• Situation

Royal Caribbean needed to rethink their app experience based on competition advances, as well as improving the cruise experience. Without disrupting loyal, traditional customers, we had to create a forward-thinking, interactive experience. Putting our innovative approach in the hands of a mostly conservative audience can be risky, but highly gratifying to watch them embrace us to transform their expectations.

• Brief

Rethink the UX, design and implementation for Royal Caribbean and its sub-brands. Put forward an innovative approach without disrupting our loyal customers.

• Objectives

We had many design and functional objectives, including: enabling frictionless arrival, in-cruise payment management, multi-booking of activities and excursions, syncing reservations between friends traveling together, onboard chat system, concierge experience for ordering drinks to their pool chair, pre-cruise onboarding flow, and creating an entire design system and illustration strategy across world of Royal, Azamara and Celebrity.

Centralize all the fun and interaction that happens on an RCCL cruise, without adding another layer of technology to bog down our guests.

Instead of creating a new wearable (like others in travel), we transformed the technology that everyone brings with them—their phone—into a singular connected experience that unites: booking, reservations, communication, wayfinding, entertainment, security, and room environmental controls.

This official Royal Caribbean International app gives guests all the information and access they need to make the most of their vacation. Our unique challenge was creating forward-thinking, interactive experiences for an industry that's been mostly left behind in digital without disrupting their loyal consumers. Putting our innovative approach in the hands of a mostly conservative audience can be risky, but highly gratifying to watch them embrace us to transform their expectations.

• Data gathering and insights

RCCL spent six months watching onboard behavior to identify pain points and opportunities. We mined this data to determine key interactions, feature prioritization, navigation, and overall experience.

• Target audience (consumer demographic/individuals/ organisations)

Royal Caribbean targets families, parents, and kids looking for a different kind of vacation, as well as couples that are looking for a romantic getaway. Target ages would be 25-54, male and female.

• Relevance to platform

Passengers in their cruise don’t need to carry anything other than their phone to navigate through the ship and all the activities onboard and off. Payment, communication, and security are all integrated into the app, all in passengers’ hands as they explore hundreds of restaurants, bars, and activities.

• Approach

The official Royal Caribbean International app gives guests all the information and access they need to make the most of their vacation.

• Implementation

The experience completely rethinks the UX, design, and implementation for not only cruise applications but for the travel industry. The app starts from real human needs associated with travel and meets them through an intuitive (but completely unconventional) experience.

The entire experience is built around proximity—to your ship, route, and destinations—built out in 3D. Understanding your location is vital for navigating the hundreds of restaurants, bars, and activities around you, and also for where (and when), you’ll discover your next adventure, on ship or ashore. And not only do users see all they can do, but the 3D experience also creates magical interactions with special digital touchpoints sprinkled throughout the ship.

• Timeline

6-months

• Placement

App Store and Google Play Store

• Scale

Our core experience has scaled to over 50 unique ships, with millions of event instances, and unified three sub-brands into one system. The app is the center point for the entire Royal Caribbean digital ecosystem today—delighting users and receiving extremely positive reviews on both platforms. The first release of the app was delivered at an incredible pace, from conception to app store submittal within 6 months, following rigorous user-centered design and agile development.

Although we are unable to publish results, the application has been widely successful in meeting users needs, directly impacting revenue and dramatically advancing Royal Caribbean’s core business.