Royal Caribbean embraces a new beverage trend
The cruise line is leaning heavily into a changing market, which could help it attract younger cruisers and make some current passengers happy.
When you sail with Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian or MSC Cruises, bars figure prominently into the proposition.
All four cruise lines offer all-you-can-drink packages, and unless you're in your cabin, you're never all that far from a bar or your next drink.
Related: Royal Caribbean gives passengers something they asked for
Traditionally, cruise lines have featured tropical drinks by the pools and beverages themed to the venues they're being served in elsewhere on the ship.
Royal Caribbean, for example, offers a deeper beer selection in its pubs while Bolero's, a Latin-themed club/bar serves "Cuban mojitos, Brazilian caipirinhas, and your favorite classic cocktails to the sound of a four-piece band playing salsa, cumbia, merengue, samba and more," according to the cruise line.
Royal Caribbean (RCL) recently launched a new menu its its Schooner Bar, the piano bar that's on every ship in the fleet. The cruise line detailed the new menu on its website:
If you love a great old fashioned, you’ll find five versions of it on the menu at Schooner Bar. ... You can also dial up your night with a glamorous champagne cocktail, topped with Domaine Chandon and sweetened with an Angostura-doused sugar cube. Or sip your way across the Caribbean with a Zacapa rum-spiked daiquiri, shaken hard and double-strained, or a classic Papa Doble, prepared with Bacardi Superior rum, lychee and grapefruit juice. If you’re a fan of the Tom Collins, you’ll find that, too — plus four additional versions that each spotlight a different spirit.
Those are all versions of classic cocktails with modern twists. Royal Caribbean has also been working on expanding its nonalcoholic and low-alcohol beverages, as those have become a trend among Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z (a generation that still has members under the legal drinking age of 21).
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Royal Caribbean embraces low- and no-alcohol beverages
On a media sailing before Royal Caribbean's new flagship Icon of the Seas began sailing with paying passengers, the cruise line's director of beverage operations, Ed Eiswirth, held an event where his team showed off the more than 100 new drinks created for the ship. It was a visually impressive lineup that leaned into fun and featured many nonalcoholic options.
These weren't your classic virgin cocktails that simply copy alcoholic drinks without the alcohol. Instead, Eiswirth's team created mixology-driven beverages designed for all ages.
The strategy makes sense because Icon of the Seas has multiple bars on board, including the Lemon Post in the Surfside area, which is designed for families. The strategy also applies to spots including the Rye & Bean coffee bar in the AquaDome and even the Swim & Tonic swim-up bar on the pool deck.
Essentially, Royal Caribbean wants to give underage passengers, as well as light and non-drinkers, a chance to taste mocktails that live up to the standards set by the on-board cocktail menu.
Eiswirth discussed bringing the concept to the entire fleet.
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Royal Caribbean added a zero-proof menu
Catering to people looking for no-alcohol and low-alcohol drinks isn't completely new for Royal Caribbean. The company first added a zero proof menu to its ships in 2021.
Eiswirth commented on his team's efforts to serve this audience in a statement reported by Royal Caribbean Blog.
"I stumbled on a lot of research around sober-curious guests and especially around Gen Z being super curious," he said. "These are young people who still drink alcohol, but they consume a lot less. They’ll go out at night and buy one really nice, handcrafted cocktail and then switch to something that’s no alcohol but that has just as much care taken and is really curated as well as a cocktail."
Eiswirth wanted his mixologists to give the same care to nonalcoholic and low-alcohol beverages that they did to inventing new cocktails.
"We really took the time to curate them as stand-alone drinks without alcohol and really look at blending flavors that work together versus a stock virgin daiquiri that is just an alcoholic drink we’ve taken the alcohol out of. We didn’t even consider putting alcohol in these as we put them together," he added.
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