Some cruise line rules barely get enforced because people violating them have no real impact on others and enforcing the rules would be more trouble than it's worth. That's generally the case for main dining room (MDR) dress codes on both Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruise Line.
Technically, both cruise lines ban shorts, T-shirts, and hats, but in reality, as long as you're not wearing a bathing suit, Royal Caribbean and Carnival generally let it go. That has, of course, led to people being outraged on social media, but the reality is that your dinner isn't impacted by someone else's casual clothes.
Related: Royal Caribbean ending one of passengers' favorite food options
In other areas, rules are more grey. It's rare that either cruise line enforces its rules about reserving deck chairs at the pool. That's a stickier proposition because someone who puts their towel down and then disappears actually makes that chair unusable for other people.
Still, unless it's a very crowded day on the pool deck, removing items from a chair creates a logistics problem (where should those items go?) and puts staff in danger of having to deal with angry (and maybe drunk) passengers.
Smoking rules on Royal Caribbean (RCL) -) and Carnival cruise ships are more strictly enforced. You can only smoke on both cruise lines in designated areas on the pool deck and in the smoking area of the casino while playing.
Allowing smoking in the casino has been a controversial decision because smoke does not stay in one place. The non-smoking areas can get smoky and both passengers and workers are exposed to second-hand smoke.
Royal Caribbean has a solution for that, at least on its Oasis-Class ships that creates a true non-smoking space and it has finished rolling it out across all ships in that class.
Image source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet
Royal Caribbean, smoking, and all that jazz
When Wonder of the Seas, the current largest cruise ship in the world, was built it was supposed to serve the market in China. Because of that, it was built with a secondary casino, the Golden Room, which was meant to serve high rollers.
On the other four Oasis-class ships, the Golden Room space was devoted to a jazz club, Jazz on 4. When Wonder was moved to Miami for its initial sailing season, the Golden Room space was converted to a secondary, smoke-free casino.
Instead of banning smoking in the main casino, or opting to make the secondary space only for smokers, Royal Caribbean has created a smaller smoke-free casino. Each of the five ships has a small selection of table games, some slot machines, and a cashier.
Drinks are served by roaming servers, but there's no dedicated bar.
Royal Caribbean shared on social media that it has added the smoke-free casino to Symphony of the Seas, completing the changes on all the existing Oasis-class ships.
"Located near the vessel’s original Casino Royale on Deck 4, the new venue represents a 2,500 square foot addition to Symphony’s casino area," Cruise Industry News reported. "The space received 46 new slot machines, in addition to three extra gambling tables and a dedicated kiosk and cashier window."
Utopia of the Seas, the next and likely final Oasis-class ship will have a non-smoking casino as well.
Why Royal Caribbean allows smoking in the casino
Royal Caribbean has struggled with how to serve all its passengers while maintaining its revenue.
"It's a bit of a conundrum," Royal Caribbean President Michael Bayley said during a question-and-answer session on Ovation of the Seas during the President's Cruise, the Royal Caribbean Blog reported.
"The dilemma is that there are many people who do want to smoke in the casino. I know that's not a popular response, but it's the truth. I'm not judging anyone or anything, but there's a large group of people who do want to smoke in the casino," he said.
Getting rid of smoking in the casino has not been an effective bottom-line move for the cruise line.
"Every, I would say, every couple of years, we do test this and we take one or two or three ships and we ban smoking in the casino. And the result is less people go in the casino and that's the reality of it," Bayley explained.
Royal Caribbean's Celebrity brand has banned smoking in its casinos.
