High Tech on the High Seas: Royal Caribbean Unveils 'World's First SmartShip'
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas Unveils RFID Technology
Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas is being billed as “The World's First Smartship.”
Its technology – some of which has never been used on cruise ships – will help guests stay connected and maximize their experience even before they step on board, according to the cruise line says.
Due to set sail this fall, the cruise operator's new flagship will be outfitted with several high-tech innovations for a more enjoyable journey. A luggage tracking app, robotic bartenders and apps that let crew members keep track of passengers' individual preferences are among the new technologies coming to the Quantum of the Seas.
"This ship's combination of ease and flexibility would make a yoga instructor proud,” Royal Caribbean chairman Richard Fain said during a press conference at the shipyard in Papenberg, Germany. “We were determined to take the best advances in modern technology, turn them into shipboard ‘wows’ and take the frustration out of the vacation."
Service on the "smartship" will include high-speed Internet, which is usually very expensive and notoriously unreliable on other cruise ships.
The Internet connection will enable passengers to interact with radio frequency identification (RFID) bracelet that they will receive upon arrival and will keep them connected to the ship's network. The bracelets will manage room access, onboard purchases and dining and tour reservations. And because they are rubber-protected, they will never demagnetize, unlike the magnetic ID key cards most cruise ships use.
A Quantum vacation begins at home, where guests can generate boarding documents online, upload their own ID photo, and receive digital boarding confirmation. By the time they arrive at the cruise terminal for departure, Royal Caribbean guests can go from “sidewalk to ship” in 10 minutes with no check-in counter, no forms to fill out and no lines to stand in.
Guests will be able to track luggage in real time on their smartphones. Luggage will be tagged curbside with RFID technology at drop-off, and guests can monitor their bags’ progress through key points en route to the stateroom. On departure, the process is reversed.
Passengers can also book dining reservations, shore tours and other cruise activities before departure, and that information and all their necessary check-in documents can be ready and loaded on their RFID bracelets when they arrive.
In addition, a new app called "Royal IQ" will track the ID, stateroom, preferences and reservations of each passenger and provide maps of the ship and its daily schedule of events at the push of a button. Tapping the RFID bracelets with a finger will allow guests to interact with "Royal IQ" with hand signals at screens stationed throughout the ship.
The secret behind these advances is much faster Internet access provided by a network of low-orbit communications satellites from a company called O3B Networks. The satellites maintain geosynchronous orbit (an orbital period the same as the Earth's rotation) at a much closer distance to Earth than satellites used by other cruise ships – allowing Internet signal transmission directly to the ship.
With the O3B Network, Royal Caribbean says, passengers can use Skype and even play interactive games with people across the world while at sea – unprecedented as far as cruise ships are concerned.
Quantum of the Seas is scheduled to be formally launched at the end of October and sail first to Southampton and then to New York around November 10.