Royal Caribbean to introduce single cabins – would you Adam and Eve it?

I’ll be re-acquainting myself with life on board a Royal Caribbean ship next week, cruising from Dubai on board Brilliance of the Seas. For once, I’ll have Mrs Greybeard with me – she had to stay at home when I was invited to the inaugural cruises of both Oasis and Allure of the Seas, although she did impress on her Louboutin heels when Independence of the Seas was launched in Southampton.
We’ll be sharing a double cabin, and even if I was alone it would be impossible to have anything else because until now Royal has ignored the growing movement to provide accommodation for solo travellers.
British lines such as Fred Olsen and Saga have long catered for singles, P&O shoe-horned 18 single cabins into Azura, and NCL made a clever decision when adverse opinion forced them to re-think the tiny loft suites on Epic and market them as studio cabins for singles.
Now Royal has announced they will be fitting single cabins on Radiance of the Seas – a sister of the 2,100-passenger Brilliance – when it goes into dry dock in May. Don’t get too excited though; there will be just three of them, and they will be windowless inside cabins.
Company president Adam Goldstein didn’t sound too enthusiastic about the idea when he was asked about it on Allure in November. In a typically dry response, he said the company’s business model was based on obtaining maximum possible occupancy.
Those three single passengers could be in for a lonely time when the newly re-fitted Radiance returns to Alaska in June.
Radiance entered service 10 years ago. Another ship of the same vintage, Norwegian Sun, is also emerging from a re-fit which has added a churrascaria restaurant to match the one which debuted on Norwegian Epic last year.
Like the similar Brazilian steakhouse introduced on Allure of the Seas to serve large chunks of meat carved at tableside it replaces a former “healthy eating” restaurant.
Seems that cruise passengers are more likely to be asking “where’s the beef” rather than searching out salads when it comes to dining options – which is why Norwegian Dawn and Spirit will get the same treatment later this year.
* For the benefit of my American readers, I should probably explain that “would you Adam and Eve it?” is Cockney rhyming slang for “would you believe it?”