Guest Posts

An Enormous Undertaking: Refurbishing Splendour of the Seas

Greetings from Splendour of the Seas!

This week I had the opportunity to visit Splendour of the Seas while she was in dry dock in Cadiz, Spain. It actually felt more like being at a yard for a new build than at a refurbishment. In almost all public areas, the ship was stripped down to the steel. This picture of the pool deck showing the tremendous amounts of debris is a good gauge of the amount of “deconstruction” that had to take place before the new venues and revitalizations could take place. The team had 450 containers of garbage! We underestimated the amount of materials that would be taken off the ship, and the containers were smaller than we usually use, so this put us a little behind schedule at the beginning.

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BY:Adam|18th November, 2011 9 Comments
CATEGORY: Guest Posts, Ships

Ovations: Preparing a New Cast for a Broadway Show on Liberty

Intro from Adam:

Recently I asked Maryann Delany to share highlights of her career in entertainment production. Since the blog post generated an exceptional level of feedback from our readers, we wanted to provide a similar entertainment “Day in the Life” guest blog, but this time from a performer’s point of view.

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I am Celia Mei Rubin and I’m currently onboard Liberty of the Seas as a featured singer. “What does that mean,” you may ask (you may not ask, but I shall tell you anyway). My job entails playing Stephanie Mangano in the musical, Saturday Night Fever, singing in an aerial show aptly called, In The Air, singing in a daytime concert by the pool, Summer Breeze, and singing in a nighttime jazz set in one of the ship’s lounges. I also sing a song in a parade and in the farewell show that is performed at the end of every cruise.

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BY:Adam|3rd November, 2011 7 Comments

From National Ice Champion to Allure Ice Captain

My name is Åsa Persson, I am from Sweden and I am the Ice Captain onboard Allure of the Seas. I was five years old when I started to skate and little did I know back then that my ice skating was going to give me a career onboard a cruise ship! I started in the local skating club because my sisters skated and I thought that it looked like a lot of fun. I ended up loving the sport. When I was ten I was selected by the Swedish Figure Skating Association to be part of a small group of young skaters who showed a lot of promise. At the age of 13 I won my first National Championship and before I retired as an amateur I won four National titles and had been a finalist at the World Championships.

I traveled all over the World for International competitions and I am very fortunate for all the amazing experiences my skating had given me. However, my last couple of years as an amateur were difficult for me because I kept getting injured. Any sport at a high international level is very strenuous on the body and mine couldn’t handle it. I lived and trained in Canada at the time and I started to worry that I was going to become injured for life.

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BY:Asa Persson|25th October, 2011 7 Comments

The Rise to the Top: A Day in the Life of a Royal Caribbean Stage & Production Manager

Hi, my name is Desmond Elvis Reggie Charles and I am one of the Stage and Production Managers onboard the world’s largest cruise ship, Allure of the Seas. I come to you all the way from the Spice Island of Grenada.

I have been working for Royal Caribbean International for the past 17 years. I started back in October 1994 where I had the privilege of joining Royal Caribbean International’s Sovereign of the Seas as a drummer/vocalist in a Caribbean band called “Heat Wave”. I eventually formed my own band called “Blue Orchid”. This was followed by a transfer to the entertainment technical department onboard Voyager of the Seas. After three months as a Lounge Technician I was promoted to Sound Technician for the first ice rink at sea. I continued to move up the ranks of the technical team going from Sound Technician to Head Sound and Light Technician and now to the company’s most senior entertainment position, Stage and Production Manager. Today, I work onboard Allure of the Seas managing the operations of a 1,400 seat theater.

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BY:Desmond Charles|18th October, 2011 20 Comments

The Royal Oldies: An Ocean-Sized Reunion

My name is Michael Bayley and I am the Executive Vice President, International at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Since joining Royal Caribbean in 1981 as Assistant Purser on the Nordic Prince I have worked with so many wonderful and talented people. Too many to count and too many to remember.

Over the years as I bumped into former shipboard and shoreside colleagues literally all over the world we would share our many memories and re-live some magical moments. Many times we would say good bye with the words “we really should get all the oldies together, it would be a blast”.
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BY:Michael Bayley|14th October, 2011 13 Comments

One Last Performance: Royal Caribbean’s Director of Entertainment Takes Her Final Bow

Over recent months we have featured a number of our crew in “day in the life” entries such as the one immediately below. The response to them has been very favorable but I would like to hear a little more about specifically what makes them enjoyable to read and how we might make them even more so. From my standpoint, I find it interesting that the authors of these guest blogs appear to be so schedule driven. Our shipboard colleagues rightfully speak about how flexible and guest-centric they must be because just about everything is happening onboard at all times. Their blog entries indicate that the way they accomplish the seemingly impossible is to inject structure (i.e., a schedule) into their endlessly unique days. When we ask them to tell us about their “typical” day they often respond by reciting their schedule. When I see this I sometimes ask them to give us more “color commentary” to go with the “play by play”. The goal is to give you (and me!) as much insight into their world as we can bring to a blog entry.
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My name is Maryann Delany and I am the Director of Entertainment for Royal Caribbean Productions. My team and I are located in Hollywood, Florida in a 38,000 square foot rehearsal facility. We are approaching our 11th year here where we audition, cast, contract, house, costume, teach and rehearse singers, dancers, actors, flyers, gymnasts, ice skaters, swimmers, divers and DreamWorks® costume characters, to name a few, We create and produce all entertainment and entertainment-related activities for 22 Royal Caribbean International ships, and two Azamara Club Cruises ships. Collectively we have 14 ice shows, 18 Parades, four water shows, 56 theater productions and three Broadway shows, Hairspray, CHICAGO: The Musical and Saturday Night Fever.

Sovereign of the Seas

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BY:Maryann Delany|4th October, 2011 25 Comments

Crisis Averted: The Royal Crew Comes Through to Help a Family on their Vacation

Delivering the Wow!

Craig MilanOne of my responsibilities as Senior Vice President of Land Operations for Royal Caribbean International is an area we call Guest Port Services (GPS). GPS is the team of professionals that meet you either at the airport or at the pier when you check in for your cruise. We refer to ourselves as the department of First and Last Impressions since we are your first point of contact prior to your cruise and generally the last people you see before you leave to go back home.

In South Florida, the airport and pier staff are all Royal Caribbean employees as we have year round operations. During the busy Winter months when many of the ships are back in the Caribbean, our Miami and Port Everglades pier agents assist over 50,000 guests on any given weekend. That is a lot of customer touch points!

I have been with Royal for 11 years and seen my fair share of both complimentary and complaint letters over this time. However, I recently received a letter from one of our guests who had a situation prior to boarding Oasis of the Seas in Port Everglades that was worth sharing.

Oasis of the Seas

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BY:Craig Milan|1st September, 2011 26 Comments
CATEGORY: Guest Posts

“I Have the Greatest Job in the World”: A Day in the Life of an Open Deck Manager

My name is Philip Gephardt, and currently I am the Open Deck Manager on Liberty of the Seas, but will soon be transferring to Allure of the Seas. I have been with the company for over three years now, and have loved every ship I have been a part of. So, my friends from the shore side support team have asked if I could write about a regular day in my life, which of course, is not regular at all.

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BY:Philip Gephardt|19th August, 2011 6 Comments

Radiance of the Seas’ New Unofficial Nickname: “Dining of the Seas!”

Recently I had the opportunity to join Radiance of the Seas in Alaska for an Anchored in Excellence visit, as well as to see the results of the recent dry dock. The transformation in a number of the venues is unbelievable. Perhaps the biggest examples are the addition of the Quill & Compass, an authentic English pub offering an extensive selection of imported beers and ales, along with the variety of all the new dining venues. I was only onboard for three days, so it took a lot of effort to “sample” all of the experiences. It was a high caloric visit needless to say.

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BY:Lisa Bauer|22nd July, 2011 12 Comments
CATEGORY: Guest Posts, Ships

Maritime Superstitions Set Sail on the High Seas

Hi…. my name is Captain Bill Wright and I am Senior Vice President, Marine Operations for Royal Caribbean International and Azamara Club Cruises. In this role my responsibilities are for the safe and reliable maritime operations of the combined fleets of both brands totaling 24 ships and a whopping 2,623,140 GRT.

The Royal fleet of course includes the two largest cruise ships in the world, the remarkable Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. I sometimes refer to my SVP position as my “day job” because over the years I have been extremely fortunate and honored to be the first Captain on several ships while still maintaining my land based responsibilities for the fleet. Most recently I was the first Captain on Oasis of the Seas and in 2006 the first Captain on Freedom of the Seas. I was also the first Captain on Celebrity Cruise’s Xpedition sailing to the Galapagos Islands, which happens to be the smallest ship in the company!

Adam asked me to write about maritime superstitions in about 500 words and I feel like I could use 500 pages as there is no shortage of seafaring superstitions! My problem is where to start…

Needless to say, maritime superstitions go back as far as man has gone to sea and that’s a long, long time! So here is a fun and interesting list of a few of them….
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BY:Bill Wright|15th July, 2011 8 Comments
 

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