NZ Herald Wednesday 15 March 2017 Richard Fain, the chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean Cruises , is willing to bet $5 billion that he can take everything you know about cruising and flip it upside down. Or at least outside in.
On Monday, he and Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, CEO of Celebrity Cruises – one of three brands in the Royal Caribbean family – announced a new category of ship that, among other transformational design moves, brings stateroom balconies indoors. With a push of a button, the floor-to-ceiling windows of Celebrity Edge-class staterooms retract like a super-sleek garage door, leaving nothing but a simple glass railing between your living room furniture and the crystal-blue sea.
“When I started [working in the cruise industry] in the 1970s, nearly zero ships had balconies. It was all portholes,” reflected Fain on a phone call with Bloomberg. Since then, balconies have been the golden rule for hard-core cruisers. Read more…
