MIAMI – I visited the Bahamas earlier this month without ever leaving Miami.
I watched the waves lap the shore from a cabana with rows of beach chairs and umbrellas leading to the ocean. Trees swayed in the breeze outside the shutters.
Royal Caribbean’s upcoming Royal Beach Club Paradise Island appeared before me, but I was actually in a windowless room called the CAVE in the cruise line’s South Florida headquarters. The space features five screens in a hollow section of the wall that display 3D versions of the cruise line’s designs, from onboard amenities to land-based destinations.
“What it is used for is to show the executives ahead of time what they’re building, what they’re going to build,” Alix Loiseau, Royal Caribbean Group’s Director of Virtual Design & Construction, Newbuild Project Design, told USA TODAY during a tour of the space in mid-April. Here’s how it works.
The CAVE can be used to preview upcoming spaces and destinations like the Royal Beach Club Paradise Island.
What is Royal Caribbean’s CAVE like?
The company’s CAVE stands for Computer Automated Virtual Environment. To get the full effect, viewers must don some special gear.
I was given battery-powered 3D glasses, put on thick, clog-like slippers over my shoes, and stepped onto glass three inches thick. Five projectors brought the beach club to life on screens below, above, in front, and on either side of me.
The cruise line built out a detailed preview, down to the walking paths and sand on the beach.
Loiseau used a remote to steer us through the property, which will welcome its first guests in December, from a walking path to a pool and the Ultimate Family Cabana. It felt like I was standing in a video game – fitting, since Royal Caribbean uses Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.
We explored for around half an hour. At one point, we crossed the beach and dipped beneath the water, revealing the sand and rocks on the seafloor, and even soared up above the property for a different vantage point (virtual reality does have its perks).
What does Royal Caribbean use the cave for?
Royal Caribbean’s Chief Marketing Officer Kara Wallace said the CAVE “allows us to feel the spaces just as a guest would feel.” For example, the cruise line can evaluate sight lines in the theater, the space in the main dining room or how corridors feel.
Before Icon of the Seas was even under construction, Wallace said, the CAVE gave the team an understanding of how the Pearl – part support structure, part art piece in the ship’s Royal Promenade – would open the space up.
The Pearl, located in Icon’s Royal Promenade, is lined with thousands of kinetic tiles.
The technology informs marketing materials as well, helping the company find the best angles to showcase a new product in renderings, she added.
The virtual space is complemented by real-life testing. The cruise line has a team dedicated to building models of structures elsewhere at the office. If a bar counter looks too tall or short inside the CAVE, for instance, they can construct it to the architect’s specifications to check.
The cruise line also does a “chair show” for each new ship. “So, we will bring in every single type of chair that is on our ships, and so we’re testing them for comfortability,” she said. “Are the chairs too big? Is it easy to get in and out of? Can you move them? Or are they too heavy?”
Viewers can step inside the space, which features projections on five screens.
How are cruise ships built?: Here’s an up-close look
How long does the cruise ship design process take?
The process takes years. Wallace said innovation begins “from the guest up.” She estimated the cruise line collects more than three million survey responses over the course of a year, on everything from dining concepts to ship names.
“All of that information really helps go into our planning, our ideation, our innovation cycle,” she said.
Royal Caribbean typically begins dreaming up ships about five years before their launch – though the process can be longer – with construction during two of those. Wallace said the cruise line uses the CAVE “all the way through the development of how we bring the ship to life and into market.”
According to Loiseau, the walkthrough of Royal Beach Club Paradise Island that I saw took about two and a half months to produce. In cases where the cruise line is changing a design or introducing new assets, it could take between one and three weeks.
“We’re really looking at every single aspect of the experience to make sure that it’s contributing to an amazing vacation,” Wallace said. “And there’s no detail that’s too small, really, for us.”
Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Royal Caribbean uses a 3D cave to design its cruise ships. Here’s how.
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