Royal Caribbean said touchless elevator buttons are a relatively new feature the company offers on at least some ships.
Photo: sebastien salom-gomis/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Can anxious cruisers breathe a sigh of relief? A video of touchless elevator buttons on a ship shared on Twitter earlier this week from a passenger with a “mind blown” emoji didn’t float many boats.
“Great solution for an airborne virus,” someone pointed out. Another joked about the low likelihood that a drunk cruiser would be able to line up their finger without touching anything.
“All fun and games until some 5 year old waves his hand in front of the whole thing and you stop on all 18 floors,” chimed in another.
A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean said buttons are a relatively new feature the company offers on at least some ships. They aren’t mandated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or even necessarily related to the pandemic but instead are an “innovation” aimed at improving the guest experience.
More improvement is needed. According to the CDC’s website, 100 cruise ships currently in the water or planning to operate in U.S. waters as of Thursday had reported cases of Covid-19, including 100% of those cruise ships carrying passengers. Last week the CDC recommended avoiding cruise travel, regardless of vaccination status. Some cruise lines are now canceling select voyages as Omicron case counts rise.
With those odds, it is hard to imagine any kind of elevator innovation really righting the ship. But, hey, there’s always the stairs.
Write to Laura Forman at laura.forman@wsj.com
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Appeared in the January 8, 2022, print edition as ‘OVERHEARD.’
