What would you do with $300 million? More significantly, how fast could you spend it?
In the cruise business, it can be dispersed just like…that!
Even when it doesn’t include a new ship…a new engine…or a new captain. Or all of the above.
Royal Caribbean will spend $300 million about as quietly as $300 million can be spent, over the next three years by sprucing up some of its ships. Regular passengers might notice the “sprucing” but first or even second-timers may just think whatever Royal Caribbean ship they happen to be on has always had:
• flat-screen TVs
• pervasive WiFi (that means everywhere)
• digital touch screens to help find your way
• over-sized video screens on the deck
• additional dining options
• new staterooms (unless you’ve stayed in the old style, who would know?)
The idea seems to be for Royal Caribbean to “Oasis-ize” its fleet the way Celebrity is “Solsticiz-ing” its fleet. Coincidentally, both cruise lines are owned by the same company. Regulars on the ships that get the enhancements — and do not minimize the word “regulars” — will be impressed that “their favorite ship” is moving up in class.
Cruisers sailing on Rhapsody of the Seas or Grandeur of the Seas (above) for the first time may just wonder where the $300 million went.