Royal Caribbean adds new perk for loyal cruisers
Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises passengers can earn new awards for cruising milestones.
For many travelers, collecting memories during their journeys is far more valuable than filling their homes with material things. Still, many people like to collect small souvenirs as reminders of the places that they’ve visited.
For some cruise travelers, souvenir collections can also include keepsakes from the cruise ships they have sailed like ship models or Christmas tree ornaments.
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Cruisers also love to collect loyalty gifts and rewards from their cruise line, and these items don’t have to be all that significant or even tangible to make a big difference to passengers.
Royal Caribbean’s latest award for loyal passengers is proof of that.
As digital collectibles become more popular, Royal Caribbean has found a new way to reward its loyal cruisers and entice them to keep cruising with a fun new type of digital cruise ship souvenir to collect as they sail.
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Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises passengers can now earn ship badges
In the Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises mobile apps, passengers can now collect ship badges that represent all the ships that they’ve sailed on in the cruise line’s fleet.
To see your own badge collection in the app, navigate to your profile by scrolling to the icon of a person’s head and shoulders and then click “profile” across from your name. Then, under “recent badges,” click "view all" to see all the ship badges you’ve earned.
The badges you’ve earned will appear at the top, followed by a list of grayed out badges for the ships you haven’t yet sailed. Passengers can currently earn up to 29 ship badges for the Royal Caribbean fleet, and up to 15 for the Celebrity Cruises fleet.
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After cruising on a ship that you haven’t sailed before, you will receive a new badge for that ship in your mobile app. Keep in mind that your new badge won’t appear immediately after you’ve disembarked a cruise. Badges can take up to 30 days to display post-cruise.
According to the Royal Caribbean app, more passengers have earned the badge for Oasis Class ship Allure of the Seas than any other ship. The Allure of the Seas badge has been awarded to more than 1.2 million cruisers, followed by badges for Oasis of the Seas and Freedom of the Seas, which have each been presented to 1 million passengers.
Loyal to Royal cruisers are ready to collect all the ship badges
Royal Caribbean passengers were quick to express their excitement about the new badges in the Royal Caribbean community on Reddit. Loyal cruisers are both thrilled to browse their badge collections and eager to book more cruises on various ships to earn more badges.
“This is a genius marketing move,” joypheral commented. “Must collect them all!”
In another smart marketing move, the cruise line also makes it easy for passengers to book a ship to collect its badge. A “book cruise” link is included in the message that appears when you click a badge you haven’t earned.
For some passengers, the new badges give them a reason to try other ships instead of repeating their favorites.
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“Absolutely, thought all was good rebooking on ships that I really love…now, I must get the badges,” Historical_Yak_8420 noted.
Some passengers who prefer Royal Caribbean’s newer mega-ships are now ready to book smaller and older ships just to collect their badges.
“How am I going to explain to my wife that only likes Oasis class that we are going through be on some small ships so I can get all the badges,” LewManChew joked.
“This will be the reason I’ll actually book on the older ships now,” Time_Slayer_1 agreed.
A few passengers also noted that they would like to see their loyalty celebrated even more with badges offered for the cruise line’s retired ships, which aren’t currently included. However, that won’t stop them from going after new ship badges, either.
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