I hope you enjoyed reading my blog entry from yesterday along with some of the video footage I captured during my recent trip to Asia. Although the primary purpose of my travel was business-related, I made it my priority to document the highlights of my trip so I could share the beauty and exciting sights with my readers. I hope that my travels to Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing and Japan have inspired you. Here are two more video clips from my stay in Shanghai, China.
For those of you who have sailed with us in Asia, which city offered you the most unique cultural experience?
My annual summer trip to Asia transpired last week. I can always count on two things to be true. First, it is logistically daunting, in this case nine flights and over 48 hours in the air and no stays beyond two nights in one place. Second, it is exciting and rewarding to work with our people in the region to spur the development of our brand and the cruise industry overall.
First I was in Singapore, our Asia/Pacific Regional headquarters. Jennifer Yap and her team have done a very nice job of establishing our presence and the team is looking forward to the return of Legend of the Seas for the winter season. Because Singapore (thus far) allows a large local competitor to require travel agents to sign contracts restricting them from promoting other cruise lines, we have consumers coming into our office to book their cruises directly with us. This is unique amongst our global offices and it was interesting to observe the dynamic between the consumers and our people.
When I first visited Singapore in 1990, it was a strikingly modern city with many gleaming office towers. With the recent opening of their two so-called integrated resorts or IRs, Singapore has graduated to a whole new level of 21st century sophistication. I stayed in the Marina Bay Sands, one of the two IRs, and toured the other IR which is on the island of Sentosa. They are very different from one another, with Marina Bay being more for “MICE” guests – that is, Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions – and Sentosa being more for families. Both IRs have substantial casinos and an array of top notch restaurants and other attractions including a new Universal Studios theme park at Sentosa. The big attraction at Marina Bay is the park that sits on top of the three 57 story towers. Incredible.
Then I shifted to China, traveling first to Shanghai, then to Beijing. In each case I spent time with government officials who are interested in developing the “cruise economy” as they call it; with port officials because the Chinese are seriously focused on infrastructure development; and of course with travel agents because somebody has to find customers to put on Legend of the Seas or there is no cruise economy. It was clear to me that Dr. Zinan Liu and his team have gained significant experience in their roles since I was in China a year ago. This is the brave new world and we have a lot of work to do to capture the huge potential of China as a cruise market.
One night in Shanghai I visited the World Expo with Dr. Liu and his leadership team. This is the World Expo of World Expos. It is to Shanghai what the Olympics were to Beijing. They are projecting 70 million visitors from May to October. Most of the visitors are Chinese but there are many international tourists as well. It is simply enormous. With the benefit of VIP passes we were able to see both the China pavilion and the Japan pavilion in one evening including dinner. Without VIP passes one would have to expect multi-hour lines for any of the principal pavilions. There are multi-stop bus routes inside the complex. It is really something to see the whole world come to Shanghai.
Another night in Beijing, I had a very different experience with an evening function we had for travel agents. What made it notable was that Dr. Liu had arranged for a table tennis table so the Chinese travel agents could torment me. I actually would have been ok if I had brought my own paddle. While everyone knows the Chinese hold the paddle differently, I had no idea that a Chinese paddle has a short, stubby handle to facilitate that grip. To make matters worse, the paddle had dimples on one side and a flat surface on the other side. I did not want to hit with the dimples, so I had to guess where my opponent would hit the ball so I could get the flat surface on that side. Oh brother. I won three of five matches under those conditions. Next year I will bring my paddle.
Finally, I visited my brother who lives in Japan with his wife, daughter and newborn son. My adorable niece mostly speaks Japanese but she knows a good number of English words. From her I learned that animals in Japan make very different sounds than animals in the US. I’m not sure why that should be, but I can now report that cows and dogs do not say moo and woof in Japan.
I got back to Miami exactly in time to see Spain defeat the Netherlands in the World Cup final. Congratulations to Spain. Our colleagues at Pullmantur in Madrid and in Royal Caribbean’s Barcelona office should be open for business again in a few weeks. Just kidding.
It’s been a very interesting week. I just returned from an Anchored in Excellence (AIE) visit to Monarch of the Seas. We joined the ship in Nassau and sailed back to Port Canaveral. I have to say that I was truly impressed with the teamwork and spirit onboard. I was also very happy to see the strong focus on crew satisfaction. The Monarch Executive Committee has been putting a lot of focus on revitalizing the crew areas, including an updated gym, new food stations and the crew outdoor deck areas. I had forgotten that we had used Monarch to test the Izumi concept for Oasis. We had a dinner with the executive committee at Izumi and all cooked our own dinners with the hot rocks. It was a good reminder of how we always test concepts in the fleet before rolling them out to a new build or to the rest of the fleet. The Jade area on Monarch was also great and in addition to the hot rocks, guests can also get Sushi, or Chop’s Grille salads, shrimp cocktail and steak. I have to say that it really shows the power of the guest service and value of the crew when I look at how Monarch is performing on our balanced scorecard. She is the number two ship in the fleet and her ratings are consistently improving and above target. I told the crew that if all you had to do was be the newest ship to be on top of the scorecard it was one thing, but to have a 19-year-old ship in the second position, and closing in on the number one spot, was clearly a sign of the focus on guests and “Delivering the Wow” at every opportunity. (In case you were wondering, Legend of the Seas is currently number one in the fleet)
One of our guests certainly had the Wow delivered to her on Oasis this week. She was playing the slots and put in three coins for the max bet and won $125,000! This happened on the first night of the cruise. The ship was all a buzz about her big jackpot. (I went to Gulfstream to try my luck after reading about her luck, but only won $32.00 playing Fireball, my new favorite slot machine).
This week, we also saw the first preview of the DreamWorks costumes coming to life . I’ve attached some photos to give everyone a glimpse of the two characters, Stoick and Gobber, from our How to Train Your Dragon ice show.
There are a lot of discussions about Allure this week, as Ken Rush, our start up Cruise Director, is already in town working on the compasses and activities line up for Allure. There is so much additional programming and activities related to the DreamWorks events that we will probably have at least 26 versions of the compass before we finalize the ultimate week that showcases two ice shows, Chicago, Blue Planet, two aqua theatre shows, 3D movies, parades, as well as all the other special activities and events!There is so much we have planned that I think our guests will need to sail for two weeks in order to experience it all.
How about these for a series of random and disconnected thoughts:
The World Cup – as a serious sports fan who has spent endless hours watching youth soccer games (and practices), I am into it. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, at least not in the US, but for several billion people it really matters. I was still on Oasis of the Seas when the tournament started and watched the first game (Mexico vs. host South Africa) on the big screens at the AquaTheater. Just seeing that one game with our guests wearing their national shirts and even some face paint was evidence enough that we did the right thing by buying the rights to show all the games.
Small towns – almost all 5k races are nice affairs that support a charity and a community. But the race I ran in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, notwithstanding my slow time, was especially nice. The race commemorates the loss of Christopher Cash who graduated from OOB High School (nickname Seagulls!) in 1985 and was a state champion in track. He died in Iraq in 2004. That would be tragic anywhere but even six years later the remembrance of loss and the ongoing process of community healing was palpable in the old high school gym where race registration was set up. The local bagpiper played, the local Salvation Army band played, the local massage company provided free massages and the awards were given out.
Final running note of the season – I ran on the fancy track at UF in Gainesville at the Sunshine State Games on June 13th. Although I was the fastest Master’s runner in the 3000 meter race, I was disappointed in my time of 11:18. A few hours later, when the temperature was 98 degrees in Gainesville and hotter on the track, I ran the 800m in 2:31.84, third overall Master and second in my age group. The aging process notwithstanding, I believe I am early enough in my second racing life to get faster next year. My goals are 5k: 18:35, mile sub 5:30 and 800m sub 2:30. I can imagine doing a half-marathon. A full marathon is not in the cards.
My Andy Rooney moment — I recently sat in on a panel of distinguished academics, consultants and business people speaking about corporate governance, which is a topic of keen interest at most or all companies these days, at least public companies. In essence, the panelists’ point of view was that given any chance to do wrong (by shareholders, by the world, etc.), company management will do wrong. Indeed, one would have to live in a cave not to know the plethora of failures of companies across industries and continents in recent years (and decades and centuries). But it is simply not even close to correct to assume that all people in company management are inclined to go down a wrong path. The pejorative assertions that these panelists made about how business executives think and act bear no resemblance to any experience I have had in my 22 years at Royal Caribbean. Anyhow, who are typically the people who end up in management at companies? People who did well in school, applied themselves on their jobs and had skills and personalities that people valued. So they ascended the ranks over time. Of course, in this population there are going to be bad apples and occasionally even wholly bad companies. But the vast majority of my management colleagues come to work every day trying to do what they believe to be right for our guests, our shareholders and our colleagues. In order to believe they are collectively fundamentally inclined to do wrong (they are not) it seems to me you would have to believe that even the best our society can offer in terms of education, parenting and mentoring is equally fundamentally off base, because that is what produced these very people. Ok, enough of the soapbox. Feel free to comment on this as well as on anything else you find to be of interest.
Farewell to Stuart – We recently lost Stuart Reading, our hugely respected, admired and liked Director of Casino Operations, to cancer. His untimely passing is a blow to us and even more so to his wife Nikki and their two children. Stuart was excellent at what he did, never caused any drama and was admired by friends and business colleagues across the fleet and around the world. In short, he was quintessentially the type of businessman and person I was just defending in the paragraph above. Nikki has been kind and eloquent in her praise for the support of the operations team throughout Stuart’s and the family’s ordeal. She and her children will continue as members of the Royal Caribbean family.
State of the Art vs. Frozen in Time. Which is your preference, at least when it comes to vacations? I just tried both in the space of three weeks. Tough life, I know. My verdict - they’re both awesome each in their own way. Given my position in the vacation business, it may not startle you that I enjoy many kinds of vacations. These two were no exception to that rule.
For State of the Art, our family went on (drum roll) Oasis of the Seas. While you’re recovering from that shocking revelation, I will say yes it is (largely) possible for me to have a proper vacation on one of our ships. Although I am curious about everything we offer, I still concentrate on the offerings that are most to my liking - specialty restaurants, shows, fitness, table tennis, spa, and destinations. For the record, in Nassau we went to Atlantis (and caught up with a former Royal Caribbean colleague who works there now, hey I never said my professional and personal lives weren’t intertwined!). In St. Thomas we rented a sailboat with a captain (and chef) and sailed to St. John and back. In St. Maarten we went on the kayak and snorkel tour. The weather was great everywhere and all of the excursions were very enjoyable.
Of course it was a priority for me to see how our new class of ship is performing after six months in service, not to mention six months before her sister ship, Allure of the Seas, starts service. Between myself and my family members (including my brother, sister-in-law and nephew), we had a few dozen comments in the way of constructive criticism to pass along to the team, notwithstanding that overall the ship and our people were as marvelous as I had hoped and expected them to be. In summary, Oasis of the Seas is what we had aspired for her to be, and even more. I hope all of you will experience the bagpiper playing on the bow as you return from port, grab a salad or sandwich from Park Café, and sit outside for lunch in Central Park and take in the Oasis of Dreams show in the AquaTheater.
For Frozen in Time, our family spent a few days on Cape Cod (Truro) and then the balance of the week in the lake region of south central Maine. These are two areas where I have spent a lot of time in my life. I don’t know if the people responsible for tourism will cringe when they read this, but the main attraction of these wonderful places is that they never change. They are each almost exactly the way they were when I was ten years old. In fact, I spent quality time with two of my camp counselors from when I was 10 and 11 and spoke to my counselor from when I was nine. As an aside, I still remember a summer day in 1969 when the junior campers got to stay up late one night to crowd around a tiny, grainy black and white television to see the coverage of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.
Back to the topic at hand, both Cape Cod and central Maine are truly relaxing places with incredible vistas and ridiculously good food, especially if you like lobster, steamed clams, pie and ice cream. That last sentence probably explains why I ran my worst 5k of the year at Old Orchard Beach at the end of my vacation, and still won a medal for third place - I really have enjoyed being promoted to the 50 - 54 age group.
I’d like to hear your nominees for best vacations in the categories of State of the Art and Frozen in Time.
For everyone who has followed my story up until this point, we’ve witnessed the awe-inspiring advancement and outpouring effort across every front of Haiti’s rebuild. From the first shipments of medical and relief supplies transported on Royal Caribbean ships, to the housing camps and school construction and restoring a sense of order and decency back to daily life; the progress has been powerful.
In addition to these projects, I’m also working on the development of the Citadelle as a tourist destination for our guests. The Citadelle Laferrière is a large mountaintop fortress located near Labadee and the town of Milot. At the base of the Citadelle there are the ruins of the Palais de Sans-Souci, which was the home of King Christophe. These structures were built between 1805 and 1820 and were part of defense system designed to protect the country from incursions from the French.
The goal of this project is to develop the infrastructure so the sites can receive guests from Royal Caribbean, which in turn creates sustainable businesses and jobs in the area. To complete this task, we had to develop the logistical plan, safety enhancements, proposed tour routes, and timing along with identifying the basic infrastructure such as roads and waterside enhancements. I have included a link to what we have submitted to the Ministry of Tourism just to give you an idea of what this tour could look like. I have included pictures of the Citadelle itself. In this case, the pictures simply don’t do it justice.
No guarantee this tour will become a reality but we are pushing for it.
At this point I have completed my official assignment in Haiti but there is still a significant amount of work that has to be completed. More than likely, I will be involved with these projects as they develop so I will provide updates via Adam’s blog if I’m invited to do so again.
The project partners met with the President and Prime Minister of Haiti last week and, not surprisingly, they were very supportive of the project. Our view is that these types of projects are critical to move Haiti forward. While there are many other issues occupying the world’s attention, not least of which is the oil spill in the Gulf, Royal Caribbean will continue to take an active role in Haiti’s long-term rebuilding as promised. There are no illusions here. Haiti faces incredible challenges that are far beyond any one company’s capacity to solve. But we are committed to play our part.I hope our readers are enjoying John Weis’ series on his time in Haiti helping President Clinton and Paul Farmer with their relief efforts and the beginning of the reconstruction process. If there are aspects of John’s coverage that you would like to have him further explore, please let me know. I am proud of the extent and quality of the assistance that John provided. He makes things happen even in the most challenging of circumstances. That is a characterization that suits Haiti well. Now John is “back” doing his normal job, which still involves driving our efforts to construct a new school in Labadee, and to galvanize the Citadelle restoration project. Congratulations to John on a job very well done.
Continuing on the Haiti front, last week there was a press announcement that Royal Caribbean will be working together with Bob Johnson and his team at the RLJ Companies as well as WIN, a successful local Haitian business group, to foster economic development in Haiti. The particular focus in the beginning will be to construct two factories that will build a special kind of structural panel that is hurricane and earthquake resistant, yet economical for applications such as our school project, housing development and other commercial applications. These panels are a product of the GBS Company from Charleston, South Carolina that partnered with the RLJ Companies to build an upscale hotel in Liberia a few years ago.
The project partners met with the President and Prime Minister of Haiti last week and, not surprisingly, they were very supportive of the project. Our view is that these types of projects are critical to move Haiti forward. While there are many other issues occupying the world’s attention, not least of which is the oil spill in the Gulf, Royal Caribbean will continue to take an active role in Haiti’s long-term rebuilding as promised. There are no illusions here. Haiti faces incredible challenges that are far beyond any one company’s capacity to solve. But we are committed to play our part.
We enjoy hearing from you. The royal “we” in this context means the marketing and operations teams as well as myself. While our antenna may often predict what the response will be to a particular entry, we are always curious to see what happens and we encourage you to post your reactions to and questions about what I have written. Here are a few of the recent topics that engendered a notable response:
Most of the reaction to our new relationship with Dreamworks Animation (DWA) has been very positive. Shrek and the other characters appeal to people of all ages maybe even more than we had understood. On the other hand, some readers expressed concern that the DWA presence onboard Allure of the Seas, Oasis of the Seas, Liberty of the Seasand Freedom of the Seas will create too much of kid-centric, theme park style environment. Of course, guests who enjoy parades and characters and 3D movies will enjoy the added value of the DWA cast and should avail themselves of the special opportunity that will exist on the four ships. For guests who are not interested in this additional offering, it will be just as possible as before on these same four ships to have a fantastic Royal Caribbean experience taking advantage of all of the entertainment, programming, culinary and destination experiences that are already so appealing. It is the essence of the variety we offer on these state of the art ships that guests in various locations onboard can all be having a great time in completely unrelated ways.
Many readers are intrigued by our search for a chef and concept for the 150 Central Park restaurant onboard Allure of the Seas. We are conducting this project in conjunction with the Culinary Institute of America. June 27 was the deadline for entries for the chef selection process, and the voting began July 6th. It is always your choice to pick something from the menu. But not every day do you get to help us decide what the menu will be and who will be cooking the food. So please have a seat at the table by casting your vote here. You can vote once a day through Sunday, July 18th.
There was a favorable response to Craig Milan’sguest entry on our new voluntourism excursion opportunities. Clearly many and probably most guests want to spend their vacation time pursuing their personal and family enjoyment, including taking Explorations! Shore excursions that reveal new destinations and provide new experiences. And that’s fine by us. But the readers’ response to the voluntourism options suggests there is a robust interest in doing good while having fun. We will have to see how many guests actually sign up for these new opportunities to help out during the cruise. Feel free to write in and express your opinion on this topic.
I spent all day last Tuesday at our Hollywood Production Studios with the entertainment team. The entire day was a vital part of the overall creative process, where we saw the set and costume designs; and once again reviewed the music for many of our shows that will be onboard Allure. It is amazing that we spent the entire day to cover four shows, and didn’t even get to the parade, the Aqua Theatre shows and other entertainment activities. Allure is definitely the “Ship of Entertainment” in our eyes.
We have amazingly talented set and production designers, Gerry Hariton and Vicki Baral, who created scenic models with all the sets to scale for the Amber Theatre. We were able to see all the scenic elements for our shows, how they will work, where the singers and dancers will perform, and all special effects.
Our first presentation was for CHICAGO, the musical. Not only did we have the Royal team there, but also had the Associate Lighting Designer - John Demous, Choreographer / Dance Supervisor - Gary Chryst, and Scenic Designer - John Lee Beatty from Broadway’s CHICAGO. Our production will be completely authentic, complete with the unique set and black costumes, direct from Broadway.
After the CHICAGO presentation, Jeremy Plummer, Director & Choreographer for Blue Planet, took us through this exciting original production. This show has scenes that are unreal! Highlights will be when a tree comes to life as a “living tree,” as well as an enormous mountain scenic unit with trampolines built into it, so you can just imagine the action and choreography that will take place! This show is a departure from any production show we have done, and takes us from the rain forest, to the desert, to the ocean, and then the mountains and brings together the music, aerial artistry and gymnastics together in a very surreal way.
As mentioned in my last post, we have been working with Maryse Kedar to establish temporary schools in some of these camps. So far there are 14 primary schools and seven kindergartens impacting over 3,000 children. If Maryse and her organization didn’t take the initiative to establish these schools, 3,000+ children would not have this advantage and necessity of life. There isn’t room for everyone, but for the kids attending these schools, it’s making a difference. Pictures speak a thousand words so here are the results of all the hard work:
Putting these schools together was truly a team effort so I wanted to show you a picture of the team that did the majority of the heavy lifting making these schools possible.
