Paul Chutter, chief business development officer at WhiteWater West, has said the cruise industry is rapidly changing, with a traditionally older audience now changing as the cruise experience evolves along with the company’s on-board waterpark installations.

“The perception of the cruise ship experience is changing dramatically,” said Chutter, speaking to Attractions Management. “It used to be terrible buffets and shuffleboard, and now it’s unbelievable entertainment on board, incredible destinations to visit, amazing food and shows.”

According to Chutter, WhiteWater – which works with the likes of Carnival, Norwegian and Disney Cruise Lines – handles around 80 per cent of the cruise ship market in terms of waterpark development.

With the company developing specialist cruise ship equipment, designed to fit on a small footprint while still offering high thrills and spills, it has firmly established itself as the market leader for the cruise sector, with more than 100 engineers as part of the WhiteWater team developing products to withstand the unique engineering challenges found within the cruise industry.

“It is a completely different beast because there are so many considerations that have to be taken into account,” said Chutter. “From weight loads to water, drainage, sizing and footprint constraints to the unique safety standards that come into play, there’s a lot of work to do on a cruise ship.”

In addition to developing waterparks in new builds, WhiteWater also works on retrofitting, which presents a new challenge as thousands of companies work on mass transformations of ageing liners.

“New ships are a bit easier to work with. Where it is very difficult is where they do retrofits,” said Chutter. “They will bring an entire cruise ship into dry dock and they will refit the whole thing in a matter of days. On average, there are about 5,000 vendors per ship, it’s like refitting a small town.

“It’s a very challenging market. It’s one that others have tried their hand at but frankly have not been that successful just because we have the experience, I’m sure if were to go back 20 years we would have had certain challenges as well. But we have learned with our partners and learned as that part of our business has grown.”