Royal Caribbean offers an excellent cruise experience once you reach the ship, but its technology before you get onboard has always had its quirks. The company's website has felt a little bit dated for years and its app has always been a sort of separate entity.
That may not seem like a big deal, but there's a lot of things passengers need to do besides booking a cruise before they board. Royal Caribbean (RCL), as you might imagine, paused a lot of projects during the pandemic. That made sense because it wasn't logical to spend money during the 16 months the cruise industry was shut down on anything other than critical expenses.
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And, even when the cruise line began sailing from the United States again in July 2021, it was operating with limited capacities and still losing money. Now, Royal Caribbean has mostly completed its recovery and ships are sailing with full passenger loads.
That means the cruise line can return to making investments in areas that impact passengers and while the company hasn't done a total overhaul of its website or its app, it has been making meaningful changes to both. That includes a recent tweak to its website that should actually delight upcoming passengers.
Image source: Royal Caribbean/TheStreet
Royal Caribbean Makes RoyalUp Bids Easier
Royal Caribbean has a program called "RoyalUp" that allows booked passengers to bid on room upgrades. In the past, there were two ways to make a bid or even know that the program existed.
You might get an email before your cruise offering you a chance to make a bid. If you don't get the email, Royal Caribbean has a separate section of its website where passengers can make bids and there's no direct connection between people who get the email and people who are eligible to bid. So, if you know about RoyalUp and where to look for it, you were able to post a bid without getting the email.
As you might imagine, that's a kind of confusing process. Now, Royal Caribbean has quietly fixed that by adding the RoyalUp bidding information right under each eligible upcoming cruise on the home screen when passengers log into their website.
In addition, passengers can use that new, convenient link to modify their bids and check on their status. The link does disappear two days before the cruise, when you are no longer able to modify or cancel your bid. That's mildly annoying because the cruise line often does not notify passengers of a successful bid until the actual day of their cruise (so you either have to have the email sent to you when you made the bid or find the section on the website to check).
Some passengers have even been notified of a successful bid while boarding the ship. It's worth noting that successful RoyalUp bids cannot be cancelled so if you have very specific needs for room location or anything else, it's best not to bid.
Royal Caribbean Has Also Made App Improvements
Earlier this year, Royal Caribbean made the chat feature in its app free to all passengers. The cruise line previously charged $1.99 per day per person for that feature. Making it free made it a lot easier for families and groups to stay in touch during their cruise without having to purchase an internet connection for each person.
That followed Royal Caribbean making it possible to purchase its drink packages directly through its app. Previously, passengers could only do that on its website. And while it's a small change, it's likely one many passengers appreciated.
The free-to-use onboard Royal Caribbean app has become more important since the cruise line returned from the pandemic because the printed Cruise Compass daily schedule has largely been done away with. Now, you need to use the app to see what's happening.
In addition, while menus are still offered in onboard dining venues, they're also available via QR code (or just by bringing them up in the app).
