Cruise & Ferry Interiors 2021

7 3 visual and other sensory impressions are really successful throughout Odyssey of the Seas.” Putting the dream design team together is an important step for creating any successful cruise ship. “It varies from vessel to vessel, depending on the objective of each ship and what we’re really seeking to achieve, but we always try to ensure that we have complementary competences with the design firms that we select,” says Gonzalez. “We’ve developed real partnerships over the years and the power of their insights perfectly married with our own is very important to us. But we also want to be able to ensure that we are keeping ourselves open to change. That could make the difference between staying current with trends and getting ahead of them.” Simply staying current is not in the Royal Caribbean psyche. “Our ambition is to go beyond what is current and instead to be at the leading edge of ship and hospitality design and delivery,” says Gonzalez. “Because we’re designing several years in advance of a ship’s launch, we have to avoid trends that are prone to becoming fads and look for what will become long-term trends.” The Odyssey of the Seas design team included three firms that have forged a strong partnership with Royal Caribbean over the years: Gensler, WKK Architects and Robert Soldo Design. “We had been working in the past with Gensler primarily on retail, but its scope expanded to take on Playmakers on Odyssey of the Seas and to get some fresh thinking,” says Gonzalez. “Tom Wright and his team at WKK have been working brilliantly with us from the beginning of Quantum and designed the original version of SeaPlex. Due to our interest to introduce Playmakers, WKK was a really instrumental talent to rework the SeaPlex architecture and all its activity zones.” The company worked with Robert Soldo Design on a couple of modernisation projects on Royal Caribbean International’s ships and brought the team onto the Odyssey of the Seas project to strengthen the links across the fleet. “The architecture was already in a very sound place and we had a very clear idea of what we wanted to do so Robert really came in to create the bridges that take the experience on the open decks up to a whole new level,” says Gonzalez. Odyssey of the Seas has countless highlights, but there are several that Gonzalez expects to exceed guest expectations. “We put a lot of emphasis on high quality variety so it’s impossible to single out a favourite – SeaPlex, Playmakers Sports Bar & Restaurant and the suite experience will be widely acclaimed, but everyone is different and there’s something for everyone,” she says. “Personally, the Solarium might be my favourite.” CFI Royal Caribbean has reimagined its signature Italian trattoria into Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar, for Odyssey of the Seas