Exploring the world’s largest cruise ship on AR

Project introduction

Before Symphony of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship launched, Royal Caribbean wanted its customers to get a feel of what a vacation aboard their cruise ships would be like. We built an AR experience with rich detail that let future passengers tour the ship, its staterooms, and ports-of-call like never before.

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Challenge

An AR tour of the ship and its ports-of-call

Most of Royal Caribbean’s passengers then were 45-55. But they wanted to rope in younger folk as well. As they saw it, an on-ship exploratory AR experience would make vacation planning easier for them, because they could walk through the ship before making a booking, instead of having to hear about it from an agent. This would help the cruise line drive future bookings from a diverse group of people.

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Approach

Building the AR experience from scratch

Built on Vuforia, the AR experience already in place was patchy at best. Our Austin and Hyderabad teams worked together to rebuild it from scratch on ARCore & ARKit to make it largely future-proof. The rich experience we have with the Unity engine came into play, too. 

For analytics, we linked to Adobe Analytics to track multiple data streams across channels. All through, we kept an open dialogue flowing back and forth between Team ATX, Team HYD, and Royal Caribbean’s Product Owner. Racing to keep up with evolving needs, our teams delivered on every front in March 2019.

"Working with Mutual Mobile on a day-to-day basis is extremely convenient. Users absolutely loved the work Mutual Mobile has done." - Jared Finegold, Royal Caribbean.

Outcome

The ideal offshore-to-onshore passenger experience

The finished AR tour recreated the ships, their amenities, and journeys in rich detail. It helped future passengers depend less on agents to plan cruises. For one already onboard, the AR guided tour became a fun way to explore their ship. 

Onshore (off-ship)

• It gave people a transparent way to explore the ship and its ports of call.
• Reduced their dependence on intermediaries and travel agents.
• Allowed them more control over every element of the cruise experience.

Offshore (on-ship)

• Gave passengers the option of doing their own onboard AR guided tours. 
• The AR visuals helped them plan visits to the ports of call in advance.
• Helped passengers upgrade parts of their package with more ease.
  

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