Cruise ships have slowly evolved over the past several decades and now offer more features and amenities than ever before. Here are seven cruise ship features that have changed the way we cruise.
Balcony Cabins
Just over 20 years ago, the choice in cruise ship cabins was primarily for ocean view or inside staterooms. Cabins with balconies were few and far between and were often only found in the most expensive suites. Now, a large majority of cruisers will only cruise if they have a balcony stateroom.
All new cruise ships built these days are loaded with balcony cabins. 80% of the cabins on the new Royal class ships from Princess Cruises have balconies. When it comes to Viking Ocean Cruises, every single stateroom on their three cruise ships come with a private balcony.
Pool Deck TVs
If you love watching movies at night on the pool deck, you can thank Princess Cruises. Caribbean Princess was the first modern cruise ship built with a large, outdoor TV screen on the pool deck. It was so popular with cruisers, other cruise lines began to add them and now they are a staple feature on every single cruise ship built.
Anytime Dining
While it was Princess Cruises who first offered their cruise passengers the option to dine whenever they wanted for dinner, it was the popularity of Norwegian Cruise Line’s Freestyle Dining that forced just about all cruise lines to offer a similar concept.
You can now dine when you want and with who you want. Add in your relaxed dress code and now it’s easy to understand why this model of dining has become so popular.
Specialty Restaurants
Long gone are the days when your choice of dinner consisted of either going to the main dining room or hitting up the buffet. Cruisers have more options than ever before with steakhouses, Asian, Mexican, Italian, Brazilian, and French restaurants on board.
Norwegian Escape takes specialty dining to an entire new level and offers more than 25 dining experiences on board the ship.
Broadband Internet
While many cruisers choose to completely disconnect on their cruises, the faster and cheaper internet packages being rolled out by cruise lines are giving passengers the opportunity not only to keep in touch with family, but share their awesome cruise vacations in real time with their friends and family on social media.
Royal Caribbean’s VOOM internet changed the way we connect at sea and other cruise lines have rolled out internet packages as low as $5 per day that offers access to social media apps.
Water Slides/Water Parks
Cruising is the ultimate family vacation and cruise ships are adding bigger and better water slides and water parks. All of the mainstream cruise lines, geared towards families (Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line, and MSC Cruises) are adding a wide variety of water slides and water parks on their new ships.
Wearable Technology
2018 is the year of wearable technology on cruise ships with Princess Cruises and MSC Cruises, both rolling out wearables that will change the way we cruise. Royal Caribbean was the first to bring this technology to the cruise industry on Quantum of the Seas and currently offers it on selected ships.
This will create a customizable cruise experience that will greatly enhance the way we cruise.
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Source: Cruise Fever
