Latest / The Discussion Podcast / Talkin' Travel - Spectrum of the Seas: Shanghai to Japan — A Cruise of Culture and Spectacle

Transcript

Talkin' Travel - Spectrum of the Seas: Shanghai to Japan — A Cruise of Culture and Spectacle · The Discussion Podcast

0:00
Hi, this is Roger Johnson from BBC North West Tonight. And don't forget,
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listen to Ken Garrity and Friends every Tuesday on Radio Alty.
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Thank you very much, Roger. And we'll listen to you every night as well.
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Now then, as you've probably gathered, we, or I, went off to Shanghai,
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China Seas and Japan with a group of fabulous people and all put together by
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the Royal Caribbean and Travel Weekly.
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And I'm just going to mention the names of the people I flew out with.
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There's Sam, Nadia, Eva, Emily, Rebecca, Vivian, Danielle, Francesca,
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Angie, and Ruth, who joined us.
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Lucy Huxley also flew out the day after, and we were met there by Adam from
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Royal Caribbean, and Benjamin Bolden, President of China and Managing Director
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of Royal Caribbean Asia. Here's a title for you.
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So we're going to have some of these talk to us, and as I went around the ship
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doing 22 interviews, would you believe?
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And we had a fabulous time and last week's show we presented shanghai a fabulous
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city it was something completely different very
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modern you've got east meets west with the buildings and some futuristic buildings
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now one of the people that was out there lucy huxley and you'll,
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listen to the first part of this and you know that you can make mistakes so
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good morning again this is another guest that,
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i have known for quite some time actually so i'm going to go straight into it,
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and this is the lovely...
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Forgotten my name.
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I'm going to travel with you, travel with you, travel with you. Lucy, I got it right.
1:34
So this is the amazing Lucy Huxley from Travel Wheatley. Good morning,
1:37
Lucy. Hello, Ken. How are you? We have known each other a long time,
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haven't we? Yes, we have.
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Every time we meet, I seem to be in fancy dress of some sort.
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Well, luckily, the most recent time has got you here. Exactly.
1:50
So yeah, and we love a bit of fancy dress.
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So tell me the history of this, basically this tour that you put together with
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Ben from the Royal Caribbean.
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It's obviously been a long time in coming and you did this last year,
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I believe. Yeah, that's right. So I've known Ben for a long time.
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I think he joined the travel industry.
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I think he was saying it was, you know, maybe 10 years ago.
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So we've always been friends. I've done a lot of work with Ben when he was running
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the UK market, but he got moved out to run the China market a couple of years ago.
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And he still wanted to make sure he got sales from the UK, even though,
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obviously, a lot of what he's selling is in the Asia market.
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So we thought we'd do a competition to educate travel agents a bit more about
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China and sailing from Shanghai out to Japan. It's a really popular region.
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It's very, very in vogue at the minute to sail in this area.
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So we ran a competition called Fortune Awaits. We looked for 10 agents.
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They had to do training on our training platform. It's an online training platform
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all about the region and the ship, which is Spectrum of the Seas.
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It went so well. We took 10 agents out last year and they were great.
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And they've been back and they've been selling it with much more confidence.
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But then we thought we'd do it again. So that's where you came in.
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But you did enter last year as well, didn't you? Yes, yes. This time I've actually succeeded. I know.
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So last year, I think you had to eat some noodles. This year we had a Chinese
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fan and you had to display that fan.
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And you had a fabulous costume, I think, from the Ming Dynasty.
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I mean, you were unrecognizable. I actually was born in the Ming Dynasty. It was natural for me.
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Oh, my goodness, you look fantastic. And we've got agents here from all across
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the country and all different types of travel agents.
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So some have retail shops, some are home workers, some are part of big consortia,
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some have been in the industry a very short time, some have been,
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if I may say, Ken, in the industry a little longer, like yourself.
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So more mature experience. That's it. But it's lovely because you bring a group
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together who are very different people, but like-minded because they want to
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learn and they want to be able to find new products to suggest to their customers.
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So yeah so um it's been similar the trip not not identical
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um but flown flown out to shanghai staying in the saint regis in the center
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of shanghai beautiful hotel lovely hotel yeah thank
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you yeah brilliant really nice so we had three nights there oh you had four
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nights you came earlier than me i did yes four nights um but yeah lots of tours
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a tour with wendy woo tours is another partner which i'm sure you've sold wendy
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woo tours as well already but
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royal caribbean and wendy have teamed up with a partnership so uh,
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spectrum of the seas guests if they do pre and post we'll do some wendy woo tours um.
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And then we boarded the ship didn't we yesterday uh and now you've got four
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nights on board the ship to sort of see what that's all about so you were on
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this ship last year yeah what what were your highlights of the ship,
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Well, the speciality dining, which we tried last night, we were in Chop's Grill.
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We were going to Teppagnaki today and Jamie's Italian. And we're also doing the chef's table.
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There's a restaurant called Wonderland, which is, you can imagine it's all inspired
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by Alice in Wonderland. Oh, really?
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You know, everything's not what you see. What you see is not what you ultimately
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use. It's really amazing.
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So I think the speciality dining is incredible. The show's on board.
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You saw Silk Road last night. We're seeing showgirls tonight.
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I think, I hope you agree. I mean, that was something else. It's very,
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very different to anything on other ships.
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So there's some sort of standouts.
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I'm not sure if you've done some of the more high-octane adrenaline stuff yet,
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Ken. I imagine that's this afternoon's plan.
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Well, as long as we don't kill ourselves, we should be okay,
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and I'll come back on that one. Okay, well, there's things like,
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on this ship, they've got some amazing things like the Flowrider,
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which is the surfing simulator.
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They've got the iFly, which is the, what do you call it? Like the flying. You fly, that's right.
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Yeah, you're flying in a chamber, basically, and you get under a big fan and
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you actually learn how, you sort of feel like you're skydiving,
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I guess, which is incredible.
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So there's some really cool things up on that top deck, which,
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I mean, it keeps people entertained.
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There's something, I mean, there was a dance class here today in the promenade
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this morning. So there's just, there's so much going on. We just heard when
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they did the bing bong right across our conversation was the fashion show as well. Oh, yeah.
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So there's everything for us. Are you coming to the fashion show?
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I think I might be on top deck today. Exactly. Now, can I say that this is,
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for me, this is one of my highlights in the whole travel business. I mean, for the last...
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So many years, I'm not saying how many years, that I get invited on various things.
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But to me, I wanted this one. I saw it and I thought, fantastic trip.
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And it's actually living up to my expectations. Great. Well,
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that's what we wanted to create. We want to say it's a kind of chance of a trip of a lifetime.
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Exactly right. And then obviously Ben and the team at Royal Caribbean are really
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trying to sort of spoil you. But, you know, what are they saying?
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There's no free lunch. We want you to go back and be inspired and to be able
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to go to your customers and say, have you considered this region?
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And I think the thing is, it's a region that people perhaps don't know,
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perhaps they're a bit nervous about.
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You know, it is a different culture. I mean, we've experienced that.
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But by doing it with Royal Caribbean, I think it's a really sort of safe way.
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It's like you can go off and see these amazing places, do Shanghai,
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do Okinawa, do Sasebo, wherever you're going in Japan.
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But coming back onto the ship and there's lots of Chinese touches all around.
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Very much so. So if you want to have the full Chinese experience, you can.
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And most of the clientele, and they have international guests,
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but obviously most of them are more Chinese guests.
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But if you want that reassurance of a Jamie's Italian as we're going to have
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at lunch today, then you've got that too.
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And I think that's kind of what will be the appeal for British guests, we hope.
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I mean, you might think, you know, you're the one who's got to go back and sell
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it again. What will you take back? Well, I know that China and Japan are in
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at the moment, very much so. A lot of people relate to Japan just to the blossom season.
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Well, that's wrong because I have been to Japan and I've also been to China.
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And this, the Shanghai, opened my eyes.
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Shanghai, I thought, was a big industrial city. It's not. There's lots going on. Very modern.
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The only downside is if you're in a hurry, don't be, because the traffic is
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horrendous. But that's normal. Yeah, it's a big city, but it's incredibly clean.
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And I love the juxtaposition where you can be seeing one of the incredible temples or the U Gardens.
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Then the skyline is just one of the most incredible skylines you've ever seen
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in the world. It's just so high rise, so modern. It's so futuristic, isn't it?
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Yeah, really. The architecture is incredible. And I think if you like that kind
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of real cosmopolitan city, as you say, it's not industrial. It's really vibrant.
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So, yeah, I love Shanghai, but I like the old and the new, the mix of that,
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which is great. And, of course, then we went to the water village.
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And that if you think what you think China might be which might be scorpions
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and tarantulas and millipedes on sticks on a street food cart,
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then that's where you see that that's the really authentic because it is a tourist
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attraction but the people still live there these are people who've lived there for,
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years and they are peddling their wares we saw them making combs out of cow
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horn I mean that's real so there is.
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That part of authentic China is here.
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And you can build that into anybody's, you know, package or into their itinerary.
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So if they want a bit of the modern, but they want some of the old culture,
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then it's here. And it's amazing. And of course the cruise to go with it.
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And the cruise to go with it, which is lovely. I mean, how lucky are we?
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We're very lucky, I tell you. Can I say, Lucy, thank you.
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Lovely to see you again. And maybe it's a more fancy dress later.
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We have got a night on board, haven't we? Yes. Are we going to reveal What are
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you, it's a Halloween night.
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They're big on Halloween, Royal Caribbean in general, and I think with the Chinese here.
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So we're going to be, I'm going to be a bat. What are you going to be?
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I'm not telling you because there's such a secret. There's several of us who
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are going to get together and all will be revealed. Oh, you're such a tease, Ken.
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All right, well, I'll look forward to that. Can I say, Lucy,
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lovely to see you again and thank you. You're very welcome. Lovely to see you too.
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Yes, thank you, Lucy. And we did have our Halloween night. And would you believe Nadia won?
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And she dressed up as the, I'm going to say, the Queen Goddess from Shrek.
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She was lovely and just knew she was going to win with the gasps from the audience.
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She was in green dress and green makeup on her face as well.
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So well done, Nadia. And everybody else who dressed up, it was a fabulous night there on board the ship.
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Now then, I'm going to do a couple of back-to-backs here. This is Ruth coming
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up, and Ruth and I met 15 years ago, as she tells me, and then with Adam from
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Royal Caribbean in the UK, and he met us over there. But first of all, let's have Ruth.
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Konnichiwa. This is Ken, and we're in the South China Seas, en route now from
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Shanghai to one of the islands off Japan, and I'm with a really friendly, lovely lady.
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This is Ruth, who we met 15 years ago, I believe, Ruth. That's right.
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We didn't realise till this trip, Ken, did we? and we just happened to be talking
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about things we'd done in the past.
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And you said that you'd been on Travel Weekly Cover Stars on Celebrity Silhouette
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15 years ago. And I just went, I was there too.
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I flew out for two days just to support the group that you were with.
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So unbeknownst to us, we met 15 years ago for two days and have not seen each
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other since until now. That's right. Now then, from those 15 years, what have you not to?
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Well, I spent 17 at Royal Caribbean Group, Of course, that's made up.
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That was made up of Celebrity Cruises, Silversea and Royal Caribbean.
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So for the last few years, I've been specifically at Royal Caribbean,
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although I did spend time working for Celebrity before that.
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And I was head of cruise specialist. So my team looked after all the major accounts
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and strategic accounts that sell Royal Caribbean across the UK.
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But I was lucky enough to host this trip last year with Ben.
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And we had such an amazing time and he clearly thought I did a lovely job so
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that even though I've recently retired he invited me back again to come and
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support once again and I was only too happy to snap his hand off because
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we have had the most amazing four days in Shanghai,
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and the two highlights for me really for anyone coming to Shanghai is You Gardens
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which is over 500 years old and is just stunningly beautiful and it is
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um relatively close to the center of the city but also we went out to the zhi zhao um,
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water village which is so,
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so beautiful we took a gorgeous boat trip it was just wonderful so those are
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my two highlights for anyone
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who comes to shanghai and then of course yesterday um after a nice little bit
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of shopping in the morning because but we all love a bit of shopping. Yes, we did.
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We came on to the gorgeous spectrum of the sea. So we've been here almost 24
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hours and already we've had such an amazing time on board.
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Right now we're sat in leaf and bean. I've just had the most delicious hot chocolate,
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which for a mid-morning snackette, I think is lush. Yes.
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But there's so much to do on board. The show we saw in 270 last night, Silk Road,
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is just stunning. Again, I would say if you're going to go and see one show
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on here, that is the one to go see.
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And it was literally all about the Silk Road from China through Iran,
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through Turkey into India.
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It was just beautiful. The acrobats, the aerialists, the dancers,
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the singers, all were out of this world. So we loved that.
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And then we all danced the night away in music hall.
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And then I got up and had a lovely little bit of brunch this morning.
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So, yeah, we've had a super time so far. So it's actually been quite a hectic
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trip, but it's been thoroughly enjoyable. Yeah, we might have to go home to have a rest.
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I know they call it a holiday and you're supposed to relax. But,
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you know, when you come this far, I think the flight was about ten and a half
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hours worth every minute of it, I will say.
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You just want to experience everything you possibly can because you may never
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come back this might be my one and only or my last time ever
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in shanghai on board spectrum of the seas going to japan who knows what where i'll go next you know so
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yeah i want to enjoy every single opportunity so basically you've had a thoroughly
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enjoyable life working with the cruise lines i have now i will say i've worked blooming hard
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i used to work about 50 hours a week too tired to do anything at weekends and
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as I say I've recently retired from.
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But I can't let go of the travel industry. I still get my travel weekly bulletin
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email every day so I know what's going on.
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I still subscribe to Royal Caribbean emails so I know what's going on,
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what the new ships are going to be called, what new itineraries are going on
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sale. And I'm already choosing my next holiday for next summer.
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By the way, I think that's going to be Odyssey of the Seas doing the Eastern
15:33
Mediterranean because I love that as well.
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So, yeah, I can't. I can't. But it's in my blood because before I worked in
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the UK office, which I did for 17 years, I actually worked on the ships for
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15 years. So I've been in the industry over 30 years.
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So, yeah, it's in my blood. I can't let go. I need to know what's going on.
15:54
Exactly right. It's sort of this village atmosphere because everybody knows
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everybody else eventually.
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Yes. And we come on these fabulous trips. We do. We work hard for them,
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but these are like a little reward. Yes.
16:06
Yes, but this is such an amazing trip for the 10 of you that are lucky enough
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to be here because people always buy people and they want firsthand knowledge and experience.
16:18
And, Ken, now that you've done it, you can tell all of your clients how easy
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Chinese immigration was.
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Very. Even easier than when I did it a year ago. It got even easier this time.
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And we flew through within minutes and the top tips of what to do,
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where to go eat. We've got our favorite restaurants here now,
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all the best shows to come and see on board, which specialty restaurant is the best.
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So the fact that you've been here, seen it and done it, you can pass all that
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firsthand experience on. And that is a money can't buy experience.
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Tool for you to use with your clients. Exactly right. See it,
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believe it and sell it. Absolutely. It's easier as that, isn't it?
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Yes. Yeah. Can I say, Ruth, that was brilliant. The voice of experience comes
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over. Aww. And you just took it over from me. That was great.
17:08
Well, you're very welcome, Ken. And who knows, we might bump into each other
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again in another 15 years. I hope so.
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Take care. Ruth, keep in touch. Will do. Hi, this is Chris Glisson and you're
17:17
listening to Ken Garrity and Friends on Radio Alty.
17:20
Hi, this is Ken. And would you believe we're on day four of this,
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well, it feels like a two-week trip, but it's not. But it's actually panning
17:28
out really, really well.
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And I'm on board the spectrum of the seas, and we're in the China Sea, would you believe.
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Now, my next guest is Adam, and
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Adam is the key account manager for Royal Caribbean. Good afternoon, Adam.
17:41
Hey, Ken. How are you doing? I'm awake, thank you. Just about. Yeah, just about now.
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It's a hectic trip, isn't it? Yes, we've just done our bridge tour this morning,
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so I had everybody out of bed nice and early. Thank you.
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Now then, I'm just going to go through your little bit more background so people
17:57
know who you are and what you do.
17:59
So you've been in, not at sea, but in the sea business for some time. Exactly, yes.
18:04
I fell into the sea when I was 18 years old, not literally, with my first role
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at Carnival UK working in their contact centre.
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After a couple of years in that role, I then moved to working on board where I met my lovely wife.
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We spent two years together on board.
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We then had that lovely discussion slash argument of where do we live once we get off of the ship?
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The decision was between Southampton and Derbyshire. You're obviously from Southampton.
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I am. I got the point. And now I very happily live in Derbyshire.
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Well done. So after we got off the ship, I then spent six years working with a national OTA.
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Following that... OTA? Online travel agent. Okay, so a travel agent that promotes
18:46
themselves primarily through website channels and has a contact center.
18:51
So following those six years, I moved into account management.
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First off with Carnival UK across their brands and now I very happily find myself
18:59
working for Royal Caribbean.
19:01
Okay so I'm gonna this is a very bad point so when did you jump ship from Carnival
19:06
to Carnival? Oh I love that so that occurred during the pandemic okay so we,
19:12
unfortunately obviously a lot of the ships had to stop during the pandemic.
19:15
Yeah we all were in trouble weren't we? We were exactly right so I had a couple
19:19
of years working outside of travel interestingly Interestingly enough,
19:22
I actually went to sheet metal and laser cutting for a couple of years.
19:25
Nothing like travel. Very, very different.
19:28
And then luckily, yeah, I got hoisted aboard Royal Caribbean in 2023.
19:33
So you saw an advert or something or you knew somebody? I was very fortunate.
19:37
So I saw the initial job roles came out onto LinkedIn.
19:42
And I was really fortunate because there's some great people in the industry.
19:45
So I reached out to a couple of people. You always want to just to double check,
19:49
you know, what's it actually like there? The ships look amazing,
19:52
but what's the culture like? And luckily for me, uniformly positive.
19:57
So I had to undergo a very rigorous interview process, including an assessment centre.
20:04
Ben Bolden, who is on this trip with us as well, who's current president of
20:07
China for Royal Caribbean, the big boss, the gaffer.
20:11
Yes, so Ben actually did my final interview and funnily enough,
20:15
Ben was in Haifa at the time and I was packing my house up for a house move.
20:20
So we were in two very, very strange situations for that final interview.
20:24
It sounds like, whoa, what happened here? A little bit, yeah.
20:26
I was sat on boxes and he was trying to get a decent signal in an airport.
20:30
Really? Yes. Unusual, eh? Yeah, exactly. So yeah, luckily, what I said struck
20:36
a chord with Ben, and I've been happily working here as an account manager ever
20:39
since. Okay, so you got the job.
20:42
Initially, you knew what you were doing, or did you have to be shown?
20:45
I was very lucky, again, because I had some history, one, working in the cruise
20:48
industry, so I knew, obviously, ship life and what the experiences can be like on board, inside out.
20:55
And I also knew account management from my time at Carnival.
20:58
The big kind of knowledge gap and my big learning has actually been working
21:01
with national OTA partners.
21:03
So national online travel agents, but working on the other side of the table.
21:07
So instead of working in a travel agency, working as an operator and working
21:13
in collaboration with those travel agents. So your original knowledge came forward,
21:17
didn't it? It was brilliant. Exactly right. So again, for my career,
21:20
I've kind of come full circle.
21:22
And one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given when I moved from working
21:25
travel agent to operator was always keep your travel agent hat on because in
21:30
this industry, relationships are super important.
21:32
Well, my adage is travel is a village and you never leave, but you might go
21:37
around in circles. Oh, exactly.
21:38
You just pop up again somewhere else. So now you're on the road maybe or looking
21:43
after people? Exactly. So again, very fortunate. I managed to be home-based
21:47
and I go down to the office once a month roughly.
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And then in that time so my normal working week will look like a couple of days
21:54
working from home and then usually two to three days visiting my key accounts okay,
21:59
And that's nationally based. So I'm very lucky being in Chesterfield,
22:03
Derbyshire. I'm right on the heart of the M1.
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So my furthest account is up in five, up in five, Scotland.
22:09
That's about five and a half hour drive.
22:11
And then all the way down to the very south of the UK, down to Portsmouth is
22:15
one of my other accounts. Where you speak the local thing you got.
22:17
Exactly. Yeah. So I can put my normal accent back on.
22:21
Now then on a day to day basis, you must have to be on your tip top form because
22:25
things change so much in the travel business that you don't know if there's
22:28
a new ship if there's one going out,
22:31
uh some complete change here how's it for you working for royal caribbean do
22:35
you know everything about it oh,
22:37
i think it would be impossible to know absolutely everything but ken you may
22:40
have noticed on this trip as well i've got two phones that i've constantly gone,
22:44
out one's a burner yes exactly that's the black ops phone
22:49
but yeah so i'm constantly keeping up to date with what is going on in the uk
22:53
um i think a big thing for us is planning as well so we try and keep ahead of
22:57
the curve as best as we possibly can
22:59
i think as well it's that decision making process of what do you tell and when
23:03
to agent partners because otherwise you can simply overload partners as well
23:06
because there's so much going on well
23:08
as an agent there's so much information coming through daily you don't know
23:12
what's coming in and you've got to keep up to date with it that way as well
23:16
because if you're last in the line you don't know what you're selling and it's
23:19
like you need to be on and just
23:20
talking about that so here you've been on obviously many ships this is my first time out here,
23:26
how comes royal caribbean are out through shanghai and hong kong okay so i mean
23:31
it was a great decision by the business um obviously when we restarted um,
23:36
so post-pandemic when we restarted um relationship with shanghai and local tourism
23:41
board was incredibly strong um.
23:43
The decision made by royal caribbean group was to obviously have sourcing from
23:47
local markets as well and Shanghai was a natural step there because the routes
23:51
into Shanghai are incredible,
23:53
The other major factor as well when you look internationally is that Shanghai
23:56
is a world-leading city.
23:59
So it really appeals to international tourists as well. So incredible routes
24:03
for local markets as well as really easy access for our international tourists.
24:07
It also allows us as well from a routing perspective to be able to offer local
24:12
market shorter sailings.
24:13
But then for us Western markets to also offer those longer sailings as well.
24:17
That's right. So we're on a four-nighter and the next one is an eight-nighter.
24:21
Is that right? Exactly. And the routing for that, do you know?
24:24
So it's going across to Japan, but it's doing a much more port intensive itinerary,
24:28
including a stop in Yokohama as well. So up into the mainland. Okay.
24:31
So Shanghai, we loved, didn't we? I think the whole group loved Shanghai.
24:36
It's Western, it's Eastern, it's modern, it's old. I think it's got so much
24:39
to offer. Yes. I mean, that's the thing. I think we barely scratched. We did a lot.
24:44
Honestly, I think I'd probably put Ken through his paces 15,000 plus steps a day easily.
24:49
But yeah, we scratched the surface on what that city actually offers.
24:53
Last night, we were saddled together as a group, and everybody had a different
24:56
favourite part of that city.
24:58
So it really has something for everyone. That's right. Now, on this ship,
25:01
I'm amazed at what goes on. There's so many bars, there's so many restaurants,
25:06
so many things to do, and the entertainment was spectacular for the last two
25:09
nights. Oh, you're making me so happy to say that.
25:11
Yeah, that's the thing with Royal Caribbean. I think a lot of people,
25:14
and this is kind of what I hear a lot in trade, a lot of people until you experience us you see
25:20
the water slides the flow riders all of that amazing hardware but once you scratch
25:24
between beneath the surface the dining is absolutely impeccable on board and
25:28
to your point ken the shows are phenomenal aren't they very much the technology
25:31
that we integrate into our shows it's something else
25:34
um spoiler alert we're seeing the effect is tonight yeah um so that's on our
25:38
main theater and it's a full drone show as well as the show itself really i
25:42
hadn't realized that right that's right because we did a backstage tour this morning we did yes uh,
25:47
so we went backstage we managed to meet a couple of the cast members um and
25:51
we also managed to see as well like all the props and the designs and it's just again,
25:56
So eye-opening to see how fast and how on the ball that team has to be.
26:00
On a ship. It's incredible. It is. It's full stage. It really is, yeah.
26:04
So the guy who was giving us a tour this morning even explained,
26:08
so we've got a pit in the middle of our stage, and that drops a full floor below
26:11
as well, to move a full grand piano out onto the stage. That was my key point from that bit. Amazing.
26:17
So for the future Royal Caribbean, do you know what's going to happen?
26:20
Are you involved with that, or do they tell you last minute?
26:24
I'm not involved in the day-to-day planning of long-term for Royal Caribbean.
26:27
But what I can say is, obviously, we're kind of in the midst at the moment of growing our fleets.
26:31
So this time next year, we will have Icon 4 joining the fleet.
26:36
Which is going to be called Hero of the Seas.
26:39
So we've already made the name announcement there. In 2028, we've got Icon 5.
26:43
Basically, we have an Icon-class ship joining the fleet all the way up now until
26:47
2030. Wow. We have a further Oasis-class ship and also the new Discovery-class as well.
26:53
Which I can say on record I know nothing about. Well, let's put it this way.
26:57
2028 is on sale now. Exactly. You can't book through your local independent
27:00
travel agent. Ken Geraghty, definitely.
27:03
Exactly right. And the future for Adam. And the future for me.
27:07
Oh, I'm so happy in my role at the moment. I love working with my trade partners.
27:10
I think I would always like to stay in trades, whether that is a head of trade
27:15
role or maybe one day sales director, president of China maybe.
27:19
Ben, I'm coming for you. well I'll say I'll say Adam I knew you when you had
27:22
nothing is that alright yeah exactly you've got to go back now well tomorrow
27:27
in fact so we're all going back and this is you've got to sell this you've got to,
27:30
bring it out to your agents and they then get the knowledge exactly right yes
27:34
i've been pulling so much content as well throughout this trip,
27:37
um i really would say royal caribbean are an incredible choice um if you've
27:41
got guests that are looking to go out to the far east
27:44
um our fearless leader ben made a great point last night that you can go out
27:48
you can really get that sort of overload of information and um throughout the
27:52
tours and the experiences that you get on shore and then it is almost like coming
27:55
home of an evening there's all your creature comforts on board with royal Caribbean.
27:58
You sell it very well. I try my best. Okay.
28:01
Adam, thank you for your time. I know you're a busy man. You've got another
28:04
couple of hours to do work-wise.
28:05
I'm going off to a bar any second now, and I'll see you later.
28:09
I appreciate it, Ken. Take care. Thank you.
28:11
You are listening to Ken Geraghty and Friends on Radio Halti.
28:17
Très super, Sébastien Papa Pizza. And thank you very much.
28:22
Thank you very much as well. And thank you to Adam and a great interview.
28:26
And he's just full of Royal Caribbean. He's going somewhere, that lad.
28:30
And my next guest is Emily. And she flew out with us, one of the winners.
28:34
And she's got a review of what we were doing.
28:37
Hi, this is Ken. And would you believe I've got an afternoon off? Not.
28:41
This is a busy afternoon for me because, A, I've got to interview the CEO.
28:46
Who's on board and i've also got a lovely lady with me and this is emily hi
28:51
emily oh hey ken now then are you um happy to be here oh my goodness ken i mean
28:58
i think we can both agree that this has been an absolutely
29:01
once in a lifetime experience and definitely a destination that we wouldn't
29:06
necessarily have booked ourselves i mean i don't know if i'm just speaking for
29:09
myself but i think you know shanghai and japan
29:13
um they're two places that everyone's got on their bucket list but they wouldn't
29:17
necessarily go to book and I think that's why it's so exciting like it's you
29:21
know it's not just been your regular trip there's been
29:24
so much planned for us here we are I mean we're very tired right now aren't we Ken?
29:27
We certainly are I tell you I've never worked so hard in my life.
29:30
I know I mean I've been having about four hours sleep a night we've been getting
29:34
up early doing all of our excursions kind of really getting into the heart of
29:38
all the destinations we've been in and then and then we've been up all night at the bar.
29:42
Exactly exactly now then how did When did you first hear about this trip?
29:46
So, first heard about this trip, obviously travel weekly.
29:50
So we get our magazine delivered to the office. And it was actually our receptionist
29:55
and she brought the magazine over and she said, how amazing would this be?
29:59
And I said, yes, absolutely.
30:02
So obviously being marketing, I thought, right, I reckon I can pull this off.
30:06
Let's do it. So took a picture of my fan.
30:10
And I think when I found out, I was actually in a meeting with our managing
30:15
director and two of our girls were sat watching the recording to see if I'd won.
30:20
And obviously, you never think you're going to win, do you? No,
30:22
you don't. You never think you're going to win.
30:24
Anyway, I come out of this meeting and they have printed off my winning kind
30:30
of picture and they were just so excited for me. And I think,
30:33
you know, it took a little while to sink in because it is such a big trip.
30:38
Um but yeah i think it didn't really sink in until we all got to the airport
30:41
did it and we all saw each other yeah,
30:44
and i think what you know when we saw each other at the airport we just instantly
30:48
clicked so well and i think you need that on a trip like this when you're doing
30:52
so much and you're so tired and you know
30:55
but you want to pack everything in because it's a once in a lifetime but i you
30:59
know i think we've really kind of brought each other up at times that we've
31:01
needed it haven't we and we've just made the most of the experience yeah now
31:06
then in shanghai we actually had the tennis tournament how what do you think
31:09
of that oh my goodness i mean
31:11
tennis isn't something that i would necessarily watch kind of religiously myself
31:16
but i think just the whole atmosphere at the masters we can all agree was absolutely
31:21
incredible it was brilliant and
31:23
way more than i was expecting actually i think you know kind of the way they
31:27
had the whole area laid out um,
31:30
you know just so many different facilities there i think really shocked me um.
31:35
And then And obviously the tennis itself.
31:36
I mean, being a VIP at the Shanghai Masters with Royal Caribbean,
31:42
how many people get to say that? It's a pinch me moment. It is a pinch me moment.
31:46
Yeah, I thought, is this really my life? You know, glass of moe in hand.
31:51
Just thinking, wow, this is where I belong.
31:55
Yeah. We went in the St. Regis. You had a really super duper room.
31:58
Oh, now, Ken, you know how I feel about that room. Yeah, I do.
32:02
So, walked into the room and I am a big hotel person. I know sometimes people
32:07
say, oh, it doesn't matter about the hotel, but no, that's not me.
32:10
So, we walked into the St. Regis and...
32:15
Bathtub overlooking the most beautiful skyline of shanghai i have ever seen
32:20
now we were only there for four days i think i packed in about six baths in that time.
32:25
Just to make sure that i maximized it yeah i mean it was just so incredible
32:30
wasn't it and bath with a view wasn't it yeah with a view
32:34
yeah um obviously you know beautiful kind of bedroom dressing table and i think
32:38
it was just so nice to kind of
32:40
have that base in shanghai wasn't it you know all of these busy days and all
32:44
these excursions that we were doing but then it was just so nice to know that
32:47
we could just go there and i could just go sit in my bath and look over the
32:50
skyline and the city was very safe wasn't it very clean very,
32:54
safe yeah i think you know whenever you come somewhere far away from home you
32:58
always kind of think what is it going to be like am i going to feel safe am
33:02
i going to understand you know what's going on around me am i going to be able to get about um,
33:07
and i think china specifically obviously with payments and alipay and things
33:11
like that you do always have your kind of concerns.
33:14
I can honestly say it has built my confidence so much in, you know,
33:19
kind of coming to China and coming to places like this because,
33:22
I mean, the English everyone speaks for one is amazing.
33:26
And, yeah, we've just sort of got round it and it's been explained to us so
33:29
clearly, always felt so safe, which has been amazing. Yeah. Now,
33:33
what do you think about the water village? Is there an hour out of town? Yes.
33:37
How do you think about it? Well, I mean, I would say my absolute favourite part
33:41
of the water village was the gondola ride.
33:43
So I always love a boat trip. Obviously, we've done a few of those.
33:46
I mean, we're on a cruise ship right now. So we've really been,
33:48
you know, making the most of being on the water. Yeah.
33:53
But yeah, the gondola ride was just absolutely incredible. And I think just
33:57
having that kind of combined with the markets and, you know,
33:59
when you're away from home, it's always nice to have a look around a few little
34:02
bits to bring back. Very cheap as well. I know. It was incredible.
34:07
And yeah, somewhere that you wouldn't necessarily go to if it hadn't been planned for us.
34:12
But it's just all been planned to perfection hasn't it we've been spoiled well
34:15
i'll say i'm going to interview our ceo in a little while but meanwhile we're
34:19
back on the ship yeah this is our third fourth day now yeah i'm losing the plot
34:24
uh what do you think about the,
34:26
ship and the destination oh wow i mean the ship is just our safe haven isn't
34:29
it i mean we know that we can just get on the ship and get whatever we want on here so
34:34
i mean being in shanghai we were really sort of getting a taste of the culture
34:38
and experiencing the local cuisine but you always miss your home comforts a little bit, don't you?
34:44
Obviously, I get on the ship. First thing I'm looking for is a Starbucks and it delivered.
34:49
It clearly did. But there's so many places to eat, drink and get entertainment.
34:54
Absolutely. Yeah. So I think on our first night, we went to Chop's Grill.
34:58
And I mean, steak is just always a winner, isn't it?
35:01
So I think we're all really happy with that. And we all just needed kind of
35:04
something hearty after the kind of long days that we've been having.
35:08
And then obviously, followed by amazing entertainment, all of the shows,
35:12
you know, there's never a dull moment here and i can say that for sure yeah
35:16
the shows were stunning weren't they it's best shows come to the scene yeah
35:21
i think showgirl was definitely my favorite um,
35:24
so you know you just watch them doing the can can and you think wow.
35:28
You know how are you doing that and then obviously we had our kind of um ship
35:33
visit this morning didn't we where we looked around all the different facilities
35:37
a little early but we did it yeah it was quite early yeah 8 a.m but they said that the kind of,
35:44
costume that they were wearing actually weighed about five kilograms that's
35:48
the wings i think yeah the wings and i thought how are you doing the can can
35:52
with that on like it is honestly incredible unreal,
35:56
now then we're off to halloween party aren't we oh yes we are ken this is what
36:01
we've all been waiting for you reckon.
36:05
This is the big one yeah have you brought your blood No, so I'm going to be a black angel.
36:11
Are you? Yeah, black angel.
36:13
So I've got my halo, I've got my wings, but they don't weigh 5kg like the Cane
36:18
Cam ones, I can assure you.
36:21
But I'm going to do you some face paint, aren't I? You are. I am.
36:25
Yeah, so we're going to get a bit creative. We're going to get some face paint
36:29
on, see what we can rattle up.
36:31
It's more blood than anything else. We'll have a go, won't we?
36:33
So what are you going as, Ken? I've forgotten now. I'm not telling you till I get a reveal later.
36:38
Well, I've got to do your face paint. You'll find out later.
36:41
I need a creative direction for this.
36:43
Now, there's something all together. You could sell this to the UK market.
36:46
Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, you have to see it to believe it. It's one of those.
36:52
You know, you always have your reservations coming somewhere like this,
36:55
but seeing it firsthand, seeing, you know, what Shanghai has to offer,
36:59
seeing exactly how cruising can, you know, make it a perfect pairing.
37:04
You know, you have your safety of the ship, you can get off,
37:07
you can do your excursions, you can enjoy your time. Yeah. And yeah,
37:12
I just think it's definitely something that would appeal to the UK market.
37:14
And just to quickly, just talk about getting off, what do you think of Japan
37:17
yesterday? Oh my gosh, Japan.
37:18
I mean, it was the one we've all been waiting for, wasn't it?
37:21
And I think packing everything in to, you know, we didn't even have 24 hours there, did we?
37:26
It was an absolute whirlwind, but we really packed in as much as we could.
37:30
And I think, you know, it's just such a bucket list one. And it was incredible.
37:34
I mean, we did meditation, didn't we? At the temple, yeah. We meditated.
37:37
I mean, how many people can say they've meditated in Japan? Not many.
37:42
And then we had our authentic, like very authentic. Yeah, a lot of fish.
37:49
Um but again you know just an amazing experience and then another boat ride
37:53
which obviously we love to be on the water just for ourselves just to top it all off,
37:59
so all in all all in all 10 out of 10 amazing unforgettable experience can i
38:05
say thank you once again for your time i know we're all busy and we're off to
38:09
do more interviews but thanks very much oh thank you ken,
38:15
hello this is whispering bob harris you're listening to radio ot and the great ken garrity.
38:26
Thank you very much there, Bob. And thank you, Emily and Adam and Ruth.
38:29
And finally, but not last, but not least, is Ben, now president of Royal Caribbean in China and Asia.
38:38
And he's got quite a few words to say. So we'll have a little gap in the middle
38:42
of this, Ben, but have a listen.
38:43
And he's the man. Hi, this is Ken, still on the ship today.
38:48
And I'm now in the club suites. I'm going up in the world after this morning's
38:52
trip around the freezers, the kitchens, and the engineering area,
38:58
which was absolutely fantastic.
38:59
I'm now up with the boss. And this is the boss of, well, this is the Asian area
39:06
of Royal Caribbean, which is expanding rapidly.
39:08
And I'm now with Ben. Hi, Ben. Hello.
39:12
Thank you for having me. Are you going to say Ni Hao? Well, I guess I should
39:16
say Daja Hao to your audience. Is that right? It's a collective greeting of hello.
39:21
You're very good on this, aren't you? This is your ship, your background,
39:24
and it wasn't your life at one time, was it? This is now moving on from being in the UK...
39:31
Yes. So, I mean, I've been here a few years now, but I joined Royal Caribbean
39:35
in 2014 in the UK market as the sales director.
39:40
And at that time, we were just launching, I don't know if you remember,
39:43
Quantum of the Seas came in, I think, 14, Anthem of the Seas in 2015.
39:49
I know them all. Yes, I was selling them. Yeah, exactly. And I think we had
39:52
independence of the seas in and out for a few years. So yeah,
39:56
very much learned my travel knowledge, if I've got any.
40:01
I learned it and gleamed it all from the UK market.
40:04
Yeah. So your product was what, Europe, Mediterranean? Well,
40:07
I started as the UK and Ireland, and then over time I managed to work my way
40:12
up, a little like you have today, from the galleys.
40:15
You've got to. Up, up, up, up a little bit higher. So I've worked my way through,
40:19
yeah. And ultimately, my last job in the UK was as the Vice President for Europe,
40:23
Middle East and Africa. Okay. Was that a challenge in itself?
40:26
Very much so. I mean, we had the pandemic in the middle of it.
40:29
So, I mean, if there's ever been a bigger challenge, I don't know what it is.
40:33
But yeah, overnight we went from sailing everywhere to sailing nowhere.
40:36
I think you were spot on with the, it was a pandemic, wasn't it?
40:39
Yeah, exactly. And then obviously I played a key role in trying to get us back
40:44
sailing. And you remember we did some cruises around the UK and we were doing
40:47
testing for this and testing for that. But it all feels like a distant memory now, thankfully.
40:53
And we've bounced back really strongly, not only in Europe, Middle East and
40:56
Africa, but around the world.
40:57
And I moved to China really to restart cruising here because we're a little
41:02
bit later than elsewhere. I was going to say, why China? Because to me,
41:05
it was the Caribbean always, Mediterranean as well, obviously.
41:09
China's the foreign of the world, obviously. And why China?
41:13
Well, Royal Caribbean's been in China since 2008. So it's long been an ambition.
41:19
I think Royal Caribbean is a very national, international cruise line.
41:24
So we pride ourselves on being a cruise line that offers cruises around the
41:29
world. And we sail from more home ports than any other company.
41:33
And we're a very international product. So we've got programs in Singapore,
41:39
programs in Hong Kong, programs in Australia.
41:42
So we are a global business and i think you think about the size of the population
41:46
the opportunity here it's enormous so it's it's definitely the right place to
41:51
be for the long term and we'll,
41:53
we'll slowly but surely build the business here yeah can i ask you a personal question this is
41:58
something that i think is i'm going to say it's a big upheaval because you brought
42:02
your family as well yes we did i've always traveled really in all of my roles
42:07
that i've done over time but we've never moved as a family.
42:12
And really, this time round, the family were like, no, we want to do that.
42:15
We want to go. Obviously, the children are a bit older.
42:19
The sense of adventure may be a little bit stronger. And we decided that we
42:23
were going to do it. So, yeah, up we left, three boys. I think we moved from
42:28
the UK to here in about six weeks' notice. Wow.
42:33
And we were here. Yeah. It was fortunate it was over a summer holiday season.
42:36
So the school break facilitated it, if you like.
42:40
But yeah, we moved and we've been here ever since. So it's been a really incredible
42:44
experience. And you enjoy the lifestyle here?
42:46
Yes, I think so. I mean, it's very different. Shanghai is an awesome city.
42:51
Isn't it? Yeah. I mean, to visit, I'd argue there's not a better place to visit
42:56
in the world than Shanghai. To live here has a few more tricky things to navigate.
43:01
Schooling is different.
43:03
The way of life is different. But as a place to visit, it's phenomenal,
43:07
and I would recommend it to anyone.
43:09
Well, I've travelled the world, and this opened my eyes. Shanghai to me was,
43:12
in my words, an industrial city.
43:14
But when you come here, it's westernised, things move, although traffic's extremely
43:19
heavy, but that's another story.
43:21
But it just works, doesn't it? Very clean, very safe.
43:24
Yes, it's incredibly safe, and I think that's one of the things that struck
43:28
us was how safe we felt and how clean the city is.
43:32
Everything works. I know there's been a little bit of traffic.
43:35
I think that actually is not necessarily the real experience because I think
43:40
what we've had this last couple of weeks is a lot of big, big sporting events in Shanghai.
43:45
We had the Ladies Golf. We had the Shanghai Masters.
43:48
We had the big music festival. So we've had an awful lot in a very condensed
43:52
period of time, which I think has brought a lot of international visitors to the marketplace.
43:57
But outside of that, everything works pretty well. It does, doesn't it?
44:00
I mean, can I just now move on to the tennis tournament we went to see? Thank you very much.
44:06
Absolutely fantastic. Hardly any of us have seen the tennis before.
44:09
And when we came, we got a VIP box, et cetera. How did you manage to get us in there?
44:14
Well, because you're very special. I love it. So it's not every day that you
44:19
get anti-travel visiting Shanghai.
44:21
But no, I think, look, the tennis sponsorship has become part of what we do
44:26
here in China, certainly last year, this year, and we have another year next year.
44:31
We were looking for a property that would help elevate the brand to our target audience.
44:36
And the synergy between people who play and watch tennis and the guests we want
44:40
to come and sail on Royal Caribbean is very close.
44:43
So it made a good fit and it made a good it was a good prospect for us,
44:47
we did it in year one and it was phenomenally successful so it was easy for
44:51
us to kind of commit to year two and three
44:54
and it's worked really well and you saw the level of exposure the brand got
44:57
when you were there everywhere the
44:58
royal caribbean masters court to the relaxation area to our pop-up shop,
45:04
and then of course the branding in the the center courts the digitalized boards
45:09
i mean huge visibility for the brand and of course it's it's a great audience and
45:13
we as part of that get a few hospitality tickets and
45:17
yeah it the timing wise it just works to kind of tie in with our fortune awaits competition
45:23
and it's a delight to be able to bring some of our best agents from the uk over
45:26
to experience these things and my job is to make sure they have a great time
45:30
and want to come back and they want their customer bases
45:33
to take a look at this i can actually say you've done 100 percent perfectly
45:37
right because we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves
45:39
little niggle this morning at 8 15 walking around fridge freezers but there we go,
45:43
that's the the name of the game well you've got a bit of learning bit of learning
45:46
bit of education a lot of learning i tell you now then i'm just going to go
45:50
back a step or two this is the second year you've done this agent's trip and this year we had to have a.
45:56
Fan and use it in the most funny whatever way who came up with the idea.
46:02
Well, we had, I mean, Fortune awaits one, I think, probably the idea originated with myself.
46:09
I wanted a vehicle that would enable us to put Spectrum of the Seas,
46:14
which is the fabulous ship we have here in Shanghai, on the map and on the radar
46:20
of UK travel agents and travel agencies.
46:23
From my experience in the UK, I know Travel Weekly is a great vehicle to do that.
46:27
So, there's a little bit of co-calibration or co-creation if you like.
46:33
With the lovely Lucy Huxley and we curated a program that we felt would give
46:39
us the chance to bring great agents out here who could make a difference,
46:44
it's going to take time to kind of educate people because I don't think the
46:48
products out here are necessarily,
46:51
even in the top 10 product priorities that any travel agency in the uk would have,
46:56
my point to all of them is it should be right because i'm telling you now there's
47:01
no better place to visit than shanghai there's no better ship to go on the spectrum
47:05
of the seas i think when you have the opportunity to go to south korea to japan,
47:10
to vietnam you are going to see destinations unlike anything you've experienced
47:15
before unless of course you've immersed yourself in this world before exactly right,
47:20
Let me brighten up your week. Join me, Ken Garrity, every Tuesday,
47:24
2 till 4pm for Ken Garrity and Friends on Radio Alty.
47:27
Our great guests, local stories, the latest weather and fabulous music.
47:32
Also, Ken's travels with tips and updates. So join me every Tuesday, 2 till 4pm.
47:40
Yeah, lots more coming up immediately from Ben as I've watched the clock and
47:44
it's ticking faster than ever this week.
47:46
But if you ever want to book a holiday, Royal Caribbean especially,
47:49
actually, go and see a local independent travel agent or cruise supplier.
47:53
And they've got lots to offer. Navigate to the seas out of Singapore as well, up to Phuket and Penang.
47:58
And you can put that together with a land-based holiday. And that could be your
48:02
home from home for four, five, up to nine nights.
48:05
So have a go. Now, Ben will tell us a bit more.
48:08
Now then, we're talking about the experiences.
48:10
As I say, who put this together? Who thought of the idea of putting things together like this?
48:15
I guess there's a little bit of my experience. I was waiting for that.
48:17
Well, I'll take a little bit of credit occasionally, but no,
48:21
I think that fortune awaits. My marketing team came up with the name.
48:25
We have some very capable marketeers in China. Actually, the creative ingenuity
48:29
came from there for the first one.
48:31
We do have a marketing agency in London that we work with. I mean,
48:34
there's a lot of time goes into the creative, getting the messaging,
48:38
pulling in cues of China, cues of Spectrum,
48:43
cherry blossoms of Japan, all the different important elements come together in a great creative.
48:48
And year one, I think we sent chopsticks to everybody, which I loved,
48:51
branded Spectrum chopsticks which i thought would be easy it was easy to make
48:56
them it was harder to send them to the uk.
48:58
But then everyone had to eat chinese food take a picture and of course the big
49:01
bit is the travel weekly training module the training is really important because
49:05
we want people to vest and demonstrate they're keen to learn
49:09
because those types of agents are the ones that are going to be committed to
49:12
selling your product later on well having been
49:14
and went through it i totally agree with that it's knowledge is king and,
49:19
if you know it you can sell it
49:20
to your clients clients to get the product knowledge before they arrive.
49:24
And that's what they need to know. Yeah, exactly. And then this year,
49:27
as you rightly pointed out, you won with the fan.
49:29
Yes. Am I Ming Emperor? Yes.
49:33
And you certainly went well in on the fancy dress.
49:37
So I think you were the best-dressed applicant this year.
49:40
Thank you. You were probably the best-dressed last year, but the criteria was
49:44
chopsticks and Chinese food, not fancy dress. Yeah, yeah. But this year,
49:48
you were on point. Thank you so much.
49:49
And congratulations on being one of the winners. Yeah. Can I say thank you as
49:53
well? I know I'm just complimenting you all the time.
49:55
But it just, from me and a lot of time and travel, this has been probably the
50:00
best or one of the best trips I've ever been on and looked forward to.
50:04
And as I say, I was very emotional when I learned I won.
50:07
And so thank you for that. But moving on to selling.
50:11
So we're on the ship, as I say, and we're in the China Sea at the moment.
50:15
Slightly grey, but never mind.
50:17
It's liquid sunshine out there. there's so much to do on the ship,
50:21
Oh, this ship has really got something for everybody. They've got people looking
50:26
for adventure and excitement. We've got things like I Fly by Ripcord. We've got Flow Riders.
50:32
We've got bumper cars. We've been playing pickleball. We've had badminton.
50:38
We've got, I think, 33 different restaurant choices. We've got three major production
50:43
shows. We've got guest entertainers.
50:46
This ship will entertain you.
50:49
Yeah i mean all of the guests that we've had here including yourself this week
50:53
i think we've been on this sailing for five days we've all just said there's
50:57
not enough time to do all the things we want to do,
51:00
i mean you just run out of time there is so many things to see you do there's
51:05
shops to visit there's places to hang out and have coffee,
51:09
there's pools there's saunas the solariums i mean it's got everything yeah and
51:13
then you build into that that we take you to some amazing places just Yesterday, we were in Sasebo.
51:20
Yeah. Incredible Japanese village or town. Yeah. Some of the things we had the
51:25
chance to do, we were sailing on a catamaran.
51:28
We did a visit to the temple with some Zen healing in the morning.
51:33
We've done so many different things.
51:35
It's just a world of adventure. Well, on Spectrum, there's so much here and so much to go forward to.
51:40
We've tried to get 10 days in four, I think. That's what you've done to us. But we still want more.
51:45
So we couldn't come back next year, I'm sure. But there we go. that's another story.
51:49
However, so future for Spectrum and for the Royal Caribbean in the Far East,
51:54
what is it? So Spectrum is the ship for Baoshan, which is the port here in Shanghai.
52:00
And we love this ship. The ship is tailored to a very international audience, but it also is great.
52:06
For the Chinese guests. We have a variety of sailings. We have four nights,
52:11
five nights, three nights.
52:13
And we do that because we try to offer the right cruise length for the right guest.
52:18
We have a Chinese market, a young Chinese market that likes to get away for three or four nights.
52:23
We have an audience in the summer that likes to get away for longer.
52:27
We have international guests coming in to Shanghai, increasing numbers every year.
52:31
I think this year we'll be carrying nearly seven or eight hundred international
52:35
guests on every sailing so we sail predominantly to japan and south korea,
52:42
And on a five-night sailing, you'll comfortably pick up two ports.
52:45
And it's a very popular mechanic. If we do our longer sailings,
52:49
which we do an eight-night sailing once a month, those are really centered on
52:54
visiting what I call the internationally iconic sort of destination.
52:59
So I've deliberately done for next year. We've got this great itinerary, eight nights.
53:04
It's Osaka, Osaka, Tokyo, Tokyo. Now that's quite unusual.
53:09
But it's because I want to do an overnight in Osaka and an overnight in Tokyo.
53:14
But if you say to someone, it's an eight-night cruise that goes to Osaka in
53:16
Tokyo, they think, oh, it's not very appealing. I want more ports.
53:20
But I'm telling you, you've got double day in Osaka, double day in Tokyo.
53:24
So you've got four port days in your cruise.
53:27
And from those two cities, there are so many options.
53:31
I mean, Tokyo is still voted the number one city in the world to visit.
53:36
Osaka is fantastic. It's a great gateway to Universal Studios.
53:41
It's a gateway to Mount Fuji. There are so many things you can go and see within a not too long drive.
53:48
I want people to have the ability to really go and find what they're looking for.
53:52
Royal Caribbean is about having the holiday your way. Go to Japan and design
53:57
your own agenda when you get there
53:58
and have a couple of days freedom to go and see what you want to see.
54:02
And that's if you choose not to take up our offer of some of our fantastic tours,
54:06
which will make life very easy for you if you don't want the planning.
54:10
We will allow you to do that. That's great. We experienced some yesterday.
54:13
It flowed, it moved. They took us to some really good places.
54:17
And just to concur with your Japan theory, in the last five years,
54:21
Japan has risen extremely well.
54:25
And having been there, I've done Osaka, you've got Nara, Kyoto, the ancient capitals.
54:29
Tokyo, you've got Mount Fuji as well. Shinkansen, the train between the two.
54:33
Blah, blah. It goes on. And Japan is, I think, going to be the number one seller
54:37
again next year. I think so. I think so.
54:40
I mean, everyone's familiar with social media, but I think the new boy or the
54:45
new girl in town is the AI search, how people are using AI to search for inspiration about their vacations.
54:53
And I can tell you now, if you put into where's hot in the travel landscape
54:58
into AI, it'll tell you Japan.
55:00
Yeah, it certainly is. And people are doing that. So they're going to be looking for ways to go.
55:04
But it's also intimidating. If you've not been to the Far East before,
55:07
not everybody feels comfortable.
55:10
Royal Caribbean gives you that comfort blanket.
55:14
It's so true. It's a GA. Yeah. It's a GA of travel. You just put on the jacket
55:19
and you can literally travel around with Royal Caribbean as your comfort blanket.
55:25
And it's so easy to do. And then I think once you get comfortable with it,
55:29
I have no doubt at all, lots of people will then choose to visit longer stays,
55:35
land-based programs, etc., etc.
55:37
But as a start of a 10...
55:39
Our product is a great intro. It is. And I'm just going to agree with you once more.
55:43
Talking to the other agents on the trip, which you do, and they're all saying it's like coming home.
55:48
And as you've been into China or into Japan, and you want to get back on board, comfort blanket.
55:54
Yeah. It works. It does. And somebody said that to me yesterday,
55:57
didn't they? After they got back, they said, oh, it's like coming back home
56:01
when you get back on board.
56:02
And that's the feeling you want. You know when you go out for a really long
56:06
walk and a big adventure at home, you feel renewed, you feel revitalized.
56:11
Our guests have that sense when they go out on a day's exploring and they come
56:15
back to the ship, they've got a little bit of familiarity, they can go and have
56:19
a meal that they want to have, and they settle in for the evening with a great show.
56:23
I mean, it's unbeatable. It really is. And just to say something else,
56:27
I can compliment your staff. They knew my name within minutes.
56:30
There's four Kens now around me. They all call themselves Ken.
56:33
I get greeted at each bar I go to, Ken, it's me, and I love it.
56:38
And they're just so hospitable, so nice.
56:40
No language barrier. They all want to speak English with you. So it's comfort.
56:44
Yeah, and I can tell you now, the single biggest thing that makes Royal Caribbean
56:48
a success worldwide is the quality of our crew and the quality of our people.
56:53
And I can tell you, most of our guests that come back, they come back because of the service.
56:59
They've had the crew members they've got to meet. and they really are the magic source.
57:04
They are, they're the inspirations. And on that note, I think it's time to go.
57:09
I'm going to play your next record, It's China Girl, you love it. It's a classic, love it.
57:24
There we go. That was Ben from Royal Caribbean and the president of Asia.
57:31
And can I just say, fantastic trip, Ben. I was emotional when I won it.
57:36
It was lived up more than ever on the trip itself. Thank you for everything you put in.
57:41
And also thank you to all my travelling companions in the travel business throughout the country.
57:46
And brilliant trip, brilliant people. Love to do it again. If you want to go
57:50
on Spectrum of the Seas or Navigator or anything in the Far East,
57:53
In fact, anything in the world Caribbean, contact your local independent travel
57:56
agent, your cruise supplier, or me, Ken Garrity Traveling in Altrincham.
58:00
I'll be pleased to book you on your next holiday.
58:02
A bit of local news.
58:04
Bowdoin Hockey Club are having their fantastic bonfire night this Friday.
58:09
And the unmissable drone light show, it says here. So the children's fireworks start at 7pm.
58:15
The drone light show starts at 7.20. And followed by 8.10.
58:21
Some more fireworks. and the grand finale at 8.45. And they may be a bit louder, it says here.
58:26
Bonfire is put into life at 7.40. Lots of food, drinks, etc.
58:32
Talking about food, I went to a local new restaurant this last week and it is
58:38
called Whitechapel and it was where the former Georgian Dragon Pub is near the Crestacourt Hotel.
58:44
And a fabulous meal there, served by Bish, Jack and Maz.
58:47
So if you want to get in there, that's an Indian restaurant,
58:49
the Whitechapel restaurant. and that's...
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Let me brighten up your week. Join me, Ken Garrity, every Tuesday,
59:48
2-4pm, And for Ken Garrity and friends on Radio Alty.
59:52
Our great guests, local stories, the latest weather and fabulous music.
59:56
Also, Ken's travels with tips and updates. So join me every Tuesday, 2 till 4pm.