The internet has been ripe with commentary since Royal Caribbean first announced Icon of the Seas, the biggest ship ever to set sail. It’s been likened to the Titanic, a “Disaster at Sea,” a colossus on water. I may have bought into the slander had I not gone on the ship myself, but after spending three rum-filled days on board, I can assure you that this ship isn’t sinking anytime soon. In fact, how it caters to every single age and interest guarantees the Icon will be sailing—and setting the standard for family cruises—for a long time.
The Icon itself is a layered experience, and I mean that in a physical sense. On your standard cruise, every floor, restaurant and activity is markedly separated. You’re either on the top deck or the mid-deck, with nothing to connect the two but a staircase. Not so on the Icon. Though there are eight different “neighborhoods” on board, the ship is engineered for exploration and discovery, designed to flow people throughout its 18 public decks with the buoyancy of lapping waves. Standing on one level doesn’t prevent you from being integrated into the other; you can somehow be in five places all at once. Disorientating? Yes, but at no point will you ever feel claustrophobic.
OK food, next-level cocktails and the never-ending night
While grabbing an espresso at Pearl, the main café in the Icon’s two-story Promenade, where many of the lounges and bars are located, I looked up through a window into Central Park, the ship’s open-air atrium with upgraded dining concepts and the feel of a high-tax-bracket neighborhood. Here, butterfly sculptures lead you through the entire floor. I followed them to Empire Supper Club every night, trying to woo the dapperly dressed maître d' to just let my friend and me in for a martini and a tune at this intimate jazz and dinner show. After being denied for the third night in a row (they run a tight ship), we settled for the next best thing: Lou’s Jazz and Blues Bar, a Prohibition-era-inspired music venue where the sophistication is strong but Sam’s Solo Sour, a blend of Tennessee rye, lemon juice and cabernet, is stronger.
While the 20 dining concepts aboard offer an incredible variety of cuisines, I found the food pretty bland. The main dining room served up overcooked cuts of steak and underdressed quick-whip salads, and the premium rolls I had at Izumi, the hibachi and sushi restaurant, were muddled and uninspired. For my part, I stuck to Indian food just to feel alive.
I was thoroughly impressed, however, by Royal Caribbean’s cocktail program, which includes 14 entirely new menus with over 100 only-on-the-Icon cocktails. They’ve taken risks throughout, whether it’s leaning into trends like butterfly pea syrup, pinning pop rocks to a martini, or serving G&Ts—not rum punches—at Swim & Tonic, the cruise company’s first-ever swim-up bar. Every menu features a robust booze-free and low-proof menu, yet another way they cater indiscriminately to everyone.
You’ll have the time of your life on a self-guided bar crawl through their 20 bars and lounges. We sure as hell did. My friend and I got toasted with marshmallow old fashioneds at Schooners, a nautical lounge found on every Royal ship; spilled mojitos while salsa dancing at Boleros, a Havana-themed bar; recharged with carajillos and guava hot toddies (served in actual tea kettles!) at Rye and Bean, a coffee bar in every sense of the word; and got caught in a rowdy face-off between Packers and 49ers fans at Playmakers, a classic sports bar with all American bites, beer and arcade games. We sang along until our throats got coarse at Dueling Pianos, then sang some more at the karaoke bar below it. Then we listened to other people sing at The Music Hall, where rock bands take the stage every night with performances so bombastic you’ll wonder where the frontman’s soul goes once it leaves his body on stage.
And this was all in one night.
Thrill-seekers get their own floor, while swimmers get too many pools to name
You’ll be as surprised as we were that we made it to an 8:30 spin class the next morning. Nor did we puke while dangling several stories above the Florida straits as one of the first guests to take on Crown’s Edge, a thrilling overwater obstacle course that sees you hopping across platforms and gliding over the side of the ship, feet dangling in the air. Crown’s Edge is one of the many daredevil things you can do on Thrill Island, the topmost deck on the ship where you’ll find a rock climbing wall, surf simulator, basketball court and the world’s largest water park at sea.
Though there are 16 different pools and hot tubs spread over three floors, each deck pours into the other, making it hard to know where you’re swimming but quite easy to find a chair. And man, are there pools—pools with tables in them, pools with loungers floating in the middle, whirlpools perched above other pools like hot bubbling bird baths and The Hideaway Pool, the world’s first suspended infinity pool at sea. As the name suggests, this is the only body of water on board you won’t stumble upon but actually have to seek out. A part of the ship’s adults-only day club, it feels a world away from everything else, with tropical spritzes and house music more akin to an afternoon in Miami than a family-friendly ship.
Having gone on both a Virgin and a Viking cruise not too long ago, I forgot kids rode these things. Then I was slapped in the face with a series of Cocomelon-like safety and hygiene videos upon entering my stateroom, which brought me back down to earth real fast.
Cruising is for families—yes, even yours
I do appreciate how much Royal Caribbean kept modern families—particularly those with very young ones—in mind when designing the icon. A focus group of 175 children and teenagers consulted on the activities and offerings on board, which is probably why Surfside, the ship’s family-friendly neighborhood, feels like Toy Story in the tropics. It’s a pastel and neon explosion ripe with pools for babies and kids under six, a mini waterpark for the ship’s most mini passengers, a pay-to-play arcade, larger-than-life sculptures (there’s a two-stories-tall flamingo at the get-go) and fun events like the Steel Pan Family Jam and Larger than Life Festival, a competition with oversized classic games. Even the characters on the carousel were picked out by kids (The classic horsey? Nixed. A VW bus? In.), and I’m pretty sure the french fries we devoured were sprinkled with sugar, not salt. That also explains why Social020, the teen club, is purposefully hard to find. When asked what they’d like to see on board, teens just wanted somewhere to chill where their parents couldn’t find them. Go figure.
But to a teenager’s dismay, Royal Caribbean has been finding that families are more interested in spending time together on vacation than doing the whole drop-off and see-you-later thing (though there’s that, too). And so they’ve introduced tons of family programming: At Adventure Ocean, the under 13 kid’s club, so parents and grandparents can join in on the activities, too, whether it’s nightly storytime where everyone acts out storybook characters or you’re building volcanoes in the science lab. The family fun bleeds out into other areas of the ship, too. Throughout our trip, we continuously caught moms and daughters belting out Taylor Swift at the karaoke bar, and dads and sons sipping sodas and virgin piña coladas at even the most sophisticated lounges.
As I sipped my final rum runner of the trip at The Overlook, a sophisticated and airy lounge at the bow of the ship with expansive wraparound views of the ocean ahead, I couldn’t help but notice the different microcosms of people on board. One group mingled over cocktails a few tables over, a young couple sat giggling at Rye and Bean just one story up, and a grandmother and her grandson climbed to the top of a bird’s nest-like overhead pod to get a better view of the aquatic stunt show that had just begin on the other side of the dome. A thousand things happened in one room, yet everyone seemed to find their groove. The Icon may not be a food-lovers ship, and I think there are better, more targeted options for young, kid-free adults who set sail to see the world. But it’s hard to find fault in a ship that leaves you wanting for nothing. So, yeah, you really might need that much ship.