Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, everybody. Oh, that's a little bit quiet. It's 10:30 in the morning. Let's pretend we've all had quite a few cocktails. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us here at Common Ground. How is everybody this morning? Did you sleep well last night? Did you enjoy the drone show last night? Wasn't it beautiful? Um, who was first time on board Icon of the Seas? Me, too. Isn't she a beautiful ship? Um, question. Who was on last year's President's Cruise? Make some noise if you are. So, I'm going to divert from script very quickly over here. Who remembers Raspberry Seas? Stand up. We had shirts made of raspberry with seas. Everybody, if you weren't here, they'll tell you about it throughout the week. Anyway, we're very honored to have you all here, ladies and gentlemen. I am Mark, one of the cruise directors for the President's Cruise. I'm very honored to be asked to come back for the second year to co-host. Of course, you have Chris, uh Chris Brown, our Icon cruise director. We're sharing all responsibilities this week. Yeah. Give Chris a round of applause. He's over there. Hello, young man. And uh this morning in this cruise actually we are joined by our executive team from Miami. Can you please give a Miami team a big round of applause? There they are. Thank you for being here. And we have our shipboard executive team including Captain Michael. Thank you Captain for joining us this morning. So coming up shortly everybody I'm going to introduce you to our president and CEO Michael Bayley for Common Ground. Very exciting. You'll have the opportunity to ask Michael some questions. We do have runners um who will be uh giving you the microphone to ask for you to ask your questions. When we get to that part of the presentation, we just want you to introduce yourselves to us, tell us who you are, where you're from, maybe how many cruises you've done, and we will take it fairly. We'll have uh everyone in the auditorium on this deck and on the balcony, we'll have runners to make it fair for everyone or as many as we can to ask questions. We do have a time limit of course and not just questions but Michael loves compliments too as we all do. So uh we'll be starting that shortly. But we love surprises. Does everybody like surprises? We got a surprise right now for you. Everybody go. Ooh. We are now going to show you a preview of our Broadway show, The Wizard of Oz. Very exciting. Uh if you're first time on Icon, I know you're very excited to see the show. You'll have five opportunities to see the show, but we're going to show you a preview now. And in this show, there are so many crew involved. 31 cast members, everybody. Not only that, we have the largest orchestra at sea. 16 orchestra musicians, everybody. And we're going to open up the curtain now. Give them a nice round of applause. They're getting ready for the show. Isn't this beautiful? On stage left and stage right, our incredible orchestra. And there's a lot of men and women involved behind the scenes. They are the unsung heroes. We have 18 technical team members as well. You never get to see them present behind the stage and behind there. So, give them a nice round of applause before the show starts. So, it's a huge team. And you probably think if you've seen many shows that we just show up 5 minutes before the show, we do it. No, there's a 2-hour prep time and it's 10:30 in the morning, everybody. So, the cast and orchestra and technical team have been here since 8:30 this morning and all of them did shows last night as well. So, when the show begins, just a 5-minute preview. Please go crazy for the cast and the orchestra, remember the technical team, too. And at the end, they'll take their bow and please give a huge standing ovation because it's so early for a show. And uh I hope you enjoy the ceremony. In fact, I know you will. So, right now, ladies and gentlemen, on the President's Cruise 2026, it's showtime.
All right, is everybody ready? Oh, it's so exciting. It's Common Ground, everybody. Um, I'd now like to introduce you to our president and CEO. Give it up everybody for Michael Bayley.
Good morning. Of course, it's impossible to follow that kind of energy with 31 incredibly professional entertainers and then some old-time guy gets up and says, 'Good morning, but this is the best it's going to be.' So, uh, Common Ground is, well, many of you have been to Common Ground many times, just like me. And, uh, for the newbies, really, all you do is you get up and you say something really complimentary about Royal Caribbean. You thank the crew, you say all these wonderful things, and then really you just sit down and that's the kind of common ground that we enjoy. But so, uh, it's great to be on Icon. It was great, uh, yesterday when I boarded the ship to see my true love, Rover, who I wasn't even thinking about it. I opened my door and the team had got Rover in there. Oh, I was so lovely. Yeah. Oh, it's terrible when you're in love, huh? Yeah. Okay. So, uh, we've got all of our executive team here and of course the captain and the executive team from the ship and you know if the question is too difficult or I can't answer it don't let my help line and as we know so um hopefully I won't. Can I help you?
Hello sir. Yeah. Yes. I'm going to coordinate the Q&A when you're ready.
Oh fine. Okay. Over to you Mark. Thank you. Yeah. I thought you were queuing me there. No, not at all. Oh, okay. You're the boss. No, no. Go ahead, please. Where's Ken? He's the boss.
Yeah, he's here. There's Ken. Hi, Ken. All right. So, what we're going to do, ladies and gentlemen, is rotate it fairly around uh both decks. We have our runners here. We're going to start on this side. Uh this is port side. Then we'll go to I'm teaching you some maritime port side, starboard side. Then we're going to go to the balcony up there. We're going to rotate in a circle. Uh try and ask one question if you can to make it fair for as many people as possible to ask questions today. The compliments I mentioned earlier are very very welcome. So, we're going to start here. Does anybody have a question here? Feel free to stand up so we can all see you. Tell us who you are and where you're from, maybe how many cruises. Let's start with this gentleman here. Hello, sir. What's your name?
Uh, my name is Justin. How are you? Good, thank you. How are you? All right. This is a different type of question. I applied to Royal two years ago and never heard back. So, here I am skipping a few steps and asking you to hire me.
Well, you got 10 points for entrepreneurship and uh moxie. So, you're in a great place already. Um, so we'd be happy to I don't know what happened when you did you apply 2 years ago? What happened? Did somebody speak to you? Is anyone here from HR? Oh, Lena. What? Note taking. Okay. At the end. Come down to the stage over there and then you see that lady there. Could you stand up, Marina? That's our HR director. Good first question. Uh hopefully I won't see you here next year cuz you'll be an employee.
All right, let's go to the starboard side. Hello, my dear. What's your name? Oh, is a mic on there? Is that Trisha? Did you say hello, Trisha? Let's just get that uh powered up for you. Let me run over to you. Excuse me, Michael. I've got my mic here. Singing that song for you. Is that one working? I think it works. Oh, hello. Come on.
Good morning. This is my fourth presidential cruise. Uh my name is Trisha. I'm just from Spartanburg, South Carolina. I'm uh having about 165 cruises with Royal. My question is I understand when we have a large amount of Pinnacles that some can't get into the suite lounge and they're kind of routed out. Um but the Diamonds are routed out in the evening, but they can go in during the day. Is there any way that some of these Pinnacles that can't get in can get into the suite lounge during the day and then not come at night? Because the times I've been in the suite lounge during the day, there's nobody in there and you can't put, you know, 300 Pinnacles and all of these Diamonds and Pluses in a Crown Lounge during the day. I've been there and the line for coffee is like 10 12 deep.
Yeah. I mean, makes sense to me, but let's ask Michael. Not that I'm trying to skew the outcome.
Um that's a great recommendation. We've thought about it many times, but um I think that after today we'll probably put a little bit more thought behind it and um try to make it happen for all of you. I know it's complicated.
Okay, great question. The answer is yes. We're doing great. Two zero. All right, time for the balcony.
Hi, my name is Tara. Um, I've been on 30 Royal Caribbean cruises. This is my second presidential cruise. Um, I just have a suggestion for embarkation day on our SeaPass cards. If everybody checks in at the muster station and then the card gets activated, more people would show up at the muster station. First, you get a free drink.
Let me ask the captain what he thinks about that. Thumbs up from the captain. Okay. Okay. Starting next. Next. Who's in charge of the questions? Me. Oh, okay. Balcony side. Hello.
Hi, my name is Erica. I'm from the Carolinas. Bing bomb. Love you. Bing bomb. We have been sailing Loyal Royals since what was it? 2007. Um, and we've seen so many improvements over the years. Absolutely love you guys. Love the fact that we were able to um match our loyalty on Celebrity. That gave us an opportunity to go up a point transfer. That's an awesome upgrade. Um the app has come a long way. There's one thing that in every survey I always ask for. Is there a possibility and I know we're talking it which is another whole animal. Been there, done that and retired. Um when you send a message through the app, unless you're staring at the app and you look for the red dot, you don't know you have a message. But if I have a show, it'll pop up on the screen and say, 'Hey, you got, you know, your show's coming up or hey, this is happening.' Can something pop up and say you have a message so you don't miss it by two hours or whatever?
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. We will pass it to our IT team.
Okay, we're going to go to the back of the lower level. Who do we have over there? Hello. Yes, I'm waving. I see. Hello, my dear. What's your name?
Good morning. My name is Helen. I'm from Florida and I'm happy to say my first Royal Caribbean cruise was on the Nordic Prince. No, no, no. You didn't let me finish. Was on the Nordic Prince July 15th, 1978. I remember that like it was yesterday cuz it was that transformational. I love Royal. Uh we are over 30 cruises with the company. We would not consider any other cruise line. But my question is the Royal Beach Club. I cannot get a straight answer. The promotional stuff said opening 2026. So I booked a cruise for April of 27. I look at the cruise planner. Nothing. Nothing. I don't care about Costa Maya. I know what happened there. Costa Maya is my favorite port to stay on board ship, but I love what is happening with the Royal Beach Club in Cozumel.
Both locations of course are in Mexico, a very popular destination. Um, has anyone ever applied for a permit? So, you know, it's a journey. I would say that we're on the journey and uh we try to keep the news as updated as we can based upon how we see the current situation. It is a little bumpy and uh but that's just the way the journey is. When we did Perfect Day at CocoCay, that process to get the permitting, all the approvals, also requires a lot of political support. It's a multi-year journey. I mean, believe it or not, the Royal Beach Club in Nassau, we started that project in 2017 buying beach property and we opened the property finally in 2025. It took us 9 years. Perfect Day at CocoCay, we already had the property. Well, actually we didn't have all the property, we had most of the property. We had to go through a multi-year process to get the rest of the property and the same thing to get all of the approvals, the permits, the environmental, the political, the community. It took us many many years before we started building that project. So, you know, it's just a journey of these types of projects. We did get a lot of pushback obviously because they didn't like the way we were thinking. We've had a lot of productive discussions. So, let's see where we get to. So, as soon as we get any more information, we'll update. We try to be as transparent as we can be. I'll just shut up now.
Okay. Let's go back to port side. Who do we have over there? Who's next? Okay. Hello, sir. What's your name?
Hello. My name is Chris. I'm from our hometown cruise director, Mark's, from Winter Garden, Florida. Uh, it seems like the Oasis class has lost all of its comedy. And I'm hearing Legend won't have any comedy on it. Is that something you can look at about possibly bringing back? Yeah. But I know you guys moved into the theater. Well, thank you. Everyone needs a good laugh. Thank you.
Yeah, it's not supposed to be losing the comedy. It's losing the comedy clubs. Yeah. But I think the plan is not to remove comedy at all. In fact, there's I think as far as I know, there's more comedy programming coming in the coming years. We're going to spend more energy and time on comedy. We just took the venue away. Don't worry about the comedy. It's coming. Yeah. Everybody needs a good laugh. I agree. Yeah.
Thank you, guys. All right. Let's uh go to this side. I don't want to miss anybody in the middle. We can come back to the middle section shortly. Hello, sir. What's your name?
Hi, I'm Andrew. My wife and I come from Mexico. Uh can you help us with the permit? Let me say that. Uh we have a big problem in Mexico with politics. This is no place to talk about politics. Uh we talk last uh people talk about a vacation place. We have so many many many many problems with our authorities. If the project starts before they arrive, it's wrong. Uh the project for uh the vacation center. We have so many problems. Uh but this is no place to talk about politics. Okay. Uh what's your question? Okay. Royal Celebrity Silver. He's happy about the points across the brands. They're going to Patagonia on Equinox next year. Diamond members. The benefit on the Celebrity side is lunch with unlimited beverages. Just like one time, 90 minutes of internet, 15 days. He's also going to miss laundry service. Okay. Across the brand is the question.
Nancy apparently has the answer. I'm going to answer in Spanish. Then we have I don't understand. Oh, you understand? I don't understand the uh it's so the answer to your question is uh no every brand is unique and we keep the benefits unique to each brand but gave you the opportunity to status match. So when you go across any of the brands, you can enjoy the benefits that they offer at that status and transfer your points, but benefits will remain at the brand level. Okay. Okay. We need to move to the next question. Yes, we do. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. All right. Yes. Hello. What's your name? Hello, sir. You have a maximum of 20 words for your question.
All right. I'm Darren from Oklahoma. Started cruising with Royal back in 2010 and just love the brand. Uh you've done some great things with it, especially with the app. So, but I have a question about the app as well. When you first rolled it out initially, you were able to use it on tablets. Well, a lot of us like to use tablets for like e-reading and such, but the ability was uh removed from tablets and now we can only use it on our phones. What's the uh possibility of getting it back on a tablet so we're not carrying around multiple devices anymore?
Is that true for everybody? You can't get it on a tablet. So, I don't know the answer to the question. It seems that some people can access the app on their tablets. So, and I don't know the answer to it. I'm not sure if we've got anybody from IT in here. If you um can give us your name and info. Oh, we already you already told us, but we weren't paying attention. We got to pay. Anyway, we need your name and info. We'll get the answer and we'll get back to you with whatever the situation is. Yeah. Thank you for the question.
All right, let's go to the balcony. Oh, that's like Yes. Hello. Hello.
Hi, my name is Paul and uh first cruise with Royal was back in 2000 on the Viking Serenade way back. Hey Mark, it is. Hello. Good to see you after a few decades. Uh my question is specifically about the recent acquisition or investment of the $3 billion into Sandals and Beaches. Do you anticipate that there'll be synergy between the two brands or all three brands with Sandals and Beaches or will the brands all stay walled off and separate at arm's length?
Well, it's a great question. Um obviously we're all very excited with this new relationship and it really does make so much sense. I mean, what we've learned through looking at all of our customers' vacation behaviors is that when people are cruising and cruising with Royal Caribbean, they love to take beach vacations. So, it all fits together. It's kind of in many ways that simple. It's a very well-established Caribbean vacation company and the kind of philosophies are very similar. So we think it's a great relationship for the future. It's super early days you know obviously but when you think about how the brands operate under the umbrella of Royal Caribbean Group you know they keep their own identity they have their own teams organization structure they move in their own direction they design different ships and products but they share so much of the things that make it more efficient and better for the customer I think ultimately it'll probably move somewhere in that direction but it's so early in this relationship. At the moment we're just learning about those guys and they're learning about us and it's a very good and uh you know open relationship. So time will tell but I think it's going to probably move directionally in that way.
Thank you. Thank you Michael. Okay to the back. Yes. Who do we have for our next question? Hello.
Hello. I'm Shelley. I am a peasant Pinnacle and my question revolves around those of us who have busted butt to get from 175 to 700 to double Pinnacle. We're still peasants and we still can't get into Coastal Kitchen. 500 points and you can't get in a suite deck Coastal Kitchen and rumor has it that we're losing our $25 at Playmakers.
Hi, Shel. Um, well, let me just debunk the myth. You're not losing your $25 Playmakers. You have a $25 that you can use across any of the specialty restaurants. Um, so that's I just wanted to dismiss that one. Um, so the reality, Shel, is that yes, um, we appreciate your work and all the effort that you've had to achieve the level that you have. Sometimes based on capacity uh we just have to limit the access to the Coastal Kitchen and suite lounge. Um hopefully we can get even more of you into that. But the reality is that the capacity is what it is um and we can't extend it further than what it is. However, um we're happy to and we've been talking about how do we come up with a rotational program where more of you can get access into Coastal Kitchen. So more to come on that in the year to come, but um we appreciate your loyalty over the years.
Thank you, Nancy. Okay, someone around here. Yes. Hello, sir. What's your name? Good morning.
Morning. My name is Doug White. I'm from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I'll make this quick even though I just want to say what a wonderful team we've got. Shoreside and the crew aboard the ship. They do a fantastic job. Each crew member works 16 plus hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 to bring us such a wonderful cruise. Thank you so much.
Oh wow. You're Pinnacle. I'm triple Pinnacle. Pinnacle next year. You're fine. You're obviously going in Coastal Kitchen for that. Not that I'm trying to menace anyone in here, but we are open to mild bribery. You know, it's okay. Compliments get reciprocal behavior.
Okay, we're back on a roll now. Let's go for this side somewhere or the middle. Who do we have? Do we have any runners there on this side? Anybody? Right here. Uh oh, hello over there. Hello, sir. What's your name?
Hi, my name is John Herby. I'm a Diamond member. Um, I'm from Tampa, Florida. Um, I have 88 cruise points. My question is this. The Enchantment of the Seas is a very old ship, and I was kind of hoping that you would have an idea on when you would have a new ship that would be able to get under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I would be a Pinnacle member real fast.
Bridge in Tampa. You know, you always have to be very cautious about what you say in these moments. Um there was a lot of hope that there was going to be uh approvals from the uh Tampa authorities um some years ago to actually create a new cruise port on the right side of the bridge. And uh there was a lot of hope and interest for that project obviously from the cruise companies because it means we could bring the really big ships up to Tampa but that got shot down about I don't know 6 months ago it was stopped. Um but you know you never know what'll happen over time. Um, but regardless on the ships that are deployed, I'm trying to think. I'm trying to remember if Discovery class No, basically you're fresh out of luck. Unless anyone's got We've got what? Yeah. What about Port Canaveral? Can you drive there from town? I mean, we got all the big ships there. We got Icons all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That was a lifeline moment.
All right, let's go to the back somewhere over there on the starboard side. Who do we have on the far left there? Michael, towards the back there. Hello there. Oh, they're passing the mic down. There we go. It's going all the way to the end. Okay. It is, isn't it? Yes. When the music stops.
Hi, I'm Mark. I'm from Philadelphia. This is my third cruise of my life. Second with Royal. Love you guys. Love you guys. Love you guys. And my question is pretty simple. Philadelphia just got a new cruise port. Uh Norwegian has a ship there. I was wondering if there's any chance of Royal moving one of your smaller ships to Philadelphia.
How about Enchantment of the Seas? These guys in Tampa are a little, you know, bougie on the ship. I could probably get in there tomorrow, right? But great question. The eastern seaboard. Yeah. I mean, you know, at the moment we have a ship sailing out of Baltimore, which is super popular. Where if we even think about moving that ship, we got mass action protests telling us don't touch it. Um, but we're always looking. I don't have anything uh, you know, definitive to tell you, but I can tell you we're always looking at the eastern seaboard. It's a very important regional market for us. And of course, it's really about it's either you're going to Bermuda or you're coming down to the Caribbean. And so, uh, I think Philadelphia is an option. I know NCL's got a ship operating out of there as well. So, we'll keep looking at it and you know if it goes badly with these guys we'll say we have a special ship, the Raspberry. Yeah. When we do build Raspberry.
All right to the balcony. Hello.
Hello. I'm Susan from Pennsylvania about halfway between Bayonne and Philadelphia. So, either one would be great. Um, this is my third presidential cruise. Uh, my first cruise in 1996 on the Song of America. Beautiful ship, but it was great. But anyway, my question is, what's the outlook for Labadee? Oh yeah.
I got to tell you, I ask that question every day. And it's a bit of a depressing situation. I mean, we've been in Labadee for 30 years. I mean, a long time. We've been through periods before where we've had to leave Labadee and uh until things sort themselves out. This time it's just been a lot longer and it's been a lot more I think violent and a lot more dangerous and we're just waiting to see if that is going to sort itself out. It's a tragedy really in many ways. You know, it just keeps on happening. So, until we're confident that everything's safe, then uh we can't go back there. For the people who work in Labadee um and the community in Labadee, you know, that's really devastating because that entire community is dependent on basically Royal Caribbean bringing the ships in. You know, we built the school in Labadee. We put the water system into Labadee. Over the years, we've done a lot for the community and we are continuing to pay at a reduced rate, but we're paying all of our employees in Labadee as we all go through this uh situation. But, you know, I think we're all hopeful at some point. These things always come to an end. Well, most things, but it does in Haiti. So, we're just waiting for that time. Hopefully, it'll be soon.
Okay. Front row balcony. We'll leave two more up there, then we'll come back downstairs again. Hello.
Hello. So, my name is Sara. Um, more cruises than I can count, but not enough to get above Emerald. As a woman over 40, I want to thank you for making the best vacation for women because once we book it, we don't have to make any more decisions. Who's cooking? Who's cleaning? Who's playing? It's all done. So, sleeping in which room, we don't have to make any of those decisions. As a woman over 40, I would also like to ask, is there anything we can do about those horrible metal baskets that make the worst noise every time you touch them?
What the metal baskets were in the rooms? Yes, the metal storage baskets in the cubbies in the room. Um, if you don't know, women in their later years develop some misophonia and that noise can ruin it. But what is it? Is it grating against something? If it moves at all, it makes this awful noise. That may be a maintenance issue. Hold on. We have an expert. This is Raymond, everybody. Yes. Uh the baskets not the best kind of design decision. Uh and uh yes, they don't like noise. So we take a close look at it and see that we find something else or just leave a plain shelf because that works as well, right? Okay, let's talk. But all this information has gone back to our design team, right? In the meantime, you can also put a towel under it. Pro tip. Oh, good tip. Did everybody hear that?
All right, final one on the balcony. Shall we head downstairs? Front row again. Hello. What's your name?
Hi everybody. Fernanda from Mexico. I wanted to ask, having the customs and the infrastructure for um receiving so many cruises, have you ever considered working with the government to develop a port there? So everybody who does not have a visa can go on our great cruises. I know that there are the cruises from Panama, but same as everybody has said before, those are the smaller cruise ships. So maybe to have cruises like Icon or all other big Oasis class ships to have them um open to the market without the visas.
You mean home porting? Yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah. I mean these really big ships like Icon class Oasis I mean we kind of built them primarily focused on Caribbean cruising but also on sailing out of most of the US ports because it's a big drive to market. So it all tends to add up to how much does it cost people. You know, when you've got to fly a family of four to join a ship, you're adding thousands of dollars of cost and you also add a lot of time. So, we've kind of got this formula. It's not a formal formula, but it's the kind of formula that works that the big ships we operate out of the big ports as close to the Caribbean as we can make them. So really that's Florida, Texas and that's really the big ports that we put the big ships. But we have had discussions in many countries around the world about port development projects. Again, believe it or not, a port development project is a minimum of 10 years. It has to go through an extraordinarily complex process. There's a lot of environmental issues with port construction. And there's also a lot of military strategic issues with building ports. So it kind of goes this is a long journey to do that. But we're always we have a whole dedicated team of development uh professionals who literally travel all over the world. We've got projects in Asia, Australia, all over the place. And as I say these they go on for many many years and we have a dedicated team who has a whole series of relationships and discussions. We've had discussions in Cozumel particularly about the piers and uh and we continue to have them. Same in the US ports as well.
Okay, next question just halfway back. Michael on your right hand side. Hello. What's your name?
Hi there. I'm Sarah Lee. I'm from Texas. I make a lot of things. I just want to say thank you to all of you. All of the efforts that you put into these President's Cruises. I've been on several of them and you're amazing. All I can say is everybody really appreciates it. Right. And I just have one suggestion. The shirts that we all buy every time we come on these cruises. What about letting us pre-order them? We are not standing in line for an hour and a half on our vacation, which we love. We're going to have a drink. So anyway, let us pre-order them in our rooms just like you do with everything else. And one other thing other than thank you for everything that Donna and Bob Smith from Texas who just became Pinnacle said I ran into you to say thank you for their party. It was amazing.
Sarah Lee. Don't you make cakes? Is that Thank you. And thank you to the team many of the team in here today and they really they do an extraordinary job. Yeah. Thank you for that. All right, great suggestion. We'll put it on the weekend to do list. Hopefully we'll have it in place next year for you. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.
Very nice. Okay, next question. I think we have this lady here halfway down. Can we just pass the microphone down? Thank you. Hello. What's your name?
You know me, Mark. Oh, hello.
So, I'm Donna from Philadelphia. I'm 97 cruises in. Hi, fans. Seas. Um, I've been on all the president's cruises. They're getting better and better. Um, but I do have a question on transatlantics on the smaller ships. I was on, I've been on several. 1,040 Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle with a place that seats 36. 641 of us Diamond Plus and Pinnacle. Once again, the place that seats 36.
In those older ships, there's a door. I asked to get the door opened. I was actually threatened that if I continued to rebel against her, I would be banned from Royal Caribbean because I wanted a door open. Yes, it's bad.
On the transatlantics, there has to be a bigger venue for the cocktail hour. You're making all that food that's going to waste because after the first couple days, nobody goes because there's no room. And we don't want to lose that perk.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, just listening to this, I mean, it doesn't seem, it's hard to see what the logic is in making it so difficult. 36. There's a thousand whatever and there's 36 spaces. It's crazy. I don't know why a bigger venue wasn't used. But I'm sure there was some reason.
I even had a captain on my side. The captain said, 'Let me open the door.' He says, 'But he can't.'
The hotel director said stateside said they were not allowed to open a door.
Yes. She threw you guys under the bus.
Which, which ship was this?
April going to Barcelona.
We're, we're going to, we're going to investigate this situation.
Oh, I'll give you names. No problem.
It's definitely not Royal Caribbean style, you know? I mean, that, that to me sounds very weird and wacky. And if the captain said, you know, it's stateside, I mean...
Oh, no, the captain didn't say it was...
The hotel director said...
The hotel director's name.
Yeah, maybe it was a trainee hotel director. I don't know.
I'm not going to ask the name, but we will find out.
I, I know the name without a doubt. But we just, he just, on all transatlantics, you know, there's a big bunch of...
I agree. We, we'll fix it. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, the transatlantics, we know it's, it's full of Crown and Anchor members.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I'm back. Just one quick comment. It's also the lowest-rated crew.
So, I need, I need a little bit better rating from you guys when you're on these charters.
Well, once again, you would have had a good one from me if you opened the door.
Simple thing. Open the door.
I did set myself up for that.
All right. Over the side. Who do we have? There's a lady actually looking. Are you looking for a signature? Oh, fabulous.
Guys, but I need the informative people here.
Oh, you need lots of signatures. Okay, we'll continue on to the questions.
We're taking a commercial break, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be right back in a few moments' time.
That's from Cuba. Okay. All right.
Okay. Next question. Hello.
Okay. Let's keep going. My name is Shannon. I'm from Port St. Lucie, Florida. 77 cruises.
Thank you. So, my question, I'm going to kind of piggyback on the woman up there that talked about the IT system. They don't talk to each other. And many times our Crown and Anchor number gets doubled or assigned to someone else, and the casino can't talk to guest services, and guest services can't talk to loyalty. Is there a way you can improve this system?
Yes.
So, we, believe it or not, it's a lot better than it was. I mean, it really is. There, there was this merger of databases and data. I can't tell. I mean, I've sat in so many meetings listening and understanding this is unbelievably complicated. When people go in and change one thing on their name, for example, in their, in their record, suddenly it creates a duplicate record and so forth and so on. And over the years, for Royal Caribbean, we had so many duplicate records for so many people. It's, it's nobody's fault. It was just a system thing. But we needed to really clean that up and get it to the point where every person has one record in the database so that there's none of this confusion with points being given to the wrong person, etc., etc., etc.
That fusion of these names created, obviously, a massive amount of a list, a ginormous list with all of these different names on them that we had to assign literally people to, to try to figure it out. We were getting, I think, at the beginning of this, it was something like 10, 15,000 calls a week complaining about it. People were really upset, you know, well, this and that, and I can't find that, I can't find this. Now we're down to, uh, you, I mean, we were around 15,000. Now we're down by about 70%. So we're still getting a lot of calls, but a lot less than we were getting. We put a lot more people on the solution, so we tripled the team that's working on it. We added resources to it. We're solving the problems a lot faster. Everybody's getting more experience. So we're on the right path. We think that when we get into early next year, that should be pretty much behind us. So it should be a lot cleaner for every, it'll still happen, but not in the scale it's happened. And it really does allow us to create this one database, which will improve all of the things that we're doing. We, you know, because we understand the platform, you know, we, we see the news all the time, AI and data and all that, but it's true, you know, and we've really got to get that sorted out to, to make it work in the future. So, we apologize for the, the confusion. It was, it's been very painful for everybody, and we're sorry it was that way, but we think we're over the hump. We're not through with it, but we're a lot better than where we were. So, I thank you for your patience and, uh, thank you.
Okay, Michael left. There we go. Who do we have there? Hello, my dear. What's your name?
Hi, my name is Janine. I'm from California. We've done 50 cruises in the last two years. I don't know how many we've done. We are loyal to Royal, but we do have a question, Michael. We've been watching.
Is that me? This Michael.
Sorry. We've been watching the future cruises and, um, well, I'm from San Francisco, by the way. Would love to sail out of San Francisco.
I'm trying not to cheat on you, but, um, it looks like you're taking our cruise ships away and sending them to Asia. We've been to Asia on Royal. It's expensive. Um, I'm not even going to ask for an Icon ship. We would like a ship to stay in the West Coast so we don't have to cheat on you.
Would you be interested in Enchantment?
Well, we are leaving a ship in California.
You're taking it away and sending it to Australia, I think, or Asia.
Well, this, I'm getting signed here. Let me, let me call the helpline.
Do you know which one is it? Ovation. It's Ovation. We are leaving a ship in California all year round. We just don't know which one. But we are going to leave one ship in California all year round.
Awesome. For sure. Perfect. Thank you.
And by the way, if we could find more destinations down that, uh, western seaboard, we, we'd love to put a big ship.
