'IT COMES DOWN TO THRILL AND CHILL': HOW ROYAL CARIBBEAN REDEFINES THE PERFECT FAMILY VACAY

Michael Bayley, CEO of Royal Caribbean cruise line, jokes that he has laser-like accuracy with a champagne gun.

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Visitors to the many enormous swim-up bars at Royal's Perfect Day islands will be familiar with his sharpshooter skills, walking across the lengthy bar with a Brut gun in hand, ready to spray into the mouths of willing partygoers waist-deep in the Hideaway Beach swimming pool.

"It's taken me many, many times to reach this level of expertise and I'm proud," he says during a press sit-down on the Star of the Seas, recently launched in Orlando, Florida.

So proud, he says, that "I'm thinking about becoming like a champagne sniper. Sneak up on you, shoot you while you put a burger in your mouth and you get some champagne." It's not unlike Royal Caribbean's success at accurately pinpointing guest-satisfaction levels, hitting Net Promoter Scores (NPS) in the mid-80s, which is very hard to do.

Royal also recently crossed the 100-million passenger mark, another precise target met.

And here we are on Star of the Seas, Royal's latest iteration of the Icon class, built to have even bigger, better attractions — like the massive indoor Aquadome where live aquatic show Torque unfolds, or the daring Crown's Edge harnessed walk suspended outside the ship, or the Habitrail-like maze of colorful waterslides crisscrossing the top deck amid gleeful squeals of kiddie (and adult) pleasure.

Not only that, but Star's eight "neighborhoods" such as Central Park, offering specialty dining experiences of perfect 24-day aged beef at Chops Grille, or tasteful innovations such as the Lincoln Park Supper Club, offering a small room of high-end diners exquisite food in a refined chanteuse atmosphere.