THE LATEST IN A 'FLOATING COMMUNITY' 

Can you imagine moving one million people (a city population the size of Vancouver or Orlando) by ship 2,000 miles (3220 km) every year? Not only that, but also providing accommodation, meals, medical attention, entertainment, travel and looking after various other whims during this move. Several luxury cruise companies are doing just that, with significant success. This phenomenon of weaving good business practices with high technology has allowed Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. to be a major player in this exploding billion dollar industry.

As their guest, I recently took an Alaskan cruise to observe technological updating on a 20-year old vessel.

You can only estimate correctly the age of the M.S. Sun Viking, after looking at the log books, such being the care and attention taken by the Norwegian owners of this 8-deck high, 700 passenger, 579 foot-long veteran of the fleet, to keep this ship competitive in the global travel market. It is maintained in immaculate condition, including everything from indoor-outdoor deck rugs and hardwood decks to paint and interior furnishings -- a never-ending maintenance operation.

Physical and technical equipment, as any ship's master these days can tell you is the easy part. Diplomatic handling of the up to 2,300 passengers (on nine constantly moving vessels in RCCLs world-wide fleet) is the hard part. The attentive and efficient service provided by cabin and dining room staff and the hundreds of other peripheral personnel involved in running the 24-hour-a-day operation is amazing. As regular readers know, my view of the service provided in the Canadian hospitality field, both on airlines and in hotels and restaurants, is not flattering. However, aboard the Sun Viking the service was not only efficient but was also warm, congenial and entertaining. Our waiter and busboy provided a new and entertaining trick with every dinner. We reciprocated our last evening aboard by cutting up their tips for the week with scissors and providing scotch tape to glue the pieces back together -- if they could work out the puzzle. After this they may discontinue their trick routine (but, I hope not) in the future.

RCCL's innovative reservation system, called CruiseMatch 2000, allows personal computer users, if they are so inclined and so equipped, to make reservations from their own at-home computers. Navigation equipment aboard allows ship officers to know exactly where they are at any given moment, to a ship-board satellite telephone service available 24-hours a day, (not cheap) to an aboard-ship hospital with a real Norwegian physician and nurses. It's all there and functioning smoothly.

If the rest of the fleet is operating with the same efficiency as the Sun Viking, this must be a very profitable (privately-owned, but I understand may go public soon) operation. Our ship departed on a Sunday, exactly at 5 p.m. It sailed for two days (constant entertainment, casino action or library available) in the calm Inside Passage and docked in Skagway, Alaska for an all-day stay (with optional helicopter trips over the famous gold rush 33-mile long Chilkoot Trail with landings on glaciers or a three-hour trip on the White Pass and Yukon narrow-guage railway). Departure is in the late afternoon for Haines and arrival at 6 PM for an opportunity for an on-shore Chilkat salmon bake or other excursions. The ship departed then for Juneau, the capital of Alaska for a day ashore, leaving at 5 P.M. for an overnight sailing south and another day ashore at Ketchikan (at the height of the salmon spawning run), Alaska's fourth largest city with a population of 14,800. Two more days of sailing brought the ship back to the Port of Vancouver precisely at 7 A.M.

Officers and some other personnel are rotated throughout the fleet, thus building up their competence globally. RCCL sails the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Panama Canal, South America, as well as the Pacific, Atlantic and Alaskan waters and with all types of equipment including the new 2,400-passenger mega-ships, Majesty of the Seas; Monarch of the Seas and Sovereign of the Seas.

A major "plus" during our Alaska trip was perfect weather: constant sunshine and warmth. This is not normal, so plan for a little rain (Ketchikan does average 162 inches -- that's 13.5 feet! -- of rain annually) if you decide to try modern cruising north to Alaska yourself.

More information:

Rich Steck, Manager, Media Relations, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., 1050 Caribbean Way, Miami, Florida 33132.

Phone: 305/539-6572. Fax: 305/536-0140.

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