Voyager is a floating testament to the power of ingenuity when creativity itself must be managed. In an era obsessed with efficiency, Royal Caribbean can get the kind of ship it wants -- the kind of ship it needs -- only by abandoning the conventional wisdom about managing large projects. RCCL routinely sacrifices management simplicity for other values -- like inspiration. For the Voyager project, consultants, engineers, designers, experts, and architects are spread across 10 time zones. The company often hires firms that have no shipbuilding experience to design critical spaces. And although everyone knows who is ultimately in charge, often it seems that no one is in charge. The creation may be chaotic, but the ship cannot be. So Voyager of the Seas is a ship designed for people who don't necessarily fancy ships, using a management process that looks something like a kids' soccer game. The product: a vessel of an exactitude that would do NASA proud.
Still, the idea that you would stumble onto creating the largest cruise ship in history by accident almost defies belief -- it certainly defies modern corporate mythmaking, not to mention reasonable business practices. But there you have it: Royal Caribbean says that while everyone was busy trying to make Voyager a great vacation spot, building the ship got a little out of hand -- a case study in strategic innovation, tactical improvisation, and relentless execution.
Richard Fain stops in the middle of one of the most unusual spaces ever created on a ship. Fore and aft, a promenade stretches the length of a football field. The enclosed boulevard, which runs down the center of Voyager, is 30 feet wide and 4 stories high. At either end, it spills into Voyager's two 10-story atria. Because the Royal Promenade is just eight weeks from delivery, construction activity is intense. And though it is still clogged with scaffolding, shipwrights, and a half-dozen cherry pickers, the promenade is already expansively dramatic.
The space is huge and delicately balanced -- a bubble in the heart of a big ship -- a place where instinct and logic would envision lots of strong steel beams. A 24-hour café, a sports bar, a perfume shop, a casino, and an English pub line the pedestrian level. On the upper floors, cabins with bay windows overlook the space. The promenade's deck is paved with cobblestones, similar to those lining the sidewalks of Turku, the Finnish city that is Voyager's birthplace. The wide walkway meanders around trees and past an antique roadster, wrought-iron lampposts, and even an authentic English telephone box.
Fain traveled to Finland from Miami to inspect the progress on Voyager. The kinetic CEO understands the importance of the promenade's details, as does Harri Kulovaara, the 47-year-old senior VP of marine operations who inspired the idea. Not quite a hotel lobby, not quite a plaza, not quite a galleria, the promenade has been a difficult space to perfect. Too narrow, and it will feel like an alley; too wide, a warehouse; too bright, a shopping mall; too kitschy, a beachside arcade.
But if the Royal Promenade works the way Kulovaara and Fain hope, it will become Voyager's main street and its signature. If it fails -- if it "strangles," a word that Fain has used in moments of concern -- it will leave the most expensive passenger ship in the world with a hollow center.
Fain stops in the middle of the promenade, head canted back, arms crossed over his chest, face clouded. Kulovaara, who listens more than he talks, stands at one elbow; RCCL president and COO Jack L. Williams, 50, stands at the other. Fain scowls at a black truss overhead that's loaded with sophisticated lighting.
"We didn't want to break up the ceiling," says Fain. "It divides the room, visually." An RCCL lighting expert reminds the group why the lights have ended up on this central bracket. "We took the lights and effects off the tops of the shop signs and facades, and we put them on this truss."
Fain is famous for his precise memory, for his ability to recall conversations and plans, even when eight ships are in design and construction at once. "You tell me we need to gather the lights," he says, "so they are not visible on top of the facades from the cabins above -- but now everyone can see them. They hang down four feet! Right in the middle!"
Fain and Kulovaara have labored to create a sense of openness about the promenade. Space on ships is such a precious commodity -- crammed behind every panel are conduits, ducts, pipes, cables -- that protecting open space can feel as formidable as holding back the sea. "We've been so anxious about preserving the space," says Fain. "What we wanted was one big area -- open, free."
He moves on. Sometimes the three men -- Fain, Kulovaara, and Williams -- find a problem and immediately offer a solution. Sometimes they just leave a clear impression of what isn't right.
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