Following the recent opening of Carnival Studios, each of the big three cruise corporations-Carnival Corporation, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Limited and Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited-now have their own shoreside entertainment facilities.
Cruise ship entertainment is raising the bar higher than it has ever been.
These monster rehearsal spaces are not just for one brand each, either: Norwegian Creative Studios services Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises; Royal Caribbean Production Studio works with Azamara Club Cruises, Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean International.
Carnival Studios is so far only mentioned in conjunction with the singular Carnival Cruise Line, but it stands to reason that it too would be accessible to other Carnival Corp. brands when needed.
The scale of these facilities is particularly remarkable.
Carnival Studios is 44,500 square feet in size, for instance. Even more impressively, the Royal Caribbean Production Studio measures in at 132,500 square feet. These facilities encompass costume manufacturing, audio and training rooms, gymnasiums, offices, housing, rehearsal studios and more.
Royal Caribbean's is actually located at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay location.
Technologically, shows can be mapped out virtually on a computer. Thanks to full-size soundstages, they can also be blocked out exactly as they will be onboard. In effect, it should take no time at all to mount a fully rehearsed show from shoreside to sea.
Such efficiencies allow production teams to focus exclusively on performance quality, dialing in singing and dancing over logistical hurdles.
With such backing, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International have been putting out spectacular musicals straight from Broadway for a few years now. Corporate cousins Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, as well as Azamara Club Cruises and Celebrity Cruises, have respectively benefited from a trickle down of such greatness. Along with Carnival Cruise Line, these have been the remainder to feature the once traditional revues of old-school cruising.
Royal Caribbean Production Studios can not only mimic the main theater aboard its largest Harmony of the Seas but also its AquaTheater and fleet's centrums. So, might competitors Carnival and Norwegian be prompted to craft their own unique performance venues as well?
It's yet another possibility.
As they say, competition is always good for the consumer, and as Las Vegas has pushed itself to deliver ever more dramatic experiences, so too is the cruise industry. In fact, as MSC Cruises is next to hop on the Cirque du Soleil bandwagon, that's yet another variable that could soon up the ante. First aboard the MSC Meraviglia as it launches in June 2017, the ship is eventually scheduled to service the North American market from Miami in 2019.
From that point on the entertainment scene at sea will be very interesting indeed.
Carnival, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean will likely make lots more use of their studio facilities in the years to come, innovating the next big thing in cruise ship entertainment. It's even more likely that additional studios will come online from yet even more brands.
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