Richard Fain Remembers CruiseMatch’s Origins

 

Richard D. Fain - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Richard D. Fain - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

I’m happy to say my entry on CruiseMatch inspired at least one person, especially since that person happens to be our Chairman & CEO Richard Fain. Richard was involved in the birth of CruiseMatch and has enthusiastically supported its development over the years. Here is his postscript:

“Adam, seeing your blog about the next advance of CruiseMatch reminded me of its origins. It is hard to imagine, but this was back at a time when fax machines were still novel. We wanted to equip our travel partners with the latest technology and thought we were very advanced because we were giving away fax machines to travel agents just so they could receive confirmations of bookings.

While we thought that was impossibly futuristic, Ken Trippe was thinking even further into the future. He envisioned a computer system that would seamlessly connect us with our travel agent partners for all aspects of the booking process. He did more than envision it. He developed a system which he called CruiseMatch which would give travel agents direct access into our booking system. It would simplify their task, eliminate communication errors and make the whole process more efficient.

It seemed too good to be true and most of the industry was skeptical. But Ken insisted that we at least look at it with an open mind. Ken had given me my first job out of school and he had mentored me for much of my career, so I couldn’t refuse. Ken presented his “baby” to us and we were all blown away. The Son-of-a-Gun actually worked and did all he said it would. Who would have imagined? CruiseMatch became a crucial tool for us and for our travel agents. It has evolved continuously and Ken would be proud that his creation has advanced to the new level you described in your blog. It is one of his beautiful legacies.”

BY:Adam|28th April, 2010 1 Comment

Guest Post: Lisa Shares her Experience Onboard Freedom of the Seas

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Hello from Freedom of the Seas. Seems like just yesterday we were introducing her to the world, but actually it has been four years already. It was a great week to be onboard, because lots of new things were being introduced and rolled out. I know when I share this info. it sounds like I have a great job and get to eat and sample all the great food. The good news is that the gym onboard is the best at sea, so after we sampled all the new offerings, we visited the gym. We are onboard Freedom of the Seas for our Anchored in Excellence visit. The “we” of course is Captain Bill and John McGirl.

This visit featured the Freedom of the Seas launch of the Chocolate Breakfast. This was Adam’s idea that was launched on Oasis and is now being implemented across the fleet. How cool is it to have chocolate waffles with caramel-banana toppings or chocolate pancakes with whipped cream? This went great with the hot chocolate. Needless to say, we had a sugar buzz for the early meetings. The chocolate breakfast is offered once per sailing, and is complimentary. Also, launching for breakfast is a new “build your own” cereal bar. Guests were able to choose from traditional Bircher Muesli or a selection of Granolas.

The highlight of the menu introductions, for me, was the new menu at Portofino. Not to worry, the favorites are still there, like the shrimp risotto appetizer, but there are now a number of new menu additions that have become a huge hit this week. The new menu featured a tuna steak that I overheard a guest refer to as “divine,” a T-bone steak, and lamb chops. Also new, are a number of appetizers that can be shared, like prosciutto salad or fried zucchini.
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BY:Adam|26th April, 2010 21 Comments

Royal Caribbean - Changes to Deployment

Today Royal Caribbean International announced significant changes to the deployment of Mariner of the Seas beginning in early 2011. This is an important announcement and it deserves comment.

First, we will not be offering 15 seven night Mexican Riviera cruises from January 16, 2011 to April 24, 2011 that until now have been open for bookings. I apologize to our customers who had booked on these sailings. We felt obligated to make this change in order to align the ship’s new itineraries with the seasonality of traveling around the southern end of South America as well as the timing of the Brazilian and European cruise seasons. For customers who are affected by this change, we are offering compensation as explained on our website under itinerary updates or you can contact your travel partner for further details.

Second, just to be clear about what Mariner of the Seas will be doing as well as the implications for two of our other ships, here is a summary of the new information:

Mariner of the Seas

On January 16, 2011 Mariner will begin her odyssey to Europe. She will depart from Los Angeles on a special 16-night voyage to Valparaiso, Chile and then continue on as part of an exotic 14-night voyage through the Chilean Fjords, the straits of Magellan and around Cape Horn of Chile and on to Sao Paulo (Santos), Brazil.

Once in Sao Paulo (Santos), Mariner of the Seas will offer a short season of 6-night Brazilian sailings in addition to a special 8-night voyage which will be offered over the Carnaval holiday. On March 13, 2011, Mariner of the Seas will offer a transatlantic sailing from Sao Paulo (Santos) to Rome (Civitavechia). In Rome, Mariner of the Seas will offer a unique 9-night Eastern Mediterranean sailing followed by a series of alternating 12-night Holy Land and Egypt itineraries. This program will be offered from March 27, 2011 to July 10, 2011 and again from September 8, 2011 to October 14, 2011.

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BY:Adam|22nd April, 2010 102 Comments

Sometimes it’s a Risk Worth Taking - The Technology Behind Booking a Royal Caribbean Cruise

In our 1990 Strategic Plan (known as the Royal Admiral Strategic Business Plan), we wrote briefly about a software product called CruiseMatch. We had agreed to buy it from a third party software firm that had hoped to pioneer electronic bookings of cruises by travel agents but hadn’t found any cruise line takers. So we bought their intended “industry switch” and decided to hook it up to our computer systems and offer it to travel agents to book our cruises rather than requiring them to call us on the phone. While we expected to be the first cruise company to distribute cruises electronically, we felt the advantage and CruiseMatch would be short-lived. So we said in the plan that we expected the software to last 12 to 18 months, meaning we did not expect it to see 1992.

Why am I writing this? Because next month, 20 years later (!), we are finally going to discontinue the original CruiseMatch known these days as CruiseMatch 2000. Over those 20 years we will have taken over 1,800,000 reservations that turned into bookings that sailed. Building on the success of the original system, we developed a windows version called CruiseMatch Plus as well as CruiseMatch Online over the internet.

Going forward we will utilize the new CruiseMatch, which reflects the sophistication of today’s point and click technologies, as well as the Global Distribution System (GDS) products (i.e., SABRE, Apollo/Worldspan, Amadeus) that have each developed multi-cruise line booking applications. Today over 50% of our bookings from travel agents come to us through these applications rather than over the phone.

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BY:Adam|21st April, 2010 3 Comments

How the Volcanic Ash Affects Our Ships

Volcanic ash from Iceland has ascended over Europe and is affecting air travel to, from and within the region just as the new European cruise season is getting underway. This is proof that we had not yet seen “everything.” We are affected by the interaction of a still-erupting volcano and an uncertain wind and weather pattern. These factors are about as far beyond our control as is imaginable. As a result, we are dealing with this challenge on a day to day and even hour to hour basis. Our goal is to enable as many people as possible to board our ships before the ships must depart to maintain all or nearly all of their scheduled itineraries. While our primary focus is on the ships in Europe, there are also ships in the Caribbean and elsewhere that are expecting guests originating from Europe. We are hoping that the situation abates but working intensively on it while it persists.

This situation is obviously about far more than our issues or even the cruise industry’s issues. Besides airlines it has implications for hotels, rental cars, trains, ferries and every other element of travel and leisure. We need to take all of this into account.

As always, we protect our guests who have purchased air transportation through us. For example, guests who purchased air arrangements through Royal Caribbean and who were scheduled to travel on cruises departing on April 18th, and whose travel became impossible due to airport closures, will be provided a refund of their air fare and a Future Cruise Certificate in the amount of the cruise fare paid.

This situation presents much more complexity than what we usually face with downline protection for a limited number of guests. This bizarre set of circumstances is a powerful reminder of the benefits of purchasing travel insurance with trip cancellation protection. It’s impossible to generalize what coverage will be provided in this instance, but having coverage is very likely to be preferable to having no coverage.
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BY:Adam|19th April, 2010 20 Comments

Visiting Labadee for a Number of Reasons, Including a Site Visit of the Citadelle

On Friday, for the first time since October, Richard Fain and I visited Labadee. We had three goals for the trip. One, to meet our local management team and express our support for our people and their country. Two, for Richard to pursue the concept of building a school to serve the surrounding area. Three, for me to visit the Citadelle and understand what needs to be done to enable our guests to visit it when the ships call at Labadee. Joining us throughout the day were Minister of Tourism Patrick Delatour and one of President Clinton’s top advisers in Haiti, plus Craig Milan, John Weis and Maryse Kedar.

The site looked great and was in full stride with Independence of the Seas at the beautiful new pier.

I’ve been talking about the Citadelle for a long time so it made sense to actually go and see it for myself. It’s extraordinary. It is the largest fort in all of the Americas and it sits on top of a 3,000 foot mountain. How people in the early 1800’s got the rocks and munitions up that big hill is mind boggling. It was great getting the tour from the Minister of Tourism. Apart from his position in government, Minister Delatour is a historian/architect who has been personally involved in the restoration of the Citadelle since 1972. He explained, for example, that the cannons with Latin inscriptions are French, whereas the cannons with French inscriptions are British. Go figure. Each cannon has its own story. Many are still on their wooden mounts that allow the cannon to swivel and aim from various angles, waiting silently for the French invasion that will never come. The 360 degree view is phenomenal.

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BY:Adam|12th April, 2010 16 Comments

Thoughts on the 100th Blog Post, Allure of the Seas and My Latest Race with the Royal Caribbean Team

John’s update on his contributions to Haiti relief was the 100th entry in the short history of the blog, according to blog historian Lyan Sierra-Caro. You’re free to comment on the blog at any time of course, but I particularly encourage you to comment on the first 100 entries as a body of work.

The blog has become a part of my professional existence, i.e., it’s another generator of deadlines to be met. Sometimes it’s fun to do, sometimes it’s a pain. Like life!

With all the hard work the team is putting in these days, I’m looking forward to writing about the fruits of their labors in the upcoming months. These are not easy times in the business world, but the team is determined to improve our guest experience and stay at the forefront of innovation in the travel and leisure space.

The most tangible development in the near future will be the arrival of Allure of the Seas in just over six months. We are very pleased with her construction process and so we just announced the addition of a 12/1 four-night sailing as we were able to do with Oasis of the Seas last year. The 12/5 seven-night sailing will continue to be the maiden voyage but the four night will allow the opportunity to sail on a brand new ship at a lower price point. We are planning a special call at Labadee as the one stop on the four-night cruise.

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BY:Adam|5th April, 2010 15 Comments

Guest Post: Moving Forward In Haiti

From John Weis

Well, it’s been approximately 2 months since my last blog about Haiti and the start of my assignment and I wanted to share with you some of the experiences and projects we’re working on. In summary, it’s been an emotional roller coaster ride with its share of rewarding experiences and frustrations in terms of helping as many people as you can but not helping enough.

Adam asked me to write this a couple of weeks ago but at the time I was in a very frustrated state of mind with projects that were not moving forward, communities not getting enough help and things grinding to a halt. If I wrote the blog then, it would have not been very positive, so I wanted to spare you the whining and write this when there was more progress going on down there.

In short, there is progress being made but at a very slow pace. The immediate relief in terms of medical, rescue and security was handled by a variety of international organizations including the US Military, Israeli Government, Red Cross and a host of other groups that are too numerous to count. There were also smaller organizations on the ground referred to as NGO’s (Non-Government Organization) that assisted in the relief effort and most of them are in it for the long haul.

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BY:Adam|2nd April, 2010 9 Comments

Guest Post: Celebrating Royal Caribbean’s Travel Agent Appreciation Month

From Vicki Freed

I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Dubai onboard Brilliance of the Seas. Describing the adventure my family and I had in the crossroads of futuristic advances and historical tradition truly deserves its own entry, so I’m hoping Adam will invite me back to share the incredible details of my voyage in another guest blog. Dubai truly is a destination for the well-traveled explorer who wants to embark on a one-of-a-kind journey to a culturally fascinating international destination.

But enough about that. This is absolutely my favorite month here at the office. Why? Because we’re celebrating our 5th annual Travel Agent Appreciation Month! Throughout April, we at Royal Caribbean take time to recognize and thank one of the most important secrets to our success – travel agents.

Having been in the travel industry for the past 30 years (ouch! Am I really that old?), I have seen the value of travel agents grow substantially. At the age of 21 I realized how important they were then, but they’re even more important now. Travelers today have more access to information via the internet, making the travel agent role even more critical. As my teenage son would say, it’s a classic case of “TMI” (too much information). This influx causes an overload and leads to consumer confusion.

Travel agents, therefore, are value interpreters. Finding the right “fit” for the consumer is their specialty, taking the time to get to know their customers personally and creating vacation packages tailored to the interests, needs and budgets of their guests. Travel agents deliver memories to last a lifetime to many people, every day. For them it’s all in a day’s work, in my opinion that’s what defines a hero.

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BY:Adam|2nd April, 2010 5 Comments