Guest Blog: Oasis of the Seas…We Set Sail!

The shipyard phase is over and the next phase – the crossing – begins. Over the next two weeks most of the action on this blog will be provided by Lisa Bauer, Senior Vice President, Hotel Operations, who is onboard Oasis of the Seas for the crossing. Take it away Lisa:

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

We set sail! This morning at daybreak, we began our 12 day journey to our new home in Port Everglades. It was a postcard morning, not a cloud in the sky and the sunrise was stunning. It was really the perfect way for Turku, Finland to send off Oasis of the Seas. Everyone had chills, and it wasn’t because it was -7C either.

The ship has a really nice vibe. The crew is getting to experience the various venues as we open them up. We plan to open a few outlets a day to give the crew time to practice. Today we officially opened up Sorrento’s Pizzeria. It is a great location centrally located on Royal Promenade. There are some great new enhancements in Sorrento’s. Guests will be able to “design” their own pizza and pick their own personal toppings. (I’m boring, I did extra cheese and Pepperoni). There are tons of toppings to choose from. In addition to being able to get the traditional slice, guests can also elect to get the whole pie. The other great new change is guests can order the entire pie and then take it with them to go as well. I can just imagine sitting on a balcony in Boardwalk watching the show in the AquaTheatre eating a pizza! The crew did great with the opening today. Lots of smiling faces, and no, I didn’t have the entire pizza, just 2 slices.

We also officially kicked off our daily leadership meeting today. All the division heads from shipboard and shoreside from hotel, marine, and newbuild are providing updates on how the days training went, results of stress tests, and how progress is being made in various areas. The teamwork is really great and these meetings will ensure we keep in close communication during the crossing.

We are opening up Dazzles tonight for the crew, so will have an update on how that went tomorrow!

BY:Adam|30th October, 2009 23 Comments

My First 30 Hours Onboard Oasis of the Seas!

Ok, so I’ve been on Oasis of the Seas for 30 hours. In no order of importance or anything else, here are some observations:

• A small group of management had dinner tonight at Giovanni’s Table. I ate too much to be blogging right now. It was fantastic. Spending this kind of quality time with our colleagues is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the business. Royal Caribbean people are truly special.

• We practiced the flag-changing ceremony tonight. The flag-changing will occur after the delivery papers are signed tomorrow. The practice consisted of listening to the national anthems of Finland, Norway the Bahamas and the United States multiple times, followed by the lead singer of Hairspray. I guess we’re ready.

• The fitness center is already open for workouts even though the ship isn’t ours yet. 35 minutes into my workout someone shut the power off in the gym. That doesn’t happen at home. Maybe we won’t accept the ship.

• Even though we can see our breath, which should not happen in the Caribbean, it is majestic in Central Park at night. And Central Park is still a partial construction site missing 12,000 plants and trees.

• Usually an onboard announcement is introduced by the familiar ding-ding-ding that we now have in our television announcements. For unknown reasons the shipyard personnel testing the public address system have replaced the ding-ding-ding with something that sounds like a cross between a sick sheep and a drunk cow. Maybe this is one of the techniques for getting through a long dark winter.

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BY:Adam|27th October, 2009 9 Comments

Recognizing Royal Caribbean’s Diamond and Diamond Plus Members

Last week we announced our December Diamonds event celebrating our Diamond and Diamond Plus members all month long. Our goal is to recognize these valued guests and thank them for their loyalty. Our whole fleet is excited and looking forward to welcoming record numbers of Crown & Anchor members aboard. I will be participating in a few special member recognition events on the December 5th inaugural Oasis sailing. I look forward to a jog on our 600+ meter track and to a Presidential Ping Pong tournament. We have a phenomenal number of Diamond and Diamond Plus members on that cruise and still have room for more (it’s a large ship). I hope to see you there!

Diamond Breakfast

As you know, we made changes to some of our onboard programming for our Diamond guests on September 1st, so we’ve had roughly 6 weeks to get feedback on the changes. One of those changes was the addition of a continental breakfast service in the dining room that replaced the breakfast offering in the Concierge lounges. Our ships do an amazing job providing us with weekly feedback on how programs are being received by our guests, as well as any suggestions on how to improve, and it was clear that there was a lot of feedback on this new breakfast format.

Our fleet is reporting that since we began the new breakfast offering, typically we are only seeing a daily attendance of a maximum of 10 guests, and on many ships no Diamond guests are participating at all. With this low attendance, you can imagine that with the continental breakfast set up already, the food waste is extremely high based on the very low attendance. (That isn’t good.) Our guests are also saying that what they really valued from the previous breakfast offering was the free specialty coffee, and that they would prefer a full breakfast, not continental.

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BY:Adam|26th October, 2009 33 Comments

The Flurry of Activity as We Approach Delivery of Oasis of the Seas

On the way to Turku. Miami to Frankfurt to Helsinki and then a two hour car ride. Along the way I almost lost my laptop and then my Oasis start up jacket. I think I have everything with me as we get ready to land in Helsinki. I’m pretty sore as my self-administered punishment for not running the 5k fast enough on Saturday was to do another 5k race on Sunday. That’s insane but at least I can add consecutive days of sub-20 minute 5k’s to my list of running accomplishments. Oh, and I crammed in a table tennis lesson before the flight as well.

Excitement looms ahead. Three of my colleagues were on the flight with me to Frankfurt. There is a profound if temporary shift in our center of gravity from Miami to Turku with delivery of Oasis of the Seas in less than 48 hours. By Thursday this force of gravity will have re-set away from Turku and back towards Miami so definitively that we are trying to figure out how to properly acknowledge the float out of Allure of the Seas in three weeks because no one from Miami will be in Finland then.

Needless to say, when I arrive in Turku, Richard Fain will have already been scouring the ship for over 24 hours. Well, maybe he will sleep for a while but I wouldn’t bet on it. Of course I am also keenly interested in the physical ship, but my interest in how the team is doing is of equivalent intensity. Tomorrow morning our leadership will host two sessions with our officers and crew. Why two? Because our crew complement does not come close to fitting into the main theater on Oasis. We have no choice but to do this twice.

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BY:Adam|26th October, 2009 4 Comments

Guest Post: What it Takes to Deliver the Culinary Wow on Oasis of the Seas

Recently a reader posted a desire to know more about the culinary effort that will deliver the Wow to Oasis of the Seas’ guests. I asked Josef Jungwirth, our Director, Culinary Operations to give some flavor (sorry) to our readers’ understanding. Josef is a key lieutenant for the overall Food & Beverage team under the direction of Frank Weber, Vice President, Food & Beverage. Josef has presided over the culinary aspect of our new ship launches for many years.

Josef Jungwirth, Director, Culinary Operations

I am privileged to manage, together with my culinary team, all the projects and tasks related to the food offerings onboard the greatest and most innovative ship built to date, Oasis of the Seas.

My task was to develop the menu programs for all the different types of restaurants which span from a first rate exclusive restaurant (150 Central Park) to a casual Italian trattoria, a tapas style at Vintages, all the various Café’s, the ever popular Windjammer buffet, a spectacular dining room, room service, and more. Calculating these menus and concepts includes tantalizing the taste buds of 6,200 guests, and our 2,300 internal guests (crew), a grand total of 8,500 for breakfast, lunch & dinner, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Cooking aficionados who prepare meals for themselves, for their families and occasionally plan a BBQ or party will truly appreciate what it takes to create the vast and varied number of dishes available onboard the ship on a daily basis, continually throughout the whole cruise.

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BY:Adam|21st October, 2009 3 Comments

Video Blog: More on Royal Caribbean’s Private Destination of Labadee

We took some time to film a video blog during our most recent visit to Labadee. Here is some insight into Royal Caribbean’s investment in the private destination of Labadee, Haiti, in addition to facility upgrades and different experiences available to our guests. Thanks for watching!

BY:Adam|19th October, 2009 11 Comments

Guest Post: New Experiences at Some of Royal Caribbean’s Ports of Call

Hopefully we have made clear by now to our readers that the land component of the Oasis of the Seas preparations is a significant area of focus for us as well as the governments and tour operators in each of the destinations. We very much look forward to the many enhancements that are emerging from these intensive efforts. Recently and unfortunately a colleague was quoted in a newspaper saying the ship is so magnificent that it isn’t necessary to visit the destinations. Au contraire. Our research has always shown that destinations are very important to our customers and in fact rank in the top group of decision criteria along with ship, price, sailing date and cruise line reputation. We have partnered with marquee destinations that have attracted and handled millions of guests over the decades. And each one will be better as a result of the preparations for Oasis of the Seas. In this blog entry, I have asked Patrick Schneider, Director, Shore Excursions, to update you on some of the highlights. Patrick is one of the leaders in Craig Milan’s Land Operations group.

My primary responsibility as Director, Shore Excursions is to oversee a team of account managers who identify and develop the tour programs offered worldwide on Royal Caribbean International as well as Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises. As a former Shore Excursion Manager onboard Celebrity, I am passionate about providing our guests the opportunity to experience amazing cultures around the world, to try new things they never thought they would and to simply escape from their day to day routine.

As many guests who will sail on Oasis of the Seas may have been to the ports of St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Nassau before, our challenge was to add some twists on a current theme. Even if you have been somewhere before (even a couple times), there is always a new experience awaiting you. Many of our guests have tried ziplining, driving an ATV or parasailing for the first time on one of our tours.

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BY:Adam|16th October, 2009 11 Comments

Guest Post: A Glimpse at the 2,160 Crew Members Onboard Oasis of the Seas

There have been a number of questions recently about the crew on Oasis of the Seas. John McGirl, VP, Human Resources, summarizes the situation. In short, we’re excited.

John McGirl, VP, Human Resources

The Oasis of the Seas is fully crewed already! All 2,160 crew members have been identified and are scheduled to join the vessel over the next couple of weeks. With the exception of some new positions, all of the crew come from the existing fleet and have an average of 4 years experience onboard other Royal Caribbean International vessels, that comes up to an amazing 8,000+ years of experience in this start-up team! An average of 10% from the existing crew on each ship were hand-selected by the new Oasis management team. The Oasis management team has been in place for several months and are now in the yard busy preparing the vessel and getting ready to welcome their team members to their new home.

Our performers, dancers, divers, acrobats and all are already here in South Florida at Royal’s various venues for staging productions and rehearsing shows. There are over 40 new job roles onboard the vessel, many of which are driven by ships new venues and features, positions such as Aqua Cast Diver and Swimmer, Landscape Specialist, Improv/Comedy Actor, Acrobat/Tumbler, Medispa Physician, Loft Suite Attendant, Guest Internet Specialist, Art Concierge, just to name some of the diverse and exciting new roles onboard.

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BY:Adam|14th October, 2009 13 Comments

Insights into the Question, “Will Royal Caribbean Ever Build Smaller Ships?”

A frequently asked question: Will Royal Caribbean ever build smaller ships? A few considerations:

First, even as the average cruise ship size increases over time, it is in our interest to have a balanced and flexible fleet profile. There are both physical parameters (e.g., Panama Canal) and market parameters (e.g., starting up in Dubai) that dictate a mix of smaller ships as well as Oasis-class ships. We are very fortunate to have the 1,800 guest Legend of the Seas and Splendour of the Seas in our fleet to spearhead our global expansion.

Second, we are able to utilize larger ships on routes that we would not have believed possible even ten years ago. The fact that we will have a Freedom-class ship and three Voyager-class ships in Europe in 2010 is remarkable in comparison to our thinking in the late 1990’s that we would have a maximum of one or two Voyager-class ships and they would always be Caribbean-based. Now our view is we will use any of our ships anywhere in the world where it makes economic and logistical sense.
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BY:Adam|13th October, 2009 9 Comments

Guest Blog – Sea Trial “Firsts”

Step by exciting step we approach the reality of Oasis of the Seas. There is literally a whirlwind of activity across the globe to get ready for the ship and to get the ship ready. Lisa Bauer passes along this entry on the second sea trial that just took place:

It was a very exciting week onboard Oasis during her sea trials. In addition to the navigational exercises being conducted which is covered in our Chairman’s blog, the hotel operations team has been busy with some big “firsts.”

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

The first ride on the zip line took place this week. (Richard wanted to be first, so we won’t tell him). The feedback from the team is that it was simply amazing. I hope they don’t get so distracted by zipping that they get back to work to bring up other elements.

The sea trial also gave us the opportunity to fill the aquatheatre pool, (all 18 feet) and Dana Kunze, the current high dive record holder and one of the producers of one of our shows, was the first to dive from the 3 meter platform as well as the 10 and 16 meter platforms. We also were able to test the fountains, which danced accompanied to a fantastic soundtrack.

The team took several rides on the rising tide bar to define how long the ride should be and how long the process is to take an order, make the drink and serve the drink. This sounds like more fun than work, but it is really just an example of the behind the scenes work to ensure we’ve thought through all the various scenarios.

We will keep everyone updated on more firsts.

BY:Adam|9th October, 2009 1 Comment
 

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