we have transitioned our focus from maintaining IT systems to delivering new, innovative guest services with speed and agility.”

Royal Caribbean’s large IT upgrade programme will take place over the next 12 to 18 months.

Royal Caribbean has scheduled a conference call for Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 10am Eastern time to announce the results of it's third quarter fiscal calendar earnings.

If you're interested in hearing the results live, you can listen on-line at Royal Caribbean'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. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same site for a month following the call.

Royal Caribbean will hold a conference call on July 26, 2012 at 10am to discuss its second quarter 2011 financial results.

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.

Allison Brennan has been appointed Public Relations Manager for Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited Australia and New Zealand, representing the three cruise brands Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises.

Allison joins the cruise line from Surf Life Saving Australia, where she was the media and communications manager for 18 months.

Allison has over ten years of experience in media and public relations roles.

Many members of the travel industry will remember Allison as the media and public relations manager for the Canadian Tourism Commission, where she worked for over four years promoting Canada to Australians. Throughout her career Allison has also worked as a senior publicist with Random House Australia and at some of Australia’s best known public relations agencies.

Royal Caribbean will continue to work with its two local PR agencies - The D'Arcy Partnership in Australia and Dockstreet Group in New Zealand.

“We’re very pleased to welcome Allison to our local team. Allison has great experience in the travel industry and is a perfect fit for our rapidly expanding business,” said Adam Armstrong, commercial manager, Royal Caribbean Australia and New Zealand.

Royal Caribbean's Chairman Richard Fain was awarded the Seatrade Personality of the Year 2012 award at a dinner held at London's Guildhall.

The Seatrade Awards is a shipping industry event that recognizes companies in the areas of safety at sea, clean shipping and innovation, as well as individuals that make significant contributions to the shipping industry.

Seatrade chairman Chris Hayman spoke about why Fain deserves the award, "through his exceptional leadership and perseverance Royal Caribbean has blossomed in different directions to become a global cruise company operating 40 ships under the Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, Pullmantur, Azamara Cruises and CDF Croisières de France brands."

Fain was praised for two achievements at Royal Caribbean: Overseeing the remarkable development in the hardware of the product, ‘not just size and volume but the transformation of the onboard experience incorporating elements that no one would have even dreamt about 25 years ago’; and secondly globalisation, both in deployment of cruise ships and sourcing of passengers. ‘Under his leader ship the company has moved ships to Asia, Middle East, South America and other parts of the world which are now all considered as major destinations and sources of passenger growth,’ he added.

Fain accepted the award and offered a few words of thanks for the honor, "I take this award with great humility. To receive this honor from Seatrade, handed to me by the IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu, is very much a reminder of how important it is that each and every one of us in this great industry to which I have devoted my business career, maintains a high level of excellence."

"I am unusual in this room in that there are not many people who have crossed over from real shipping to cruising. When I first joined Royal Caribbean 90% of our ships sailed from Miami, within a few minutes reach of our offices, now more than 50% of our business is coming from outside the US."

Royal Caribbean reported its first quarter 2012 financial results today.

Royal Caribbean's net income for the first quarter 2012 was $47 million compared to $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."

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.

You can listen to the conference call here

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has scheduled a conference call with analysts for 10 a.m. Eastern time, Friday, April 20, 2012, to discuss the company's first quarter 2012 financial results.

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.