Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

Among the first to establish private islands in the Caribbean for the exclusive use of their passengers, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL) positions itself as an adventure vacation. At the request of LandDesign, RCCL’s new-build A&E firm, IDEAS formed a team including our partners at Integrated Insight to develop a new creative concept, master plan, and guest experience portfolio for their two unique destination islands: Coco Cay in the Bahamas and Labadee on the coast of Haiti.

Beginning with a StoryJam™ workshop to align the objectives and vision, we developed a complete Experience Design Plan including a new core guest experience story and origin myth for each island and attraction design plan for two waterparks as well as ocean and land-based guest experiences. These conceptual plans also included dining and merchandise enhancements, recommended sourcing options, updated operations protocols, and recommendations for pre- and post-visit cruise guest engagement.

Integrated Insight brought its extensive experience in the cruise industry, including product design and business performance planning to provide new concept testing to validate these guest experience improvements. Qualitative research was conducted among past RCCL cruisers as well as other past passengers familiar with other cruise lines and among cruise ‘intenders’ or those with an interest, but still contemplating booking their first cruise. Results provided clear direction on product investment to maximize appeal and differentiation in the highly competitive cruise segment, as well as the effectiveness of proposed messaging.