One of the top events at Royal Caribbean's President's Cruise is the Common Ground Event.

This is a Q&A with Royal Caribbean CEO, Michael Bailey, and it's an opportunity for basically

anybody to stand up and ask the CEO a question.

Over the years, this has really been a source of a lot of interesting tidbits, information,

and kind of insight really into what Royal Caribbean is thinking, because these are questions

coming from guests, not media, not not investors but people who have everyday concerns and

some of the questions are really mundane some are very high level thoughts and others are

simply complaints or even compliments quite frankly but the bottom line is we usually get

some insight into what Royal Caribbean is thinking and with a lot of things that Royal Caribbean

says it's not so much what they say but but what's said in between them. And today I want to talk about the five rumors that came out of the president's crew's common ground event that I got out of this event. I wanted to share with you here. Now, these are rumors. So there's a reason why maybe they don't make a blog post or they don't make, you know, news necessarily. But it gives us insight into what to expect him. You kind of run with it as you see fit. Number one, let's talk about the icon class ships and where they'll go beyond Florida. Because one of the questions, which we'll get to in a second, was out putting an icon class ship in California, Southern California. But before that, Michael Bailey couldn't help himself, but talk about the idea that maybe they'd be bringing an icon clash up to Galveston. Now, as of right now, today, they're recording this podcast. There is no confirmation that Real Crime has any plans for that. Keeping in mind, by the way, that RealCriban is going to release its new deployments for 2027 and 2028, beginning in October, and then as it's going to roll through for the next couple

weeks but let's also keep in mind that 2027 is the same year that perfect day Mexico is

slated open that'll happen in September and Michael Bailey said basically everything he possibly

could say without confirming that there's going to be an icon clash of in Galveston. He said I think somebody asked us if we're going to bring an icon class ship in Galveston. He said, I think somebody asked us if we're going to bring an icon class ship to Galveston, we haven't confirmed or denied that. But I would say, you know, we're building Perfect Day Mexico, which is absolutely epic. So I wouldn't be surprised if some big announcement came to Galveston. I'm not saying we're putting an icon class ship there, but I was a gambling man, but I'm not saying we're doing it, end quote. In fact, right after that, he actually called me out and so I hope that Royal Caribbean blog guy is in here because he didn't want me to quit him on it. That's the podcast. I don't think he listens to the podcast. But anyway, this is a well-established rumor. Real Caribbean has hinted about this many times. In fact, Mr. Bailey has himself mentioned this a number of different times that an icon class should go there. So remember that, you know, when you get past Legend of the Seas, which is the next new icon class ship, that'll put it at three. Well, you've run out of ports in Florida. You can put an icon class ship in, right? There's only three that can fit there. Port Canaveral, Port Everglades, Fort Waterdale, and Port Miami. After that, you've run out of ports in Florida. Tampa can't support it. And certainly rural criminals and sale from any of their ports in Florida, even if they could support it. So it's got to go somewhere else. And as Mr. Bailey alluded to, with the opening of perfect Mexico and the, like, I think every single piece of concept art you see with a cruise ship docked, not that that means anything, but anyway, every single piece of concept art has an icon classic ship dock there. To me, like he said, it's pretty much all but confirmed. It's not denied. It's not confirmed, but it's about, you know, a 98% chance of happening kind of rumor. Now, I would have thought actually they would have started this probably last year, maybe, at least when they released the new deployments for 2026 and in 2027, but at any rate, I would be pretty darn surprised if they didn't announce an icon class ship at a galvest him in 2027, 28. That keeps being in mind, by the way, this is all rumors. Who knows? But he definitely did everything he could, but actually confirm that there would be an icon class ship out there. That leads us to rumor number two, which was, well, there if you put, an icon class ship in California. And Mr. Bailey kind of danced around this issue, and he didn't come anywhere close to confirming anything by any means. But he basically talked about the issues and the reasons why it would be difficult, not impossible, to put an icon class ship there. He said, quote, there are challenges with building itineries that we think are marketable enough to sustain a lot of capacity in the market, end quote. And they also said, but we're working on that as well. So I guess not in quote, but now in quote. The bottom line is what that really means is, sure, they'd love to put an icon class ship just about anywhere, but it's a matter of where can they make the most amount of money out there. Like if you put a ship in a market that can't support it, you're going to have an empty ship. A ship that's going to be sailing with less passengers. And in order to fill up the ship, to make up for that, usually you see prices drop. They don't want to do that. They want to put these in markets with high demand and higher prices that go with that. He went on to say, I think we view the California market as a great market for Royal Caribbean. Tens and tens of thousands of Californians come and sell in rural Caribbean every year. And a lot of Californians fly to Europe to sail on those ships. So we're aware of the pent-up demand in California, but there's no comments I can make about any kinds of plans that we have for California at the moment and just say it's that we think about it a lot. So end quote.. That's an interesting quote, really, when you think about it,

because sometimes there are ideas that are out there and they dismiss them.

And in reading between the lines here on this rumor,

I would say that it's not out of the realms of possibility.

Personally, I think if Royal Hermann ever built an icon class ship,

or rather put an icon class ship for California,

I think there'd probably have to be one or two things were more for it to really happen.

Number one, I always kind of assume that if they were ever going to put an oasis class ship for

that matter, or an icon class ship, that perhaps it would split its time, like it would spend

part of the season in California, part of the season in China

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