Princess TV show worked??

A few months ago I wrote about a TV show being aired on ITV called ‘The Cruise Ship’ which followed crew and guests on Princess’ Royal Princess on its maiden voyages in the Caribbean.

Personally I thought the show was very cheesy and did not portray the true goings on on a cruise line.  The show seemed very staged to me and the guests featured on the show were almost ‘actor’ like.  Even some of the crew who took part seemed to have a scripted personality, maybe its just me being an ex crew member and having an idea of life below deck 2 and it is not all happy and larking around as it was on the TV show. I was cringing at some of the shows content and if I hadn’t been on a cruise holiday before and was contemplating it, this would have certainly put me off…Princess ships anyway.

However apparently the show raised awareness to cruising according to Stuart Leven who is the UK and Ireland Managing Director of Royal Caribbean! But the show was filmed on a  Princess ship I hear you say!

It looks like Princess’ show raised awareness about cruises and Royal Caribbean noticed an increase in bookings on their ships, maybe I was right that the cheesy show put people off Princess line but lead clients to book with Royal Caribbean instead! Or maybe it is the fact that Royal Caribbean are offering All Inclusive and free gratuities on their sailings departing from Southampton in 2015?

So all in all the TV show amused me as well as annoyed me and I reminisced about  the times I spent on board all those years ago and it looks like Royal Caribbean should say thank you to Princess for switch selling clients.