Deep-Sea Drones
Norway-based cruise line Hurtigruten AS has teamed up with Silicon Valley’s BluEye Robotics to introduce 15-pound diving drones on expedition ships, including the hybrid-powered, 530-passenger MS Roald Amundsen that debuts in Antarctica next October. The drones can dive down to 150 meters in waters that are often too cold for human plunges—and are equipped with four thrusters and a wide-angle video camera adapted for low-light conditions. All that content gets streamed in real-time to screens around the ship (even to your personal devices), so you can virtually join a pod of whales while sipping a martini or lying in bed.
Helicopters and Submarines
There's a reason why Australian river cruising company Scenic is calling its debut oceangoing vessel a "Discovery Yacht." Intrepid travelers on the luxurious, all-suite, 228-passenger Scenic Eclipse—which launches in the Mediterranean in August—will be able to explore their surroundings in all sorts of unconventional ways: surveying Italy's active volcanoes by helicopter and the icy Arctic Ocean via private submarine. These are features you’d expect on the mega-yachts of the rich and famous—not a casual vacation that starts at around $5,000 per person per week.
Driverless Vans
If you thought Google Inc. and Uber Inc. were leading the autonomous vehicle race, you overlooked a contender: Royal Caribbean International. The company is working with French company Navya SAS to launch Arma, a fully autonomous shuttle service, in "a lot of destinations" to move cruise passengers and crew more efficiently around ports. The self-driving, climate-controlled electric shuttles being tested can carry up to 15 people; they’re expected to be up and running in select ports before 2018 ends.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.