Discovering my Cruise-A-Nality

Carnival Corp.’s cruise personality quiz is now available for a try-out on the WorldsLeadingCruiseLines.com website. It is one attempt by Carnival to help consumers wade through the cruise choices and find one that fits their personality and interests.

I found it a fun tool, part of a growing emphasis at Carnival on using games to teach, train and convey marketing themes. For some time, Carnival has been offering travel agents games that can be played interactively with other agents as a means of learning Carnival’s ships and features.

Just as with the agent games, Carnival is offering prizes to those who take an online quiz to learn their “Cruise-A-Nality.”

The game starts on the deck of a cruise ship with 30 animated avatars. Behind them is a cruise railing, the sea beyond it. Many of the avatars hold something in their hand — a fan, a pingpong paddle, a barbell or a glass of wine — that they periodically raise or wave with.

The quiz has six questions: the first is “Where do you want to travel?” with options such as “Tropical paradise,” “Someplace European” or “Anywhere. I just like the Ocean.”

Choosing one of the answers changes the background. Pick “Someplace European,” for example, and the ocean is replaced by a European-looking harbor scene.
The next prompt is “I’ll be cruising with…” allowing choices such as “Grandkids,” “My friends” or “It’s gonna be a big group.”

After submitting a second answer, a space ship descends to beam up some of the avatars onboard. As the rest of the questions are answered, more avatars are eliminated until one remains.
For my answers, I was dubbed an “Amorous Admiral.” My avatar was a tuxedo-clad man with a dozen roses, who intones “Your eyes are as blue as the ocean, and I am lost at sea.”

In the lower right-hand corner, there is a button labeled “This isn’t me. Retake the quiz,” for those who feel they’ve been miscast.

The quiz also offers up three Carnival Corp. brands as suggested matches for your cruise persona.

By the way, the landing page for the site has a blue box in the upper left-hand corner that says “Contact Your Travel Professional Today.” The box remains static as a slide show displays each of Carnival’s nine brands. But it disappears once a viewer moves to the Cruise-A-Nality quiz.