The Oasis of the Seas now features the Perfect Storm trio of waterslides. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas is ready to begin its Caribbean season from Miami, fresh off of a 53-day drydock in Cadiz, Spain.
The 10-year-old ship received $165 million in refurbishments and improvements, including many elements that first appeared on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum-class ships.
Among those elements are the two-story Music Hall and the Bionic Bar, where two robotic bartenders mix drinks for passengers.
Also retrofitted onto the ship was a package of slides that weren’t part of Royal Caribbean’s featured lineup when the Oasis debuted in 2009. The package includes the 10-story Ultimate Abyss dry slide and the Perfect Storm, three high-speed waterslides known as Typhoon, Cyclone and Supercell.
Other features that have debuted on Quantum ships or on recent makeovers of Oasis-class ships include the Lime & Coconut multi-story pool deck bar, a Sugar Beach candy store, an El Loco Fresh casual Mexican eatery and a Playmakers Sports Bar & Arcade.
The founder of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has died aged 87.
Edwin Stephan created the company in 1969 and launched Song of Norway as the first ship purpose-built for warm water cruising.
Stephan, long-time president and vice chairman of the Royal Caribbean board, is widely credited as helping to create today’s modern cruise industry.
Under his tenure, Royal Caribbean introduced wide, open-air decks and the round, cantilevered Viking Crown Lounge that made the line’s earlier ships stand out from the crowd.
Royal Caribbean was also the first to stretch a major cruise ship by inserting an additional mid-section into Song of Norway in 1978.
The company has grown into the world’s second-largest cruise conglomerate with six brands, operating 63 ships across seven continents.
A family only service will be held to honour his memory. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in memory of Edwin Stephan to be made to Mount Sinai Miami Medical Center Foundation in Miami.
Royal Caribbean Cruises chairman and CEO Richard Fain said: “Ed was an inspiration and a great friend to many in the company. He was an honourable man who loved his family, his work, and his community.
“Our heartfelt condolences go out to Ed’s loving wife, Helen, and the children he adored, Michael, Samantha, Gary, and Kristina.
“He will be deeply missed by all of us here, by his many friends, and by our community.”
Norwegian Encore after float-out from Meyer Werft.
Another year, another non-recession.
How long can this go on?
It has been a decade since the so-called Great Recession bottomed out in June 2009. Since then the U.S. economy has experienced a remarkable 125 months of uninterrupted growth, breaking the 120-month record set by the 1991-2001 expansion.
Ten years of steady climbing has had a predictable effect on cruise sales. According to executives of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, which recently reported third-quarter results, things couldn’t be better.
“I can’t stress enough the underlying strength of the business,” Frank Del Rio, CEO of NCLH said in a conference call with analysts.
Despite doing nothing strategically to extend the booking window, it expanded by 10% in the third quarter, Del Rio said, “underscoring consumers’ underlying appetite for cruising on our three brands.”
Cruise lines are at that happy point where, at least in North America, an abundance of bookings is creating scarcity, driving prices higher, and stampeding more consumers to book even earlier to lock-in early booking savings.
All good things come to an end, to be sure, but the chances of them coming to an end in 2020 aren’t that likely.
In its monthly survey of economists for November, the Wall Street Journal found that only 34.2% of economists expect the expansion to end in 2020, with another 29.3% saying it will end in 2021.
One of the main drivers of a classic recession, inflation, is expected to clock in at 1.9% in November, just below the Federal Reserve’s target. The unemployment rate next month is forecast at 3.6%, meaning most of the people who want a job have one, providing fuel for further consumer spending.
Economists used to talk about the Goldilocks economy – not too hot, not too cold – and without much fanfare, we may be in one. But one troubling footnote is that the growth in the current expansion – 25% since 2009 – has been only half as strong as the 42.6% growth in the 1991-2001 period.
“It’s been the slowest recovery in American history,” said RCCL chairman Richard Fain in a talk at Travel Weekly’s CruiseWorld event last week.
Fain said that expansions don’t die of old age; there has to be a trigger, which right now isn’t blindingly obvious to most observers. He said that when the recession does come, the cruise industry will do okay.
He recalled that the Oasis of the Seas, then the biggest cruise ship in the world with a startling capacity for 5,400 guests, was delivered in 2009 when the economy was flat on its back.
“The truth is it did beautifully even in 2009. Oasis was gangbusters, and it was because it met a need,” Fain said. He added that it was important that Royal Caribbean’s cost-cutting during the last recession didn’t cut from the guest-facing functions.
“Lots of businesses say ‘Oh business is bad, we’re not selling so many shoes, so we’ll cut costs and lay off some people.’ If we fill our ships, we can’t let one customer feel like we’ve cut back in order to make our earnings look better,” Fain said.
“We’re going to continue to function, continue to operate, continue to market because it’s the right thing to do to be in business five years from now,” Fain added. “And everybody in this room will remember what we do.”
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