Tag Archives: Fort Lauderdale

Royal Caribbean’s rollout of RFID wristbands will be gradual

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Royal Caribbean RFID wristbandFORT LAUDERDALE — Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. President Adam Goldstein said it will be several years before the Sea Pass wristbands being used for room keys on Quantum of the Seas can be rolled out fleetwide.

Goldstein said the radio-frequency identification (RFID) wristbands are simple, but they go hand-in-hand with a new shipboard property management system that takes a fair amount of time to install.

“The next-generation embarkation and the RFID bands will kind of follow that process,” Goldstein said in a speech at the CruiseWorld conference, a Travel Weekly event.

Royal Caribbean will proceed ship by ship with the installations. He did not say which would be the next ship in line for Sea Pass.

Goldstein said that older ships such as Majesty of the Seas that look their age next to Quantum have been given extended life by adding newer features in scheduled drydocks.

“We’ve found across the boCruiseWorld - Adam Goldsteinard — and this is industrywide — that we’ve been able to inject a lot more features from the newer ships onto the older ships than probably any of us thought possible.”

He also noted that RCCL has six brands and that older Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises ships such as Majesty of the Seas have traditionally migrated to its other, primarily European, brands.

Goldstein said pressure on concessionaires to be more efficient has resulted in smaller footprints for areas like the photo gallery on Quantum. That has freed up more space for a variety of extra features that make the ship more exciting overall, he said.

CruiseWorldGoldstein said he’s never been a big fan of the contemporary-premium-upper premium-luxury continuum that many use to label the market segments of the cruise business, and that the edges of those categories are increasingly blurring into each other.

“If you’re in a loft suite on Oasis of the Seas, you’re in a pretty luxurious product,” he said.

“Very often our bigger brands are the second choice for couples that are normally cruising on small luxury ships,” Goldstein said. He said those passengers want the attributes of a large ship with all of the luxury amenities of a small one. “It is an interesting marketing challenge.”

Crew Member Dies in Life Boat Accident on the Coral Princess

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A crew member on the Coral Princess was killed last Friday in a tragic accident involving a lifeboat while the cruise ship was in Colon, Panama.  The incident was first reported by Cruise Law News.

 

Two crew members were in a lifeboat doing maintenance work on the hull of the Coral Princess when a cable snapped dropping the boat into the water.  Both of the workers were sent to a local hospital for treatment but one of the men died from injuries.

Reports are stating that the cable snapped as the lifeboat was being raised back onboard the ship.

The crew member that passed away was Husnan Fauzan, a 10 year veteran who served as a SCP1 for Princess Cruises.  The other worker was Bosun Steven Bagshaw who is currently still in the hospital in stable condition.

Cruise Fever reached out to Princess Cruises and received the following statement:

“On October 24 two of our crew members were in one of the ship’s rescue boats doing some maintenance work on the hull of the Coral Princess.  When the boat was being raised back onboard the ship, one of the cables that raises and lowers the boat parted, and the boat dropped back into the water with our two crew members inside.

We immediately responded and discovered that these crew members had, unfortunately, sustained injuries which necessitated their transfer to a shoreside hospital for evaluation and treatment.

It is with an extremely heavy heart that we confirm that one of our crew members subsequently passed away from his injuries. This has devastated everyone across the entire Princess Cruises organization.

We are, and will continue to support his family during this difficult period.”

Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of Husnan Fauzan and the crew of the Coral Princess as they deal with this tragedy.

The Coral Princess is a 2,000 passenger cruise ship that has been in service since 2003. The ship was on a 12 night cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida that was sailing to the Southern Caribbean and Central America at the time of the incident.

– See more at: http://cruisefever.net/1101-crew-member-dies-in-life-boat-accident-on-the-coral-princess/#sthash.qDgLDNkx.dpuf

Oasis of the Seas in Southampton

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Oasis of the Seas in Southampton

Oasis of the Seas has now finished having her refit and finally came into the port of Southampton earlier today. It was a big deal to have the world’s largest cruise ship (joint with her sister Allure) stop off at the UK’s port. Many visitors made their way to Southampton just to get a glimpse of just how larger Oasis is.

If you were not lucky enough to see Oasis of the Seas in Southampton, there are pictures over on the Daily Echo, as well as a video of her entering the port below. This was such a big occasion and so we had tug boats spraying water, as well as helicopters circling her as she manoeuvred into City Cruise Terminal.

Oasis of the Seas video 1

This is the first time that Oasis of the Seas has visited the UK, and so took a lot of skill to get such a large ship into port, although the experience of the Captain and pilots made certain everything went smoothly.

Many cruise lovers made the trip down to Southampton in order to see just how magnificent this giant of a cruise ship is.

She is due to set sail again later tonight, once the more than 6,000 passengers have boarded. Once she leaves port, the destination will be Fort Lauderale, Florida, calling at Vigo, Spain along the way.

Oasis of the seas in Southampton

Oasis of the Seas Video 2