Destination Elevators Improve Wait Times for Cruise Goers

Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas cruise ship, which departs from Florida’s Port Canaveral to destinations in the Bahamas, has added destination elevators after Icon of the Seas, which launched earlier this year, earned rave reviews for these types of elevators, according to Royal Caribbean Blog. Cruise ships often experience crowding issues when waiting for an elevator, but with destination elevators, guests can go to a panel in the elevator lobby and select the floor they want. The computer then assigns a particular elevator to wait for in the lobby. When the elevator arrives, there are no buttons to press inside, as it already knows which floors it will stop on based on the car’s optimization. This results in less time spent waiting for the elevator. Often on cruise ships, even if an elevator shows up, it could be already full of people and then stop on every single floor someone has called for one. Royal Caribbean officials recently spoke at a conference about how well received the destination elevators have been. Utopia of the Seas may be the first Oasis Class cruise ship with destination elevators, but the line might be considering adding it to other ships.