LUXURIES AT SEA

Cruise lines use technology to lift guest experience

At Royal Caribbean Cruises’ new Innovation Center called “The Cave,” executives, designers and architects can walk through a virtual cruise ship, granted their 3-D goggles are on. Virtual reality technology allows them to fine-tune new features as simple as where to place tables in the rooftop garden and as radical as redefining the skeletal structure on the 2,900-passenger Celebrity Edge, scheduled to debut in fall 2018.

Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain has a lofty goal for this technology: Bring the sea closer to guests.

Borrowing a style found on some river-going ships, Celebrity has moved the ship’s skeleton from outside in, eliminating the thick steel balcony surrounds that block balcony views. With the balconies essentially inside the cabin, the space can be used for living indoors, with an “infinity view” window across the entire space that slides down to create a glass railing and bi-folding French door to separate indoors and out.

“The beauty of this is what’s not here,” Fain said.

The technology used to create the Edge, Celebrity’s first new class of ships since 2002, has all been used elsewhere, Fain said in a media preview to the line’s recent announcement. But bringing those features together in a PortMiami space within walking distance of executives’ offices — instead of a European shipyard — has led to a design that Fain likes to call “transformational.”

Case in point: The Magic Carpet. The ship’s designers were looking to solve a common guest complaint: That the process for boarding the launches required to visit some small ports was crowded and cumbersome. Led by Tom Wright — the British architect behind the distinctive sail-shaped Burg Al Arab in Dubai — the team explored a half dozen iterations before deciding on an elevated platform the size of a tennis court that can serve not only as sea-level access point to the launches, but also as an oyster bar on the restaurant deck, a cocktail bar on the pool deck and a dinner venue on the top deck.

“It’s sexy as hell,” said Fain during a tour of a full-scale model of the Magic Carpet, so heavy that the bayside parking lot on which it sits had to be structurally reinforced.

Other new features are less radical but will directly address guest requests, said Celebrity president and CEO Lisa LutoffPerlo: larger cabins with bigger bathrooms, beds and storage.

Balcony rooms are 23 percent larger than their predecessors in Celebrity’s most recent Solstice class, measuring about 226 square feet, without the balcony. (That’s about 43 square feet larger than most competitor staterooms). That allows for bathrooms that are 10 percent larger than on the Solstice class, king-size beds and retractable desks.

Celebrity is also introducing 16 single suites that will have the same accommodations of a standard room — including the king bed — but for one person.

Because of the popularity of the suites, Celebrity is nearly tripling the number of its 400-square-foot Sky Suites, which include butler service, from the Solstice class, for a total of 146. There are 1,467 total staterooms on the ship.

Edge will also introduce luxury suites, including a 2,500-square-foot Iconic apartment with 82 linear feet of panoramic glass, a 700foot balcony, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a hot tub and a private cabana. The new two-story Edge Villas include private plunge pools. All suites will include access to a private Retreat Lounge and pool open only to suite guests.

The rooms were the first cruise project by noted London-based interior designer Kelly Hoppen, who has appeared on British TV shows, and designed for stars including David and Victoria Beckham.

The pool deck is also getting a face-lift, with two-deck all-glass walls, two martini glass-shaped hot tubs 22 feet above the deck and a rooftop garden.

Guests on Celebrity will be able to check before their cruise via an app, much like guests do ahead of flights, allowing them to skip much of the traditional check-in process at ports. They will simply drop their

PHOTOS by PATRICK FARRELL/MIAMI HERALD Wearing 3-D glasses, Richard Fain, chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited, right, chats with architects Paul Moreira, left, and Tom Wright inside the company’s new Innovation Center. The virtual cruise ship allows them to fine-tune new features.

Richard Fain, chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited, discusses some of the contrasts between older ship-building technology and newer ship technology the company is unveiling.

PATRICK FARRELL/THE MIAMI HERALD Richard Fain, chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited, relaxes in one of the new features that will soon be available for Royal Caribbean passengers.