Music & Sound: Royal Railway Legend Station

Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas – Royal Railway’s Legend Station: “The Silk Routes”

An immersive dinner theatre, inside a train, on a cruise ship? Why, of course, that’s the Royal Railway. The follow-up to our first show in 2024, this time we raised the bar across all fronts for the new@and improved venue on Legend of the Seas. Traveling across the world following the Silk Routes journey of Marco Polo, guests enjoy the food, scenery, and sounds of China, India, Persia, Turkey, and Italy.

I am the audio designer for this experience, which in this case means even more hats than usual:
– Custom immersive multi-channel sound design of train, ambience, and effects.
– Spatial pre-show train station ambience environment
– Over an hour of original music and score.
– Haptics design for seats that feel every bump and clack.
– Final mix on two shows: a full 90-minute dinner and a 45-min wine tasting.

On the music front, alongside region-specific scoring for each country, I produced essentially a full album of early 1900s jazz, bolstered by the incredible live playing of Sam Best (guitar), Nick Torretta (woodwinds), and Haim Mazar (piano). Those tracks really came to life (and in some cases saved) by these incredible musicians.

This second iteration of Royal Railway was a huge amount of work spanning over two years, and I’m incredibly proud of the results, and early reviews are that guests are loving it.
Thanks to Royal Caribbean for believing in this “platform” (ha!) of a venue, especially Monica Cordera at Royal who pulls off the work of six people in one, to the incredible creative and story team of Zach Kennedy and Kyle Selig, the technical wizards at Brilliant Work (JoeJoe! And Matty going way beyond and above on a haptics rescue), our stage directors Maha McCain & Samantha Souza, and the food and beverage team for delivering an incredible meal.