Cruise-ship design has improved to the point that you can be on a massive ship with more than 5,000 (maybe more) passengers and still find tranquility in some places.
If you're in Central Park on Royal Caribbean (RCL) Oasis-class ships, for example, you often feel as if you're strolling through an empty city park, not sharing a cruise ship with thousands of other passengers.
Every cruise line has similar spots on their ships and have used clever design to manage crowds in areas where people congregate like pool decks, the buffet, and other high-volume spaces.
Most cruise lines, for example, offer a mix of fixed and "My Time" dining across three or four main dining rooms. This reduces lines at set dining times.
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But in some areas on cruise ships you can't avoid lines and crowds. The line at the onboard pizza place on Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) ships gets long on embarkation day and at various times late at night.
Similarly, the lines to get into popular shows can be long, but they disappear quickly once the doors open.
The worst lines on ships, however, tend to be in one place -- the elevators. That's gets worse at certain times, but it's generally a problem and Carnival has a clever way to solve it.
Image source: Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Adds New Elevator Technology
Every cruise passenger has stood in front of an elevator bank, only to see the doors open and the car already filled. Cruise passengers also have dealt with getting on an elevator at a low or high floor, and then stopping at every floor even if nobody inside plans to get off and there's no room for anyone else to get on.
Carnival solved this problem and added the solution to its newest ship, Carnival Venezia, as well as select other ships in the fleet.
Brand Ambassador John Heald demonstrated the elevator technology on Venezia, a ship that just moved to Carnival from the company's Costa cruise line.
First, Heald showed that the elevators have more than just the traditional 'up" and "down" buttons. They have a touch screen that shows each floor that activates when a passenger approaches. Once that happens, the passenger hits the button for the floor they intend to go to (and once again for every passenger in their group).
"If there were four of you, you press deck 10 four times and then the elevator knows when it's full [and] it will bypass and keep going," Heald said. "It's, of course, all about being an intelligent elevator system."
Once you press your floor, the system tells you both verbally and visually which elevator in the bank will be the one that picks you up.
That solves another problem as some cruise ships' elevator banks are big enough that if you use the traditional system, the doors can open and close before you get to the open car.
After you board your elevator, you do not have to press a button as it will take you to the floor you input on the keypad.
"That's how you use the elevators. Trust me, if everyone uses them properly, they do work," Heald added. "Give them some love. Give them a try."
