Royal Caribbean shares its party versus family strategy

Royal Caribbean has named its newest ship, the Oasis-Class Utopia of the Seas, as the “World’s Greatest Weekender.”

The party vibe on the ship is amped up compared to other ships in its class, and when the cruise line talks about the ship, they throw around the word “party” a lot.

The cruise line launched the ship in July with a special namesake cruise that featured a party with Utopia godmother Meghan Trainor; Rev Run by the legendary Run DMC and DJ Ruckus.

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“The celebration will set the tone for vacations on Utopia, where everyone will make more memories in a short getaway than ever before,” the cruise line said in a press release.

“Friends and families can celebrate any occasion or simply escape with a range of experiences that bring unparalleled weekend energy to the table. There’s everything from over 40 ways to dine, drink and party, including a range of parties only on Utopia,”

Utopia will sail on three- and four-day voyages, with Friday-Monday and Monday-Friday itineraries. Both will stop at the cruise line’s Perfect Day on the private island of CocoCay.

“We set out to create a utopian playground at sea that would provide the perfect short getaway and the ultimate vacation,” said Jason Liberty, CEO of Royal Caribbean Group.

Utopia of the Seas packs in parties, but also celebrates families. The ship somehow embodies how the Royal Caribbean brand clearly serves both audiences.

Meghan Trainor is the godmother of Utopia of the Seas.

Image Source: Dan Kline/ComeCruiseWith.com

Royal Caribbean caters to families

Utopia of the Seas may be the “World’s Biggest Weekender” with near-endless parties, but it’s also a family-friendly ship. That’s part of Royal Caribbean’s strategy.

“For the Royal brand, we are very much a multigenerational family brand,” Michael Bayley, CEO of Royal Caribbean International, said during its second quarter earnings call. “We’re fortunate to have the scale and size that we’ve seen over the last couple of years, that we’ve seen growth in every segment. And we know the cruise ramp is the short product. .”

He said the cruise line has been toying with the idea for years.

“We’ve known this for some time. We changed our strategy a few years ago with the development of Perfect Day at CocoCay and significant investment in many of our ships, which we moved into the short cruise market,” he said.

“And we’ve started to really aggregate that segment of our business, and the volume of cruise news is significantly higher on a short product than a longer product, for very logical reasons.”

Using Utopia of the Seas on short cruises is the first time Royal Caribbean has used a new ship in this way. It’s a clear attempt to expand the cruise audience.

“We’ve found that when you get the product right, you can drive a huge amount of demand,” he added. “And I think what we saw with Utopia is that it was a very strategic decision to take a new Oasis-Class that we started working on a few years ago in terms of the product, the energy, what we’re offering. client and placing it in the Port Canaveral Orlando market, a path to market, which is significant.”

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Royal Caribbean wants to serve all customers

All Utopia of the Seas sailings stop at Perfect Day at CocoCay. This will also be true for Star of the Seas, the second Icon-Class ship, which will also depart from Port Canaveral.

“And certainly when you think about Icon in the seven-day market and soon Star of the Seas, which will also go to Port Canaveral until Perfect Day. We have a very good and strong range of products. that we can give to the customer and they book it,” Bayley said.

Icon sailed at around 132% occupancy with “very high” customer satisfaction.

Liberty says Royal Caribbean, which also owns Celebrity Cruises and Silversea, has the range to meet the needs of people at different stages of life.

“I think Utopia is just a great example of our intentionality,” he said. “I mean each of our brands is focused on understanding different segments, today’s consumer and tomorrow’s consumer and the growing demand.

“And our commentary on what’s happening with the younger generation and half of our guests are now about in that category, although I consider myself young, but I’m not in that category, I think.”

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Royal Caribbean wants to be able to cater to multi-generational families.

“We’re trying to cater to these multiple generations, these multiple experiences that people are looking to collect, and we’re trying hard to meet our guests there,” he said.

“And I think you can see that whether you look at Utopia with the short, or you see that with Icon, but you see that in Celebrity, you see that with Silversea. And our goal is to really make sure that we have an experience that fits guests at different points in their lives and that goes to our overall strategy of having a lifetime of vacations.”

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