Surprise! Royal Caribbean Cruises just changed its name, without telling anyone

Something big just happened at Royal Caribbean Cruises, the parent company of Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara and Silversea. But we'll forgive you for not noticing. We didn't either -- at least not initially.

The company changed its name -- and its logo, too.

The name is now Royal Caribbean Group.

The new logo is a slightly less embellished version of the old crown-and-anchor symbol, now with a circle drawn around it.

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"We started exploring the update a year or so ago," the company's global chief communications officer, Rob Zeiger, told TPG on Thursday after being asked about the change, which was never announced. "With a logo planned for the side of our new headquarters, it was a good time to consider whether to update what we had."

Royal Caribbean is in the midst of building a new, $300 million headquarters building in Miami just steps away from where its ships dock in the city. The building originally was scheduled to open this year, but work has been paused due to the coronavirus pandemic.

TPG first spotted the new Royal Caribbean Group name on a press release the company sent out this week to announce a new panel of health experts it had formed in partnership with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings. The company also has rebranded its corporate website with the new name and logo.

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But the old name and logo remains in many places. As of Thursday morning, the page at the Royal Caribbean brand site that offers a biography of the head of the company, Richard Fain, still listed him as chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Cruises.

The company's investor relations website also still had the old Royal Caribbean Cruises branding as of Thursday.

"It's a gradual rollout," Zeiger told us.

Zeiger said the thinking on the name change is that "Group" would help make clear that the company was the parent of the brand Royal Caribbean as well as other lines.

Anybody who reads a lot about cruises will have noticed that many news outlets confuse Royal Caribbean the parent company with Royal Caribbean the subsidiary brand. It's confusing for customers, too.

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The full name of Royal Caribbean, the brand, is Royal Caribbean International. But many news and travel sites, including TPG, shorten that to just "Royal Caribbean."

The change to the Royal Caribbean Group logo is subtle. At first glance, it looks the same as the old logo. But on closer comparison, the difference is clear.

The crown and anchor on the old logo has a slightly different shape, and it sits on a white background.

The redesign is meant, in part, to better differentiate the Royal Caribbean Group logo from the Royal Caribbean subsidiary brand logo, which also features a crown and anchor.

"It's a nice, clean evolution," Zeiger said of the new Royal Caribbean Group logo. "Its shape is sharpened, and you will only see (the crown and anchor) inside the circle, helping differentiate it further from the Royal Caribbean International logo."

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