For many, a vacation on a cruise ship brings up images of retirees basking in the sun or playing bingo. Royal Caribbean wants to change that with a brand new ship.
The new “Symphony of The Seas”, which cost $1.5 billion to build, is outfitted with everything from ice skating rinks to water slides to zip lines, Michael Bayley, the company’s President and CEO, told Cheddar Wednesday. It’s scheduled for its maiden voyage in the next few weeks.
“A lot of people have a stereotypical perspective of cruising,” said Bayley. But the company is offering “experiences, features that we think are really attractive to millennials. [And] we have short products, short breaks.”
Royal Caribbean’s stock has outperformed rivals such as Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Lines over the past year, but did see a pullback in December after [two](http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/royal-caribbean-cruise-passengers-gastro-intestinal-illness-sickness-bug-norovirus-ovation-of-the-a8095611.html) [separate](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/12/17/hundreds-get-sick-royal-caribbean-cruise-again/959102001/) instances of passengers getting sick. The company, though, still reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter.
The cruise line has focused marketing efforts on digital communications to capture the attention of tech-savvy millennials.
“We’ve moved pretty much all of our marketing, advertising from traditional to digital,” explained Bayley.
“We’ve been quite focused on attracting new-to-cruise [passengers] through our communication and through the way we present our product and the experiences that you can have,” he said.
“A lot of that is built on demolishing these perceptions that...it’s going to be really just for older people and there’s really nothing to do, which is so far from the truth.”
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/royal-caribbean-gets-ready-to-launch-the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship).
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