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.
I hope you take the opportunity at this gathering to reflect upon the disenchanted Diamond Crown and Anchor members who have stopped booking cruises on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity because of the loss of benefits and failure of the cruise line to respond to them on any level. Correcting that and communicating with them would go a long way to filling empty cabins that Royal Caribbean has been recently experiencing according to articles in travel sections of several newspapers. You and the chairman have done serious disservice to your formerly most loyal passengers as well as to the shareholders of the corporation. To make such drastic benefit reductions and not even send out a letter of regret or explanation is unforgivable. You spend a fortune on advertising to attract new business but allow these thousands of angry fomer cruisers simply vote with their feet.
I agree !! We were able to use the diamond level twice before they were reduced.. We also have modified our travel plans.. We were ready to travel exclusively on RCCL — we take 4-5 cruises per year..
Since we have taken 27 cruises the past 5 1/2 years, the ships that offer access to the concierge lounge operate out of the same ports, we have been on those cruises and don’t see any benefit to retaking those cruises.. We do really prefer RCCL to the other lines –BUT—–
While I appreciate that you had someone call us from Corporate Resolutions about our problem, that person was uncooperative and lied to us, saying he was the head of the department and had no supervisor. Now I have waited more than 18 hours for the supervisor Tatiana to call back as promised… It appears quie clear that the corporate approach is to ignore these problems and hope they go away. Surprised you didn’t have someone more helpful call me back. I am just trying to fix this, and what happened on the cruise is being repeated by corporate resolutions.
WE cruise RCCL alot and we like it,I asked one of
your captains if RCCL could leave Jacksonville,Fl
for Bermuda.I think that would be good change.I have
3 cruises already planed with RCCL 2 this year and
1 next year.If you did plan a cruise leaving Jackson-
ville to Bermuda I would book it and so would alot
of other people.To major Interstates I-95 and I-10
GO right into Jacksonville.Fl. Just think about it.
Thank you for your time Mr. G
In January 2010, I took two back-to-back Caribbean cruises, staying in the same cabin.
The first week I had Internet access in my cabin but not for the second week. No one at the Guest Relations had any IT knowledge or information for when the service would be restored…and it wasn’t.
Also, in the Internet Cafe, often only about six computers were working for email access.
I was on a “working” vacation. (I wanted to continue on the same ship-Freedom of the Seas-for another two weeks or more, but left because of the lack on Internet connection.
Here was this beautiful ship with an ice rink, a climbing wall, numerous shops, and restaurants, yet you can’t even guarantee an Internet connection.
There were MANY disgruntled travelers….you need to wake up and join the modern world and provide Internet connections….and a staff that can inform the guests about the connection/lack of connections.
There needs to be an IT professional onboard to fix these problems.
I work on the song of norway in 1984 till 1988 , i was a buss boy a magasin went on bord and made a vedeo , on that time we was nº1 ship on the world on rating, if any one know about this movie i will apriciate.I will wate for an answer.thx.