Latest news with #CrownLounge
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Royal Caribbean, Carnival add ship enhancements cruisers will love
Royal Caribbean, Carnival add ship enhancements cruisers will love originally appeared on Come Cruise With Me. Although cruise lines put a lot of careful thought and attention into ship design, they don't always get everything right. Sometimes, cruise ship features miss the mark, or designers fail to recognize something that was important to passengers. Occasionally, they even overlook something that passengers say has a negative impact on the cruise preferences and needs change over time, too, so certain features eventually become outdated as new innovations are developed that enhance the cruise experience. Luckily, the fact that there's limited space on a cruise ship doesn't mean onboard areas like the pool deck, restaurants, bars, and casinos, can't be redesigned at some point. Even spaces that can't be fully reworked, like staterooms, can be refreshed to add some enhancements. When cruise ships go to dry dock for routine maintenance every few years, they often receive significant refurbishment throughout to overhaul existing venues and make improvements that will elevate passengers' future sailings on the ship. Sometimes when a need arises, cruise lines will even make upgrades to a ship without taking it out of service for dry dock. That's something Royal Caribbean is currently doing to fix a big casino problem on some of its newer and most-popular ships. Doug Parker shared more on the upgrades rolling out on board certain Carnival and Royal Caribbean cruise ships, plus details on the largest ultra-luxury cruise ship suite yet, on the June 12th edition of Cruise News This is Cruise News Today with Doug Parker. Good morning. Here's your cruise news for Thursday, June 12th. Carnival Valor is back in service after completing a month-long dry dock over in Spain. The 21-year-old ship received major upgrades including the addition of the Heroes Tribute Bar and WaterWorks Aqua Park. Public spaces were also refreshed, staterooms upgraded with USB outlets, and the casino and spa were also expanded. Valor resumed service yesterday in Barcelona and is now sailing a 15-night repositioning cruise to New a $25,000-per-night cruise. Yeah, Regent Seven Seas has unveiled its most extravagant suite yet, the Skyview Regent Suite aboard the upcoming Seven Seas Prestige. Spanning nearly 9,000 square feet over two levels, the suite will set you back $25,000 per night and includes a private gym, sauna, bar, elevator, and a car and driver in every port. Bookings — they open next week if you're Royal Caribbean is expanding the casino aboard Wonder of the Seas, converting the Crown Lounge on Deck 4 into a larger, non-smoking gaming area. The Crown Lounge will be relocated to Deck 16 and reopen later this month. The expanded, redesigned casino will reopen in mid-July. Wonder of the Seas is currently sailing Caribbean cruises from Port Canaveral and will reposition to Miami in cruise stocks were down on Wednesday. Carnival Corporation: down 2.6 percent, 23.87. Royal Caribbean: down 1 percent, 267.96. Norwegian: down 3.3 percent, 19.08. And Viking: down 3 percent, 47.36. If you have a lead on a story, let us know. Tips@ This week's Cruise Radio Podcast: a review of a Norwegian cruise ship — can't remember which one. Here in Victoria, British Columbia, waiting to debark for the evening, I'm Doug Parker with Cruise News Today. Have yourself a great Thursday. (The Arena Group will earn a commission if you book a cruise.) , or email Amy Post at or call or text her at 386-383-2472. This story was originally reported by Come Cruise With Me on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.
Miami Herald
13-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Carnival and Royal Caribbean are making major cruise ship upgrades
Although cruise lines put a lot of careful thought and attention into ship design, they don't always get everything right. Sometimes, cruise ship features miss the mark, or designers fail to recognize something that was important to passengers. Occasionally, they even overlook something that passengers say has a negative impact on the cruise experience. Related: Royal Caribbean passengers demand key onboard change Passenger preferences and needs change over time, too, so certain features eventually become outdated as new innovations are developed that enhance the cruise experience. Luckily, the fact that there's limited space on a cruise ship doesn't mean onboard areas like the pool deck, restaurants, bars, and casinos, can't be redesigned at some point. Even spaces that can't be fully reworked, like staterooms, can be refreshed to add some enhancements. When cruise ships go to dry dock for routine maintenance every few years, they often receive significant refurbishment throughout to overhaul existing venues and make improvements that will elevate passengers' future sailings on the ship. Sometimes when a need arises, cruise lines will even make upgrades to a ship without taking it out of service for dry dock. That's something Royal Caribbean is currently doing to fix a big casino problem on some of its newer and most-popular ships. Doug Parker shared more on the upgrades rolling out on board certain Carnival and Royal Caribbean cruise ships, plus details on the largest ultra-luxury cruise ship suite yet, on the June 12th edition of Cruise News Today. Want the latest cruise news and deals? Sign up for the Come Cruise With Me newsletter. Transcript: This is Cruise News Today with Doug Parker. Good morning. Here's your cruise news for Thursday, June 12th. Carnival Valor is back in service after completing a month-long dry dock over in Spain. The 21-year-old ship received major upgrades including the addition of the Heroes Tribute Bar and WaterWorks Aqua Park. Public spaces were also refreshed, staterooms upgraded with USB outlets, and the casino and spa were also expanded. Valor resumed service yesterday in Barcelona and is now sailing a 15-night repositioning cruise to New Orleans. Related: Carnival Cruise Line testing new dining option passengers want And a $25,000-per-night cruise. Yeah, Regent Seven Seas has unveiled its most extravagant suite yet, the Skyview Regent Suite aboard the upcoming Seven Seas Prestige. Spanning nearly 9,000 square feet over two levels, the suite will set you back $25,000 per night and includes a private gym, sauna, bar, elevator, and a car and driver in every port. Bookings - they open next week if you're interested. Be the first to see the best deals on cruises, special sailings, and more. Sign up for the Come Cruise With Me newsletter. And Royal Caribbean is expanding the casino aboard Wonder of the Seas, converting the Crown Lounge on Deck 4 into a larger, non-smoking gaming area. The Crown Lounge will be relocated to Deck 16 and reopen later this month. The expanded, redesigned casino will reopen in mid-July. Wonder of the Seas is currently sailing Caribbean cruises from Port Canaveral and will reposition to Miami in August. Related: Royal Caribbean makes casino smoking, loyalty program change And cruise stocks were down on Wednesday. Carnival Corporation: down 2.6 percent, 23.87. Royal Caribbean: down 1 percent, 267.96. Norwegian: down 3.3 percent, 19.08. And Viking: down 3 percent, 47.36. If you have a lead on a story, let us know. Tips@ This week's Cruise Radio Podcast: a review of a Norwegian cruise ship - can't remember which one. Here in Victoria, British Columbia, waiting to debark for the evening, I'm Doug Parker with Cruise News Today. Have yourself a great Thursday. (The Arena Group will earn a commission if you book a cruise.) Make a free appointment with Come Cruise With Me's Travel Agent Partner, Postcard Travel, or email Amy Post at amypost@ or call or text her at 386-383-2472. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Royal Caribbean makes a huge casino and loyalty program change
All Royal Caribbean cruise ships offer a Casino Royale onboard casino. And regardless of the size of the ship, the spaces are generally divided into a smoking side and a non-smoking side. In reality, however, the entire main casino is a rather smoky environment. It's not uncommon to see someone with a lit cigarette walking through the non-smoking side of the casino, and there's no physical barrier separating the two sides. So, some smoke travels throughout the some of the cruise line's modern (and more recently renovated) ships, there is an entirely separate non-smoking casino. For example, the cruise line replaced the Vintages wine bar on the Royal Promenade aboard Freedom of the Seas with a non-smoking casino space. Royal Caribbean's extremely popular Oasis class and Icon class mega-ships feature non-smoking casinos. On the Oasis class ships, the nonsmoking casinos are located towards the back of deck four. The casino space was purpose-built on Wonder of the Seas and Utopia of the Seas, the two newest ships in the class, and the same locations (which used to be the Jazz on 4 venue) were renovated into casinos on other ships in the to several social media sources (and one cruise line source) and on-site reports, the non-smoking casino space on the cruise line's newest ship in service, Utopia of the Seas, is getting significantly bigger. When the renovations are complete, the non-smoking casino will occupy the existing casino space, as well as the spaces currently occupied by the Attic (comedy theater) and Crown Lounge (for Royal's higher-level loyalty members). As a result of the changes, the Crown Lounge is moving to Deck 16, a move that will likely make Diamond and higher-level members happy, taking some of the space occupied by the teen club. Attic comedy shows will simply move to the Royal Theater. As far as the timeline is concerned, the non-smoking casino will temporarily move into The Attic by May 9, and the full, expanded space will be open in the May 30-June 2 timeframe. And to clarify, the Crown Lounge will not close during the renovation at all. The new location will be ready to open by the time the existing space is needed. The same changes are also reportedly planned for Wonder of the Seas, but are scheduled to take place over the summer, and will be ready before the ship switches from week-long itinerary to 3- and 4-night cruises later this year. We reached out to Royal Caribbean for comment on the changes but had not received a reply as of this writing. To be sure, if you've cruised on Wonder of the Seas or (especially) Utopia of the Seas, it's easy to understand why the expansion is a smart move. On a September 2024 sailing of Utopia that I was on, it was difficult to find any open slot machine in the casino on all three evenings of the cruise. More Royal Caribbean news:It's unclear whether other Oasis-class ships will get the same changes. Utopia and Wonder are the mega-ships scheduled for shorter itineraries where the casino tends to be busier, so it makes sense to start with them. Many cruisers believe that the larger (main) casino should be the non-smoking space, with a smaller smoking room. Virgin Voyages uses a setup like this, so it wouldn't be completely unprecedented. But Royal Caribbean's management has stated numerous times that every time they test going completely non-smoking in the casino, revenue falls. With that in mind, a greatly expanded, completely separate non-smoking casino could be the next best thing. A common complaint is that while there non-smoking casino is nice to have, the small size prevents it from having nearly as much of a selection of gaming machines and tables as the main casino, so this could help alleviate the problem. (The Arena Group will earn a commission if you book a cruise.) , or email Amy Post at or call or text her at 386-383-2472.
