Guest Post: Royal Caribbean Dining Room Service

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

We have a healthy competition between our stateroom attendants and our dining room wait staff for who can deliver the best guest satisfaction ratings. It is always very close, and we know that the level of engagement our guests get from their wait staff is very important to our guests.

Last year we had a few challenges to our dining room service. We had almost the entire Oasis start up team come from existing ships, so we had to back fill the open positions with mostly new hires across the fleet. Because our Food & Beverage team is the largest onboard, the influx of so many new hires had an impact on our service until the new staff got into the routine onboard.

We also introduced a new program that was specifically put in place to increase service levels in the dining room by having the wait staff take drink orders. While this worked well on some ships, on other ships, we didn’t have the right numbers of bar stations, or proper technology to make it easy for the wait staff to be efficient. As a result, we went back to basics and are reworking all the processes to ensure that when we continue to implement this program, we’ve given the crew the correct resources and processes to be successful.

We’ve recently launched a fleetwide “We Service Incredible” contest to the dining room staff to have an increase in training and focus on really delivering the wow in the dining room. In addition, we also have put into place new timing and training so that when we staff Allure, it doesn’t have the same impact across the fleet.

Early results on the “We Serve Incredible” contest are encouraging, as our guests’ ratings are up and the race between housekeeping and dining room service continues!

BY:Adam|26th March, 2010 8 Comments

With Our Guests in Mind, These are Some of Royal Caribbean’s 2010 Initiatives

When I saw people at the Cruise Shipping Miami show, they invariably asked about Oasis of the Seas first and possibly Haiti second. This is understandable but it does not give props to the endeavors that are coming to fruition throughout the year for the benefit of all of our guests. While many initiatives are not ready for public airing, I will mention a few that have recently become public.

Our website is a major reference source for travel agents, repeat guests and prospective guests. This phenomenon only grows and therefore we must be responsive to the hunger for better information. If we don’t do a great job of informing people about our brand through our website, they may very well take their next vacation with someone else. We have recently completed a facelift designed to reflect the look and feel of our Nation of Why Not global marketing platform. We have also simplified the steps of the booking process for those who are interested to book on the website. While the people coming to the site for information far outnumber those who book on the site, we are pleased to provide an improved experience for those who wish to book. A work in progress is our effort to bring oasisoftheseas.com and nationofwhynot.com directly under the umbrella of royalcaribbean.com.

After enduring episodes of three steps forward and two steps backwards, we have launched eDocs. We still provide guests the option to receive paper documents for a $35 fee, unlike some of our competitors who have eliminated the paper option altogether. But our focus will be to leverage the new eDocs technology to provide our guests with much richer pre-cruise communications. With eDocs, guests can order self adhesive luggage tags pre-printed & customized to their specific ship, sailing & stateroom location and we’ll mail them to guests free of charge. When you consider this initiative in the context of the website, SetSail (pre-cruise check-in) and the ability to purchase and/or reserve many elements of the cruise in advance of sailing, the quality of the pre-cruise interaction between us and our customers has elevated considerably. We believe there are yet more opportunities to advance the pre-cruise experience and plan to bring more enhancements to market.

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BY:Adam|25th March, 2010 25 Comments

More from the Cruise Shipping Miami Conference, Along with a Few Personal Updates

I got an email today dunning me for another blog entry. How cool is that? The question is whether it truly came from a reader or whether it was Lyan Sierra-Caro in Corporate Communications writing under a pen name.

Indeed it was an exceptionally busy week mainly because of the annual Cruise Shipping Miami conference. There were two nights where there was no point in even taking my laptop home with me. That virtually never happens.

Amidst the craziness, there were some nice moments. I enjoyed our lunch with the delegation from Singapore. Although the people have changed over the years, my relationship with Singapore goes back 20 years now. The current representatives are wonderful discussion partners as it concerns the business and I look forward to seeing Singapore’s new cruise terminal come online in 2011.

This will probably harm my image but I also enjoyed my time with the media. I suppose since I am writing this blog I am also a member of the media (for the second time, the first being as a sportswriter for the Daily Princetonian). Many of them talked about reading this blog. I kept asking why, as in WHY? If there is any pattern of response it is – because it isn’t marketing speak. Whatever that may be, I will try to avoid it.

A third source of enjoyment was meeting the Royal Caribbean alumni who attend the conference. The overwhelming majority still have a keen interest in our business and our people. They love to ask about Oasis of the Seas and take pride in it even if they haven’t been with our company since before the project started. It is the outgrowth of 40 years of hard work by countless current and former people and our many partners.

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BY:Adam|22nd March, 2010 12 Comments

Guest Post: Recognizing Royal Caribbean’s Bacardi Cruise Bartender and Chef Competition Winners

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to do a better job celebrating our successes and doing even more to recognize our amazing employees for special achievements. The recent Bacardi Cruise Bartender and Chef Competition has given us more good reasons to celebrate. I must warn you that this blog will make you both hungry and thirsty!

For the past five years, Royal Caribbean has not only taken part, but has had winners in each and every year in the Bacardi Cruise Bartender and Chef Competition. This competition is designed to recognize creativity aboard the world’s leading cruise and ferry lines, where bartenders and chefs create recipes incorporating Bacardi products and the grand prize winners receive cash scholarships.

This year Bacardi received over 926 entries from all over the world!

This competition is a perfect demonstration of the talent which Royal Caribbean has across our fleet of 21 ships. This year was no exception and we wanted to congratulate our winners. We had 3 overall winners.

In the French Culinary Category, the winner was Thanduzolo Noxeke, Sous Chef, Freedom of the Seas. He created a Raspberry Rum Bacardi Poached Cray Fish with Cucumber Cheese Roulade that was inspired by Bacardi Razz and Limon.

Alexius Del Rosario, a cook on Brilliance of the Seas, was the category winner in the Chinese Culinary category. Alexius created a recipe for Yellow Fin Tuna with Grey Goose Soy Dressing which was inspired by Grey Goose Vodka.

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BY:Adam|19th March, 2010 6 Comments

Guest Post: Fleet Operations Conference

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Last week we hosted our fleet wide Captains and Hotel Directors for a conference in Orlando. The theme of the conference was Leadership, and our overall Executive Committee effectiveness. The Executive Committee onboard is comprised of the Captain, Staff Captain, Chief Engineer, Hotel Director and Human Resources Manager.

It was a great 5 days with the group. There were several highlights, too many to note, but I thought I would share a few…

We have a shipboard advisory committee comprised of 3 Captains and 3 Hotel Directors – their leadership was so inspiring during various sessions. The fleet really looks up to these gentlemen, and it is clear to see why.

The team building event was held at Universal Studios and it featured a scavenger hunt based on our conference theme – this group is so competitive I couldn’t believe it. It is funny to note the teams that had a few women on them did the best – because they would actually ask for directions :)

One of the key highlights of the conference was the awards ceremony. South Florida Make-A-Wish President and CEO Norm Wedderburn presented each ship in the fleet an award for their contributions and support of Make-A-Wish, and we had a Wish Family attend and share the power of the wish. (There wasn’t a dry eye in the room). There were lots of awards that night, but the big award was Ship of the Year, which went to Legend of the Seas. Captain Bill and I presented this award, and we couldn’t agree on who would actually open the envelope to announce the winner, so we did “rock, scissors, paper.” It took us 8 ties before I finally lost and he got to announce the winner.

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BY:Adam|12th March, 2010 17 Comments

Guest Post: Delivering Relief Supplies to Royal Caribbean’s Haitian Employees and their Families

Most of you are aware that Royal Caribbean has been providing relief supplies to the people of Haiti after the devastating earthquake. What most people don’t know is what we have been doing to help our Haitian employees and their families. Steve Christian, of our Human Resources Department, recently traveled to Labadee to oversee the delivery of supplies to our Haitian employees and their families. Here is Steve’s account:

At the time of the earthquake, 158 Haitians were serving onboard Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity ships, another 200+ Haitian employees were working at our Labadee site, and we had 50 crew members who were on vacation, presumably at home in various cities throughout Haiti.

A few days after the earthquake, Royal Caribbean announced that we would be working closely with four different relief agencies in Haiti: Compassion Alliance, Food for the Poor, the Solano Foundation, and the Pan American Development Foundation. Each of those agencies was involved in off loading supplies from our ships and transporting them to distribution sites throughout Haiti. While we were pleased with the results our partnerships were producing, we were hearing from our employees and their families that relief supplies were not reaching them quickly enough.

We decided it was time to contact Compassion Alliance to see if they could set aside some supplies just for our families. Our contact at Compassion Alliance, Paul Romine, was more than willing to help. In fact, he and his team offered to assemble 250 special “care packages” just for our folks, and all we needed to do was give them a “wish list” of items to be put in the care packages.

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BY:Adam|10th March, 2010 7 Comments

My Recent Visit to Princeton, in Addition to the Upcoming Cruise Shipping Miami Conference

Just finished a cold but lovely weekend in the northeast. The primary purpose was to attend the memorial service for my best friend’s father. Joel Loeb passed away in January at 94 years old. He was a naval officer in the North Atlantic throughout WWII and a wonderful man, husband and father during his long and dignified life. Among other things, he was as proud of having gone to Princeton as anyone I’ve known. If you know Princeton people you know what that means. The old warrior got about as much out of life as one could expect. What more could one ask?

Speaking of Princeton, I spent the day before the memorial service on campus with some of my classmates at a meeting to kick off the 30th reunion cycle (2011, ouch). The attendees were able to spend time with a panel of students who are either juniors or seniors. If you want to renew your faith in the possibilities for making the world a better place, you should spend time with students like these. They are worldly, multidimensional, articulate, personable and totally committed to various paths of public and/or community service. As we would say at Royal Caribbean, this was a Wow.

Next week is the Cruise Shipping Miami conference, the biggest (by far) cruise conference of the year for cruise industry types. The conference used to be called Seatrade Miami. Virtually everyone still refers to it as Seatrade. I’m sure that must be frustrating for the new owners, but hey, we changed our name to Royal Caribbean International over 13 years ago and plenty of people still call us Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. Both Dan Hanrahan and I will be on the panel of cruise line CEO’s and therefore face the annual challenge of trying to be interesting while making sure we don’t say anything too noteworthy.

BY:Adam|8th March, 2010 3 Comments

Guest Post: An Inside Look at the Entertainment Available on Oasis of the Seas

Some of our readers already appreciate the intensity of the preparations we undertake for our entertainment and activities. Here is Lisa and her team’s insider view into some of the Oasis shows:

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations


It is truly amazing to see the amount of the behind the scenes work it takes to create, produce and eventually perform a Royal Caribbean Show. Typically our casts rehearse for seven weeks before they even arrive at the ship!

For Oasis, we had cast of “Come Fly with Me,” a Production show featuring aerial and gymnastic artistry, rehearsing at the Don Taft arena at Nova University, the ice cast in California, the cast of Hairspray at our Hollywood Florida Production Studio (Royal Caribbean is the only brand in the industry with a dedicated shore side production facility) and the cast for the aquatheatre shows had the opportunity to train at the City of Fort Lauderdale & International Swimming Hall Of Fame prior to heading to Turku.

While all our production shows require elaborate planning, without a doubt, the most complex shows we have ever done are the shows for our aquatheatre. There is a very high level of complexity with everything this cast had to do, including getting the Acro/Aqua cast PADI Scuba certification as anyone who goes into the pool had to have this type of training. This cast consists of eight divers, six synchronized swimmers and six acrobats/divers. These divers are highly talented and come from the ranks of world class Jr. Olympic and Olympic divers.

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BY:Adam|5th March, 2010 14 Comments

Global Development and More at Royal Caribbean International’s Fleet Operations Leadership Conference

This week is the Royal Caribbean International Fleet Operations Leadership Conference in Orlando. We have many of our Captains and Hotel Directors and some of our Chief Engineers and HR Managers there plus our shoreside leaders and guests from authors to travel agent producers to our onboard retail partners. Richard Fain and I kicked off the conference with a lively Q&A session. What a pleasure it is to be around this group of people. The longevity of some of the Captains is remarkable – several were reminiscing about being on Song of Norway in 1971. The focus of the conference is on the functioning of the shipboard Executive Committees because the success of a ship is a direct reflection of the success of the EC.

There are lots of things to discuss with this group and of course one of them is our continued global development. Among other things we will have 10 of our 22 ships in Europe in the summer of 2011. Just a few years ago we would not have imagined such a scenario. Over the next 90 days we will be releasing all of our itineraries from spring 2011 to spring 2012 for sale.

Almost any crisis in the world affects us. We are saddened by the destruction and casualties in Chile. While we don’t have as much involvement there as we do in Haiti, our sister line Celebrity Cruises operates out of Valparaiso, we are represented in Chile for sales and marketing by Interexpress and we had well over 100 crew there on vacation. While we are not aware of any of our own people who were killed or injured in the earthquake, there are some friends and family who lost their lives. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all Chileans.

On a much more positive note we have now accounted for all of our Haitian crew who were on vacation at the time of the earthquake there. Just after January 12th it seemed like we might not be able to account for dozens of employees. After weeks of little progress we have now made contact with everyone. We are very pleased about this but always mindful that many, many others were not so fortunate.

BY:Adam|3rd March, 2010 5 Comments

Guest Post – Dubai is Brilliant on Brilliance

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations

Lisa Bauer - Senior VP, Hotel Operations


Greetings from 35,000 feet. We are just on our way back from an amazing visit to Brilliance of the Seas in Dubai. The three of us John Mc Girl, VP Human Resources and Captain Bill Wright, Sr. VP Marine Operations (also known as Captain Storm by me from his time on Oasis) continue our travels to all 21 of our ships.

This weeks Anchored in Excellence Program (AIE) was to Dubai to visit the leadership team and crew onboard Brilliance of the Seas. Brilliance began her 7 night itineraries three weeks ago, and we wanted to see how this new itinerary for our brand was being operated and received by our guests.

We held an all crew meeting, and then any crew member that wanted to meet with us 1:1 came by to visit to share their feedback, suggestions or concerns. The biggest number of crew feedback is really around our career “pipeline.” We had a number of defined positions with specific career tracks. Our crew is always anxious to get promoted, so they do the interviews and qualifications for the new position they want, and then they go into the pipeline for when a position becomes available. They usually come to see us too because they want us to know that they are anxious to grow with the company and want to know “how much longer?”

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BY:Adam|1st March, 2010 13 Comments
 

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