Alaska is a refreshing change

As a veteran of more than a dozen Caribbean cruises, I decided to give the heat a break and return to cool, crisp air of Alaska. 

Instead of laying on the beach in Cayman or hoping aboard a catamaran in St Maarten, I was enjoying the wildlife and scenery of America’s biggest state. 

I spoke with Clunis Daley, the hotel director of the Radiance of the Seas, about what makes Alaskan cruises special. 

Mr Daley has been with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines for 26 years. 

He started out as a waiter and worked his way up before he decided to further his studies in Ft Lauderdale while working out of the company’s headquarters in Florida.

When he returned to ship life, he became an executive housekeeper. 

That lasted a few years before working at headquarters on special projects before a another stint at school, this time in Austria to study hotel management. 

His next turn on board saw Mr Daley as food and beverage director and then promoted to hotel director 12 years ago. 

What sort of age group do Alaskan cruises attract on Royal Caribbean?

What we typically see here in Alaska ages ranging from 40 to 55. The majority of our guests between that age range while in the Caribbean, you would see a much, much younger demographic. We also see a lot of repeat guests in Alaska. Year over year, we tend to see the same guests we see the previous year. A lot of them are retired and they just love Alaska — they love the scenery, the people and the landscape. 

There’s a lot to do — how do you decide which excursions to offer?

Royal Caribbean has been coming up here for quite a number of years and we know what works from what doesn’t. 

At the end of the season we look at the tour loads and compare it to the previous year. 

The ones that are not a hot seller, we go back to the tour operators and say “These tours for the past two or three years haven’t been selling. 

‘We need to change and offer something new.’ 

We base this based on the feedback from the guests.

The last time I was in Alaska was in 2006 and I see quite a few new excursions, including being able to go on a boat that was on The Deadliest Catch. How do you decide to offer new types of trips?

We really respond to the guests’ feedback. Through the Guests Survey Card, they tell us what they would like to see. 

Whether in Juneau or Skagway, they tell us they want to see more of this or less of this. And we respond to them.

On the ship, how do you cater activities to the guests? 

In the Caribbean, quite often a 9am to 5pm in port but in Alaska you can be in port at 6am and not leave until 8pm.

Most of our activities are indoors rather than outdoors. In the Caribbean, most of the activities are geared for the outdoors. What we notice with our guests in Alaska is they’ll go ashore if they are not on excursion. 

They’ll walk around and come right back to the ship. What they like to do is come back and watch a movie. Even though we have a cinema, we normally have a second movie showing in the (main) theatre in the afternoon. In the Caribbean, you wouldn’t see that. 

It is understanding what the guests’ need and catering to it.

It seems like you pay attention to what the guests say?

We really do. We look at the top adverse comments over a period of time. We adjust and we tweak because one week we might have 200 Germans and 50 Chinese but none the next. 

We have to listen to the guests carefully and respond to what they’re telling us. It’s not just one demographic, but we look at the whole. We have to respond or we’ll be stagnant.