Royal Caribbean Is Rolling Out New Tech to Make Cruising Easier
Photo Credit: At an event last week in Brooklyn, Royal Caribbean Cruises showed off an app that lets users order a drink and have it delivered to wherever they are. It's one of a series of tech advances that the cruise company is rolling out. Invision for Royal Caribbean Cruises / Diane Bondareff
Skift Take
The cruise line tech race is heating up, and that means travelers should prepare for some changes. While ideas such as virtual reality dining are fun, more fundamental innovations including facial recognition, easier activity reservations, and drink delivery should have a greater impact on the cruise experience.
Royal Caribbean Cruises unveiled a vision of a cruising future that includes virtual reality dining, drinks that find passengers wherever they are, stateroom ceilings that show the sky, and boarding made simple by facial recognition technology.
Not to mention driverless shuttles.
At events last week at the Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the cruise operator showed off some of the changes that are coming soon to ships, as well as ideas that may not materialize at all.
But the overarching theme was about innovating to remove hurdles that cruise passengers might encounter as they seek vacation bliss. The buzzwords were the same popular terms that are often invoked by travel companies: frictionless, on-demand, artificial intelligence, chat, virtual, automation.
"In today's world, technology and making things easier is no longer a very nice thing to have," said Royal Caribbean Cruises Chairman and CEO Richard Fain. "The truth is technology is simply something tha
