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Making industry waves, Royal Caribbean just became the second major cruise line to staff its ship’s pools with lifeguards, rolling out a brand new water safety program on the Oasis of the Seas, one of the world's largest cruise ships, this past weekend. Before 2017, Traveler Reader's Choice Award-winning Disney was the only major American cruise company to employ on-board lifeguards—a move that came about after a near-drowning on one of their ships in 2013.
Considering most cruise ships don’t have lifeguards (and what’s more fun than floating in a pool in the middle of the ocean?), this is a pretty big step, especially for travelers with children. “We are a family brand,” Lyan Sierra-Caro, Royal Caribbean's manager of corporate communications, told Cruise Critic. Pool-based fun is an “important aspect of the cruise vacation for all guests, and we are doing everything we can to ensure they have the safest vacation possible.”
Having lifeguards on cruises is an important safety measure. In recent years—and in the wake of other tragic incidents—guards at sea have been a talked-about topic. In 2015, a young boy nearly drowned in a pool on a Royal Caribbean ship; and this past summer, an eight-year-old was found unconscious in a pool on RC's Anthem of the Seas.
Beyond lifeguards dotting every on-ship pool, Royal Caribbean’s new water safety program also includes a 15-minute safety talk that both kids and adults can attend on embarkation day, and life vests for children ages 4 to 12 (a feature Royal Caribbean added to their ships in 2015).
Royal Caribbean expects the full water safety program, lifeguards included, to be fleet-wide by June. Until then, we’ll keep a watchful eye to see if it’s a policy change that other cruise ships hop on board with, too.