Andrea Zelinski
I've found myself wondering what Royal Caribbean International will come up with for its next series of cruise ships, which it's naming the Discovery class.
And I imagine Royal's creative team might be wondering the same thing, with the project in the very early stages of development.
CEO Michael Bayley hinted several times about this class during a preview sailing of the Utopia of the Seas. But Kara Wallace, the brand's chief marketing officer, told me a little more.
During an interview in the Utopia's Solarium Suite, she told me the Discovery project is in the stage where the team is brainstorming about what to include; they're thinking about open-ended questions like "what if" and "what's missing?"
Then there's the matter of size: Although Bayley mentioned on the Utopia that the Discovery class is being developed in response to a travel advisor who asked about ports big ships cannot reach (like Tampa and Baltimore, due to their bridge heights), Wallace backed away from commenting on size.
It's worth pointing out the line's older vessels are nearing their 30th birthdays. The four-ship Vision class debuted in 1996, with their last makeovers in the early-to-mid 2010s. Three of those ships sail out of Tampa at some point during the year, where ships must be small enough to pass under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.
The other Vision-class ship cruises out of Baltimore, which had required passing under the Francis Scott Key Bridge until it collapsed in March when a container ship knocked it down. It will take years for the bridge to be rebuilt, which puts into question what size ship can cross under it.
But in this early phase of the Discovery-class development, Wallace stressed the Royal team isn't focused on size.
"It is about the experience, and from the experiences that we put together we get to the size," she said. "What are [guests] looking for that we don't offer today, and how can we deliver that through our product?"
Royal's biggest ships arguably meet a lot of needs, but one could argue that the needs that aren't being met are related to smaller ports, like which ships have access and which experiences are available.
As they dream up possibilities, Wallace walked me through the mentality inside Royal Caribbean International when it develops products, such as Perfect Day at Coco Cay and the Icon of the Seas.
"Saying something's 'Perfect' is a really high bar," she said. "Saying something's an 'Icon' is a really high bar. It's almost [like] we put that out in the world, and then we manifest and challenge ourselves to make sure that it's delivering against that as a namesake."
That makes me think about what the line wants to manifest with a class called Discovery. The word makes me think of exploring destinations that may be difficult for its largest ships to access.