This one’s fun: Right now, if you were to go down into the subway in New York and hop the S shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, your train would look like this:
The 42nd St. Shuttle, wrapped (photo: Royal Caribbean)
One of the early salvos in the line’s new “The Sea Is Calling. Answer It Royally” ad campaign, the wrap job includes decorations to the insides of the cars as well as the outsides: One car is wrapped like an onboard theater, featuring marquees of the Broadway shows Chicago, Hairspray, and Saturday Night Fever, which are performed, respectively, aboard Royal’s Allure of the Seas, Oasis of the Seas, and Liberty of the Seas. Another is wrapped like an onboard spa, with bamboo, a masseuse, and a fluffy bathrobe hanging beside a tiled spa shower. Another is an open deck, with views of the sea and a Flowrider surfing simulator, with surfer.
Commuters on the trains “will be treated to special surprises during the month,” says Royal Caribbean, which is also encouraging said commuters to snap pictures of the ads and share them on social media — ‘cause hey, it’s free advertising. It’s good for me, too, because it allows me to add a link here to a whole album of pictures without having to worry about copyright infringement.
There is, of course, a snarky side to all this: The S train is the shortest subway ride in New York, running only eight tenths of a mile and taking all of a minute, door to door. It just goes back and forth, over and over, week in and week out, all year long, visiting the same stations — much like many of the itineraries offered by today’s megaships.
Oh c’mon, you know I’m just kidding around. ;-)