When you board a cruise, you'll often find workers holding "How can I help?" placards or carrying signs with that language. The goal is for passengers to be able to quickly get questions answered and not have to go to guest services.
Sometimes, the questions are simple: People want to know when their cabin will be available or which venues are open for lunch. Or they'll ask where to make reservations for dinner or a show.
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Some questions, of course, require expert help. In those cases the passengers are pointed to the places that can solve their problems. Those could be guest services, the Internet help desk, or even the maitre d' stand at one of the Main Dining Room locations.
The goal is to triage problems and make day one as easy for passengers as possible. Royal Caribbean has been working toward this goal and generally has succeeded.
On Icon of the Seas, at least for the friends and family/media sailings and the inaugural sailing, Royal Caribbean posted crew members at the cruise ship's elevator banks. That's because Icon of the Seas had a new elevator system that passengers had not used before.
That system is also being used on Utopia of the Seas, the cruise line's newest cruise ship, but crew members are not posted at the elevator banks. That led TikTok personality and travel-content creator Marissa Willman (@marissawanders) to create a now viral social-media video that shows how to use the new elevators.
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Royal Caribbean's new elevators solve a problem
Cruise-ship elevators are a pain point for passengers. First, the traditional ones don't have a good way for people to line up. That can lead to tense situations, such as when someone believes they "were there first" is passed over for someone who was near the first elevator that opens its doors.
In addition, there's no logical system where the people getting off first end up at the front of the elevator. That can lead to everyone having to clear out on every floor, or a passenger having to squeeze by people who don't move aside.
The traditional elevator system can also lead to completely full cars stopping on floors where nobody intends to get out. That just wastes time and can lead to frustrated people waiting for an elevator, then not being able to board when it shows up.
And then, of course, there's the problem caused because ships generally have kids on board, and kids often think it's funny to press every button.
That's not a problem with Royal Caribbean's new elevator system, but travel-content creator Willman says there's a learning curve.
How to use Royal Caribbean's new elevators
While the system seems self-explanatory and easy to use, the more than 500,000 people who have seen Willman's TikTok video suggest it may not be for everyone.
The video clearly explains how the elevators work.
Willman begins by asking, “Would you like to not look like an idiot when you get on your cruise and try to use the elevator?” She then walks to the tablet computers that are mounted on stands near the elevators.
“You select your deck before you get on and then it assigns you an elevator,” she said.
The TikTok star selected Deck 11 and the letter A displayed on the tablet screen.
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“So we are assigned elevator A. Your elevator will light up. Comes right to you," she said. The corresponding letters are large and posted over each elevator.
"And then when you walk in, you’ll notice there are no buttons," she said. "Don’t be like the rest of us on the first day who couldn’t figure out how to use the elevators."
Currently the new elevators are offered only on Icon of the Seas and Utopia of the Seas. They are expected to be part of all new ships; Royal Caribbean has not said whether they will be retrofitted to older ships when they dry dock.
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