Saturday, June 20, 2009

Saturday Morning Coffee 6/20/09

Good morning, as most of you already know it had been a wild week here in Dothan for the Lee's. Not to tell this story for the 1000th time I will just say we had to put all 4 of our cats down due to a fight with a rabid raccoon. The good news is that Linds nor me got bitten/scratched in the whole ordeal so we have that to be thankful for. If there any readers out there not living in our area let me tell you that this has been the hottest week I can ever remember this early in the summer. For the last 3-4 days we have hit triple digits with an even higher heat index. I literally walked over to my neighbor's house and back yesterday and had wet my t-shirt when I got back in. It reminds me of a sauna and we are not going to have any relief for a couple more days!
Today we will carry on with our cruise market-segmentation from our last post. I would like to tell you about Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. RC is also considered a first-class cruise line and, in my opinion, along with Carnival the most popular cruise lines out there. Let me preface all the following information by saying that I am Royal Caribbean "cruise-expert" based on tons and tons of online training and reading, however I have never been on a RC ship at all. I do think that I have talked to enough customers, trained, and booked plenty RC cruises to have a firm grip on what they have to offer.
Like Carnival, RC is a very up-beat ship with lots to do on-board. Their slogan is "the nation of why not?". RC is the only cruise line that has both an ice skating rink and a surfing simulator on board some of their ships! They also have a rock climbing wall on all their ships. They use these features heavily in their advertisements asking "why not" ice skate in the middle of the Caribbean? They also, in addition to tons of other eating venues on-board, have a Johnny Rocket's 50's style diner on every ship. One key difference between RC and Carnival is the decorations on-board RC's ships. You may remember I told you in the previous post that Carnival's decorating was very gaudy, almost over bearing in my opinion. That is not the case with RC. RC ships have a more subtle approach that appeals to me much more, but maybe not the kids as much. The closest RC port to the Wiregrass area is Tampa or Pt Canaveral, FL. They also have medium to extremely large ships in their fleet. This November the Oasis will make her maiden voyage coming in at 230,000 tons!! That is 100,000 tons larger than Carnival's newest ship. I can't even get my brain around how huge this thing will be. The cruise we went on in March was a 55,000 ton ship.
The staterooms are about average size as compared to other first class cruise lines, comfortable but not lots of extra space unless you book a suite. The activities and entertainment are top notch and there is plenty to do all day and night. I have people who have never cruised say they would be bored on sea days and my response is only if you choose to be. RC has an extensive kid program that caters to all children up to 18 years old so parents can enjoy a little alone time on sea days. I always like to ask my customers which cruise line they prefer between RC and Carnival and 95% always choose RC. I know one thing for sure, if I ever get the money set aside for it I will definitely be taking a Royal Caribbean cruise.
Jeremy

1 comment:

  1. Jeremy, keep up the great job on your blog. You are very informative and a great writer!

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