My Trip to Turkey, a Country on the Rise

By the time you read this I will be home from my vacation in Turkey. Although Turkey has its challenges like all countries, it definitely gives the impression of being a country on the rise. This was my first visit and I was extremely impressed with Istanbul as a top tier tourism city. One of my traveling companions was in Istanbul for the first time in over 25 years and was amazed at the transformation.

Having dinner on the Bosporus is a great touristic experience. Seeing the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia Museum, the Basilica Cistern, the mosaics at the St. Savior Church at Chora, the Grand Bazaar and Topkapi Palace in two days is a touristic treasure trove. It didn’t hurt that our guide was most likely the number one English-speaking guide in Turkey. I drilled him with questions and he answered everything except one – how were engineers educated in ancient times to be able to build such amazing buildings (and cisterns under buildings)? We loved dining in Istanbul, especially the restaurant Asitane which features Ottoman (not to be confused with modern Turkish) cuisine that the restaurant has painstakingly researched going back to 1471.

One thing I learned from our guide – there never was a Byzantine Empire like we learned at school. Later European scholars retrofitted this appellation on to the “Byzantines.” Back in the day, so our guide told us, there were the Western Romans (capital Rome) and the Eastern Romans (capital Constantinople). After Rome fell, the Eastern Romans carried on for nearly another 1,000 years until the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453. If any history buffs want to comment, please feel free.

After Istanbul, we relocated to the southwest coast near the Mediterranean at Fethiye, which is in the region where the Lycians lived before Alexander the Great came through. We visited their pre-Greek ruins at Xanthos and Letoon. We spent most of our days on a small boat just offshore or in the water. It was very hot and very sunny throughout. I kept up my training and ran up some massive hills, twice running ever upwards for 18 – 20 minutes. The food was outstanding. The friendliness of the people was notable. Ramadan started in the middle of the week, which added an interesting twist. The best part, however, was hanging out with the other three families and their kids. The four husbands went to law school together. We get together somewhere in the world every two years and it is always a major highlight.

Hope you enjoy the videos.

BY:Adam|30th August, 2010 7 Comments

Some of Our Partnerships and Upcoming Promotions

By Betsy O’Rourke

As the head of global marketing for the Royal Caribbean brand, I have the opportunity to work with some terrific partners. Those of you who have sailed with us have enjoyed many of their products onboard, including Crayola and Fisher-Price, who add great value to our complimentary Adventure Ocean youth program, or Johnny Rockets delighting guests every day onboard our ships with burgers and tunes, or CocaCola - whose soft drinks are so popular - and now DreamWorks Animation, among others.

You may wonder how we choose our partners. The answer, as the saying goes, is “very carefully.” Our number one criterion is adding value to the guest experience. We want our guest experience to be the greatest in the industry, so we partner with some of the world’s best brands to bring together our experience and theirs in a way that adds maximum value and enjoyment to our guests.

We are currently working closely with DreamWorks Animation to bring “The DreamWorks Experience” to life on four of our ships, starting with our newest ship, Allure of the Seas, this December. The DreamWorks experience will include a “How To Train Your Dragon” ice show, a “Madagascar” aqua show, character breakfasts, activities for the kids in Adventure Ocean, character meet-and-greets, parades and sail away parties, and of course, 3D films in our new 3D theatre. After introducing this very exciting guest experience onboard Allure of the Seas, we will be adding The DreamWorks experience early next year on Oasis of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas, and Freedom of the Seas. We’re also making our first-ever fully animated television commercial with DreamWorks, which has been a really fun experience. Look for it on air in November.

In addition to working with partners on the onboard experience, we look for opportunities to work together in joint promotions for both brands. Right now we are participating with Johnny Rockets in their “Rockin’ Summer” promotion that encourages their customers to come back often and win prizes including cruises on Allure of the Seas. Johnny Rockets mailed a flyer describing the promotion to over 2 million people, posted it on their Facebook fan page, and have in-store signage in 147 stores giving us great brand exposure and visibility for Allure of the Seas, joining the Royal Caribbean family on December 1, 2010. This is a win/win for Johnny Rockets and for us as we get exposure for our new ship and they get a valuable incentive to their customers: be among the first to sail the newest ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet. Now who wouldn’t want to do that?

We have some other exciting promotions in the works with Coca-Cola, American Express, DreamWorks and more, all centered on bringing attention to Allure of the Seas, so keep an eye out as we will always post them on our Facebook page and try to convince Adam to blog about them…that is, when he’s not waxing on about his amazing feats in running! And yes, we are working on a really fun new partnership to offer a competitive run in one of our most popular destinations, but I know he’ll want to talk about that so stay tuned.

BY:Adam|27th August, 2010 6 Comments

Our Updated Stewardship Report is Here!

If you go to RoyalCaribbean.com, and then scroll to the bottom to locate “Our Company,” and select Environment, you can click on our updated 2009 Stewardship Report. Admittedly, August 2010 is a little late to publish the 2009 version of the report, but if you knew the work that went on behind the scenes to prepare this edition, you would understand. The work was prodigious.

In addition to expanding the coverage of the Environment, we have added sections on Safety, Security, Medical and Public Health. These critical areas of the business are the collective responsibility of all shipboard and shoreside management at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Nevertheless, I must point out that Gary Bald, our Senior VP for all of these areas, and his extremely capable team who work on this terrain 100% of their time, have put together this report and I commend Gary and his team for their work.

I don’t suggest you read the report cover to cover, as I did during one of my vacations this summer to the chagrin of my family. Go to the areas that are of most interest and check out the work we are doing. Our intention is to be transparent in our thinking, in our actions, and in our results. We are continuously working on initiatives behind the scenes, and there are many efforts underway that are not ready for specific mention in the report. Having said that, there are a remarkable number of initiatives that are highlighted in the report, and we aren’t aware of too many comparable reports in terms of comprehensiveness or detail.

Ever since I took on operations responsibilities in 1999, I have been struck by the significant amount of time I spend on subjects in these domains. Some elements of focus, such as our company-wide Save the Waves program, have been a core part of our corporate fabric for many years. More recently, we have created a Sustainability Council within management that is hosted by Dan Hanrahan and me together with Gary Bald and Jamie Sweeting, our VP of Environmental Stewardship. We have regular meetings with this council, including one last Friday. If some of the projects we discussed with the council come to fruition, we will have exciting things to talk about in future editions of the Stewardship Report.

I encourage you to take a look at the report and let us know what you think. Our goal is to continuously improve the report over time, which makes sense because continuous improvement in these areas is what it is all about. I hope you have the same reaction that one of our summer interns had after working in Jamie’s area this summer. She was truly impressed at the dedication of our people to do the right thing. Kudos to our professionals who are leading the way forward every day.

BY:Adam|26th August, 2010 6 Comments

Guest Post - New and Exciting Britto Store Coming Soon!

By Lisa Bauer

When we were thinking about ways we could differentiate Allure of the Seas from her sister ship Oasis of the Seas, one of the areas we discussed was the art program. We are very happy with the program we have on Oasis of the Seas that features artists onboard our ships, and wanted to continue that concept with a twist.

It is actually ironic how we ended up expanding our relationship with Romero Britto. (Many of you may know his work is featured on the pool deck on Mariner of the Seas (above) and we’ve sold his artwork across our fleet for years). I was casually speaking to Richard Fain and said I thought we should do a gallery and perhaps could approach Romero because I loved the look of the Britto store at the Miami Airport and the space on Allure of the Seas is almost exactly the same square footage. As fate would have it, Romero actually called Richard a few weeks later to have lunch and we all agreed it was serendipitous!

Romero has been involved in every aspect of the creative approval of everything and it has been very fun and exciting to see this partnership come together. He also has an amazing team that we’ve worked with and it has been a great experience. I am especially excited about an original piece that he is creating for us featuring our Crown and Anchor Society logo. If you view the webisode you can actually see Romero starting the painting! I have to admit I have already gotten a sneak peak and it is a WOW.

We are going to the shipyard in the first week of September for a press trip where Romero will be unveiling the original, on September 1st in Turku, Finland, and pictures of the finished piece will be available right after the reveal. Romero will make reproductions of the original painting to be sold onboard. We haven’t decided what to do with the original yet - where it should be displayed or kept, but I think it would look great in my living room :)

In addition to the custom painting, Romero is also in the process of developing a custom bear that will incorporate elements of the original painting. This will be a limited edition piece and sold only on Allure of the Seas. Yes, you have to sail to get one of these collector’s items.

We’ve been keeping Romero busy because he is also working with our new build team to create a unique sculpture, from his well known Butterfly Sculpture, to sit in Central Park. This will be guaranteed to be a great photo opportunity.

I am also very happy to share that Romero will be joining us for the Maiden Voyage celebration on December 5th and will be hosting a number of fun activities including a paint party, meet and greet, photo opportunities, and signing events just to name a few.

We are all excited about this partnership and look forward to sharing this with you while onboard Allure of the Seas!

BY:Adam|23rd August, 2010 7 Comments

The December Diamond Celebration!

By Betsy O’Rourke

In June we announced some significant changes to the Crown & Anchor Society Loyalty Program that were member-driven including a new onboard booking bonus as well as enhanced onboard benefits by tier. We know how important our repeat guests are and we are proud to have so many loyal to Royal members. Last year, we launched the Diamond Celebration in December to recognize our two top tiers in the Crown & Anchor program. These very special cruisers have sailed with us a minimum of 11 times and our Diamond Plus members have sailed at least 25 times. We are fortunate to have several thousand members who have achieved this very special status within our program, and we decided that we needed to celebrate them.

The idea started because we were launching Oasis of the Seas last year, and we know that our most frequent cruisers like to sail our newest ships so we thought we could make it even more of a special occasion. But then my colleague Lisa Bauer, SVP Operations, said, “Why don’t we do this on all of the ships for the month of December?” and we all thought it was a great idea.

Royal Caribbean values our guests who return to us again and again for the Royal treatment, and the Crown & Anchor Society’s Diamond Celebration is our special way of honoring and thanking our most frequent guests for their loyalty.

During our December Diamond Celebration, Diamond and Diamond Plus-member guests can attend the special nightly Diamond event, during which Crown & Anchor Society members can mingle with senior ship officers and staff, and with each other. In addition to the standard benefits, Diamond and Diamond Plus-level members will be recognized and pampered by the entire Royal Caribbean Gold Anchor staff and crew with commemorative Crown & Anchor Society gifts and other surprising onboard elements. Crown & Anchor Society members will also receive one additional Crown & Anchor Society cruise credit for sailing during the December Diamond Celebration.

Last year we had many Diamond and Diamond Plus members sail in the month of December. We received so many lovely comments and emails thanking us for all of the special events and gifts. Every ship competed for the best scores from our guests and Voyager of the Seas and Legend of the Seas tied for first place.

Of course, this year we hope even more of our members will join the December Diamond Celebration and I’ll be sure to report back and let you know. We already know that several of our members have booked both the Dec 1 and the Dec 5 sailing on our newest ship, Allure of the Seas. Our crew onboard all 22 of our ships are already thinking about how they’re going to surprise and delight our loyal to Royal guests.

BY:Adam|20th August, 2010 16 Comments

Share Your “Over the Top” Cruise Stories With Us

There’s something about cruising that lends itself to “Over the Top” stories. A recent example is the story of a family that excitedly arrived at the pier to check in for Liberty of the Seas in honor of their son’s Bar Mitzvah. There was only one problem: the family had no documentation for the son whatsoever.

Notwithstanding our and travel agents’ efforts to communicate the documentation requirements in brochures, eDocs, web sites and various other ways, these guests did not have anything for their son. Incidentally, we are currently in the process of making the documentation requirements easier to understand in order to help spare any future confusion and last minute emergencies.

With the sand running out of the hourglass and no family back home, which was a thousand or so miles from the ship, they were able to arrange for a friend to break into their house via the back door window, find and fax the necessary documents. The Bar Mitzvah present was preserved with minutes to spare. In honor of this family’s determination (unfortunately not in honor of their advance preparations), I ask our readers to post their “Over the Top” stories of what they or people they know have done to get on a cruise.

A related topic is things that guests, especially children, do to express their appreciation for having experienced the Wow on a Royal Caribbean cruise. I recently received through Customer Relations a phenomenal bound and desktop published PowerPoint from a 5th grader named Abigail. She had a page for every letter of the alphabet to explain something about her cruise on Explorer of the Seas. She did this as a project for school but also sent us a copy. I brought it to my staff meeting and all of the leaders of our brand wrote a comment to Abigail about her work. So my question for our readers here would be, what are the best expressions of appreciation for a cruise that you have ever heard about or seen first hand?

BY:Adam|17th August, 2010 21 Comments

New Programs Worth Noting

I have a few items from our management progress report to pass along. They may not be as big of a deal as the impending arrival of Allure of the Seas but they are all a part of the continuous improvement of the Royal Caribbean International experience. In no particular order:

Now that the ability to book your next cruise while still onboard is an exclusive benefit for Crown & Anchor Society members, we want to make joining the Society as easy as possible. So we are rolling out complimentary Internet access for the purpose of allowing our guests to enroll in the Society via iCafe while they are onboard. Once they have joined, they are eligible to book onboard and take advantage of the onboard booking discount. This opportunity is available to first time cruisers as well as our repeat guests.

For our guests on European sailings who wish to remain onboard longer on departure day, you may sign up in advance of the cruise for our Late Departure Program. Sign up online under Shore and Land Excursions for the port of call where the cruise terminates.

In another variant of “I don’t want the vacation to end yet,” for guests on Oasis of the Seas who have time before their flight leaves, we are testing an Extended Stay program that allows the Oasis guests to store their luggage and enjoy a day in Hollywood, FL in and around the boardwalk. This opportunity encompasses shopping, dining, going to the beach, riding the trolley and/or relaxing at our hospitality center. This opportunity is also available as a shore excursion under the port of call, Ft. Lauderdale, for all guests sailing onboard Oasis of the Seas.

Returning to life onboard, we now accept bookings at our specialty restaurants for parties of 10 or fewer guests. Previously we only accepted bookings for parties of 6 or fewer. Of course this is based on availability at the time of booking.

If you should take us up on any of these new features, feel free to let us know what you think.

BY:Adam|16th August, 2010 27 Comments

My Summer Training Regimen for Upcoming Track Competitions

Not that you asked but my summer training is progressing well. Even at 6 a.m. it feels like I’m running in a sauna. I really appreciate that former UM Coach Mike Ward is willing to come out to the track once a week through the summer at such an absurd hour and oversee the workouts. I miss my faster running mates from the regular evening program at UM that resumes in a few weeks, but at least I have these few workouts where I can run in the lead position. Overall I am ramping up my workouts, trying to do something serious six days a week. Lately I’ve been doing a long elliptical workout even on the days I play table tennis, which is in itself a real 90 minute workout.

Adam Training

One of the blog readers asked how I train. While something must be going ok for my 5k time to have dropped from 24 to 19 minutes in three years, I’m sure I could train much more effectively than I do. Part of the challenge is my job and especially my travels which compel me to align my workouts and days off with my schedule. The other main challenge is creating the time to begin proper strength work which I need to optimize my racing capabilities. At any rate, I am trying to run four days a week with a mix of intervals, faster 3 to 4 mile runs and slower 5 mile runs, plus two days a week for 50 minutes at a time on the elliptical for cardiovascular training and to save the pounding on my back and legs. When I’m on the track it’s serious work for a 50 year old (at least in the opinion of this 50 year old). In the last week or two I’ve done a workout of eight 400’s in 83 seconds each, another workout of five 800’s in 2:57 each and a third workout of three 1600’s in 6:11 each. For an even more diabolical workout, once in a while I drive up to Vista View Park in Broward and run up a 290 meter hill 12 times in about 64 seconds each. The Park is full of serious runners including occasionally world class athletes.


I recently discovered two interesting things. One is that by medaling in the Sunshine State Games in June I qualified for a biennial national age group competition next summer in California. The other is that there is a national corporate track and field meet every summer in California featuring GE, AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen, Texas Instruments and Safeway among others. If the dates work out I would like to take our runners out there. The times are good but we can compete with them. I’ll keep you posted. If you know of any meets specific to CEOs please let me know. It goes with the territory that people often ask me about or exhort me to do a marathon. That’s a future possibility but not on the 2010/2011 schedule. The longest I would try this coming year is a half marathon, and only if I think I can go under 90 minutes. It’s too early to tell.

BY:Adam|13th August, 2010 2 Comments

The Formula for A Successful Career Path

The middle of summer. I have misplaced nostalgia for the idea that once upon a time the pace of life, or at least of business, was slower in the summer. This is not true now and hasn’t been true in the cruise business for a long time. My schedule is as full as ever.

Yesterday, our three President & CEOs - Dan Hanrahan of Celebrity, Larry Pimentel of Azamara Club and myself – spent an hour with our summer interns. What a pleasant experience. They asked more questions, arguably better questions and certainly more personal questions than our management team asks us. They are very enthusiastic about their summer assignments in various departments, but most of all they seem extremely eager to understand if there is a defined path to success. There isn’t.

One intern asked me if I was thinking about my path to a business career when I was his age. I don’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t what I told him – when I was his age I was having so much trouble with my back that I couldn’t sit in a chair. I kept going to school because school was the only environment I could manage in those years. How does one convey the mixture of hard work, overcoming of adversity, maximizing of talent and extremely good luck that determines a successful career?

The best question that came up was about life balance. We each tried to convey that the pursuit of balance is a lifelong, every day struggle that involves an inevitable amount of failure. In my case, there is a platform of stability underneath the daily craziness that is crucial to any success I enjoy. That begins with my wife Cheryl who has not only been with me for over 20 years but worked for 10 years at our company and knows exactly what the craziness is all about; she is the key to the whole puzzle. In addition, my assistant Marta has been with me for 17 years. We hardly need to speak to one another as she knows exactly what to do. Finally, as I have mentioned before, I have a fabulous team of leaders who are just as focused on guest satisfaction, employee welfare and shareholder returns as I am. I don’t know if any of this resonates with an intern, but it does with me.

BY:Adam|10th August, 2010 6 Comments

Guest Post - We’ve Chosen the Winner of Our Chef Search for 150 Central Park on Allure!

The Royal Caribbean team all headed to Hyde Park, New York and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) for the final phase of our contest for the selection of the new Chef de Cuisine for 150 Central Park on Allure of the Seas. I had never been to the CIA campus, and a word we are very familiar with at Royal came to mind – WOW. This is a very impressive and picturesque campus. I highly encourage a trip to visit the facility and enjoy the culinary treats. The smells alone were intoxicating. I would also like to thank the chefs from the CIA that worked with us on this search, as they were awesome. This included Master Chefs Ron, Rudy, Lou and Victor, all famous in their own right and we were very fortunate to get their expertise and input during this unique search process.

After the tour, we began the panel interview process with each of the six candidates. This was our opportunity to meet them and ask them questions about their history, motivations, and really get a sense of their passion and interests. We wanted to ensure they weren’t only skilled Chefs, but could manage a staff and have good leadership skills as well professional presence and personality to meet with our guests in 150 Central Park. The whole idea behind 150 Central Park is for the restaurant to take on the personality of the Chef, so that is why we were so careful to balance all these requirements. Each candidate received a score on how they interviewed. The candidates then had two hours of prep work to begin to get ready for the big day where they actually prepared their meals for us.

Day two started with all six candidates preparing a three course tasting meal for us – this included an appetizer, entrée and dessert. A crucial part of the selection process was also observing how the Chefs organized themselves, how they managed their assistant, their processes in the kitchen, how organized their workspace was, including their refrigerators! The CIA judges as well as our Royal judges kept close observation on their skill level and how they used their allotted time to prepare for the tasting.

The final aspect of the contest was actually judging the food they prepared. We evaluated each meal on taste, presentation, execution and how the Chef presented what they had created. Each of the six Chefs created 5 meals for sharing with the 10 judges, and we had one for display that we could refer to after they were all completed. If you do the math, that means we each tasted 18 different food selections between the appetizers, entrees and desserts!!! Yes 18!!!! (I also have to admit that I did try every dish, including the snapper and the halibut from two of the chefs. I will also admit that I actually really enjoyed it, so perhaps I will end up eating fish after all). Following this portion of the interview process we had an open discussion about each candidate and then tabulated the scores, which included the points from the “Fan Favorite”, as well as the interviews, the food preparation and, finally, the taste and presentation of the food. Later that evening, we had a cocktail party and dinner for all the contestants, and that is where we announced our winner.

Contest Details

Our winner, who also happens to be the fan favorite, is Maureen (Molly) Brandt. Molly not only has an impressive background that includes being a culinary intern at the Food Network but also being a teaching assistant at the CIA. The menu she prepared for the contest included an appetizer of chilled lobster with citrus, caviar and a tempura battered lobster mitt (my new favorite food item). Her entrée featured Provencal lamb loin, Dijon potato puree, ratatouille and Patty pan squash stuffed with an olive tapenade. Dessert was a unique creation of pistachio cake, whipped rosewater crème fraiche and carbonated raspberries. We are all thrilled that the partnership with the CIA resulted in 150 Central Park getting such a great young talent. Molly will be joining Oasis in a few weeks to begin her immersion into shipboard life and begin the menu creation for 150 Central Park on Allure. We can’t wait to see what she creates for Allure!

As we finalized and reviewed the whole process, we also capitalized on a unique opportunity that presented itself to us. We were going to begin a search for the next Chef for 150 Central Park on Oasis of the Seas for year two of the operation. The runner up on the CIA contest was Daniel Fein. We were very impressed with him and offered him the position on Oasis! Daniel’s background includes some great experience, including working for Cameron Mitchell. We all loved the very playful menu he prepared for us, which included “Southern Style Grilled Cheese and Tomatoes” for an appetizer that included heirloom tomatoes with blue grit cakes, blue cheese mousse as well as an argula and basil salad with lemon fennel oil. The entrée was “Not your Mom’s Pork and Applesauce” which was apple jalapeno glazed pork tenderloin with couscous, cauliflower sauce and an apple and jicama slaw. Dessert was “Breakfast to Bed” a vanilla honey waffle with homemade blackberry ice cream, with a blackberry reduction and lemon whipped cream. Daniel really did his homework on Royal Caribbean and we look forward to welcoming him to the Royal family as well.

I hope I have tantalized your taste buds enough, and I look forward to welcoming you onboard either of the ships to enjoy the dishes these great young chefs will prepare. We know that the overall culinary and dining experience onboard is very important to our guests, which is why we have been working hard to bring a creative new approach to various dining experiences onboard Royal Caribbean. I could share a lot more about this entire great experience, but I really have to go for a nice long run now after these two days!!!!!!

BY:Adam|9th August, 2010 6 Comments
 

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