Royal Caribbean
Royal Caribbean International offers a variety of cruise options to diverse destinations worldwide, featuring award-winning ships and unique experiences.
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The Challenge
Royal Caribbean's 'Cruise Planner' faced several structural and experiential issues that hindered user engagement and sales performance. The existing platform lacked true end-to-end planning capabilities, offering a disjointed and sandbox-like experience that was particularly overwhelming for first-time users.
As a result, RCCL invited Brave People to participate in a 'Design Bake-Off' to propose a unique solution to these gaps.
Our Approach
Inconsistent interfaces between desktop and mobile further fragmented the experience, breaking user familiarity and trust. Additionally, the sales strategy relied heavily on past purchases and static product bundles, failing to capture real-time guest interests and behaviors.
Our solution centered around a fully guided planning journey—allowing users to select interests, explore both paid and free experiences, and build their cruise itinerary with clarity and ease. SAP Hybris predictive analytics were proposed to drive behavior-based recommendations, shifting the sales strategy from reactive to proactive.
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UX Strategy
Understanding the diverse goals of Cruise Planner users, we tailored strategic user flows that emphasized conversion and usability. Key enhancements included “Smart Confirmations” to avoid scheduling conflicts, modals for uninterrupted navigation, and tooltip-guided decision-making.
Guests could independently book excursions and customize schedules for their entire party. Quick ‘Add to Cart’ functions were integrated to reduce friction and improve conversions, while intuitive interface design accommodated even the most complex product combinations without overwhelming the user.
Mobile + Wearables
To ensure continuity across platforms, the entire Cruise Planner was made fully responsive, adapting seamlessly to mobile devices and wearable tech. Features like in-app contextual live chat and real-time scheduling updates enabled users to plan collaboratively and spontaneously.
Notifications were optimized for wearables to support just-in-time prompts and reminders, creating a more dynamic and personal planning experience regardless of device. These innovations positioned the platform for future growth in travel tech ecosystems.
Outcome
The redesigned Cruise Planner offered a significant leap forward in usability, personalization, and revenue potential. By the time a guest reached the planner, a behavioral interest profile had already begun shaping their journey—enabling smarter upsells, real-time targeting, and greater overall engagement.
Ultimately, this proposed redesign laid the foundation for a scalable, data-driven, and guest-centric planning platform that aligned with both user needs and business goals.
What We Did
