Ale & Andrew
TikTok’ers @aa.kenney
We are very aware of the number of TikTok’ers and YouTubers onboard. We even have 3 of them in our Christian community group that meets regularly. Because this Ultimate World Cruise (UWC) has gone viral, many of them have exceeded 100,000 followers. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) is not stupid about what impact that can make for their company and the industry as a whole. Their website has exploded with hits as people are looking at cruises because of the posts. This is very important to RCCL as the younger
generation was not gravitating towards cruising as a vacation option. The Ultimate World Cruise may change that trend.
The increase in visibility on social media is generating some income for all these social media darlings. It is helps to negate some of the lost revenue they are experiencing from being on the ship and away from jobs back home. The income they are
getting adds to their ability to book excursions which gives them more content for their channels. RCCL has even catered to their need for content by gifting a Chefs Table dinner and including them in some of the festivities. There is definitely a lot of fun events getting shown to the world through their eyes.
Unfortunately, there are some who are not even on the ship, but are trying to benefit from the viral nature of this world cruise. Their content is misleading and is feeding out lies as they manufacture drama to get people to watch their videos. Most of their comments are negative and portray a distortion of reality.
For us, it is easy to tell who is on the ship posting content and those commenting and showing other’s posts. Non-Cruisers are easily identified by their lack of knowledge or understanding of, not only what is happening, but also of how RCCL has structured this cruise for those in their loyalty program. Negativity and drama bring “hits” to their content and “hits” bring revenue for their channel. It is a beast, because it feeds on the need of their followers for dirt or drama on the cruise. On these channels, about 30 percent of what they say is truth.
RCCL operates a loyalty program (Crown & Anchor Society) where you get points for every night you are on their cruise ships. Gwen and I are Diamond level (80 pts) and will be Diamond Plus, and just short of Pinnacle by the end of the cruise. It makes sense for RCCL to give gifts and rewards to their “frequent cruisers”. The only aspect of this cruise affected by their loyalty program was the prebooking benefits. You had to be Platinum (30 pts.) or above to qualify for the 7 free Wonder of the World excursions. The rest of the benefits offered for booking the entire world cruise were offered to anyone who chose to purchase the entire cruise. Some opted out of that and purchased all 17 legs separately to save money. They saved money but now miss out on the laundry service, free beverage package, etc.
All this to say, that when you listen to some of the social media posts, you are getting someone who is sitting in their basement trying to go viral by latching on to cruise content and creating drama with it. If you want to know something, leave it in the comments and we will get you an answer.
Gotta go, I’m watching out for icebergs the bridge may miss! HaHa!
