Carnival cruise passengers reject central Royal Caribbean element
This groundbreaking cruise ship feature has been wildly successful for Royal Caribbean, but Carnival cruisers say they don’t want it.
Often, when the always-innovating Royal Caribbean cruise line pioneers a new cruise ship feature to much passenger praise, other family cruise lines eventually follow suit.
Although each cruise line puts its own spin on new ship features, they often borrow ideas from each other or seek to satisfy the same passenger desire, since they’re essentially competing for the same customers.
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For example, as Royal Caribbean began introducing top-deck attractions like rock-climbing walls and surf simulators to meet a desire for more onboard excitement, Carnival Cruise Line answered by making its waterslides bigger and more thrilling.
As Royal Caribbean joined the waterslide-building race and continued to push the envelope with each new ship, Carnival began to develop other first-at-sea attractions, eventually debuting the first roller coaster on a cruise ship in 2021.
When it comes to ship design, Royal Caribbean redefined what a cruise ship can be with its Oasis Class, as it began separating the ship into distinct neighborhoods. This included one groundbreaking area in the middle of the ship that was unlike anything ever seen on a cruise ship.
Drawing inspiration from New York City’s Central Park, Royal Caribbean created an open-air atrium — called Central Park — featuring a real, living, green space surrounded by restaurants, bars, and other venues.
Wildly successful, this lush park space has become the heart of Royal Caribbean’s newer ships and inspired other cruise lines to reimagine their own atrium designs.
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Will Carnival Cruise Line add cruise ship green space?
The popularity of Royal Caribbean’s Central Park has even led some cruisers to call for cruise ship green space to become a common feature across the industry — just as waterslides did.
Carnival Cruise Line Brand Ambassador John Heald regularly gathers feedback from passengers on his popular Facebook page, and recently, one passenger’s comment about cruise ship green space caught his attention.
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“Carnival, please catch up with other cruise lines and have a big area on these new boats you’re building that have live grass or areas like Central Park. I want to sit on soft grass during our cruise,” an unidentified passenger wrote in a message that Heald shared on his page.
Heald took the comment as an opportunity to poll his followers to see if a park or some type of green space is actually something that many Carnival cruisers would like to see added to the cruise line’s ships.
And the results were quite surprising.
Carnival cruisers don’t want a Central Park-like green space
While about 1,600 of Heald’s followers voted in favor of grass and green space for Carnival cruise ships, more than 22,000 chose the poll option, “I am not interested in having an area with real grass or fake grass on the ship.”
A number of passengers also commented on the post to emphasize that parks and grass on cruise ships seem unnecessary.
“If you want to sit on grass, stay on land,” Dolores Valk-Redding commented.
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“I can walk on grass at any of the ports,” Judy Marie Myers pointed out. “Don’t need it on the ships.”
Many Carnival passengers insist that they sail with Carnival because they like that the Carnival cruise experience is different from what other cruise lines offer. If Carnival ships became too similar to Royal Caribbean’s, it would likely be a turn-off to many loyal Carnival cruisers.
“If you want an area like that, then sail with the cruise lines that have it. Don't expect Carnival to do what others do,” Taylor Kauvar wrote in a comment that received 100 likes.
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