Icon of the Seas, the first ship in a new class for Royal Caribbean, seeks to marry the family fun of a land-based resort or theme park with a cruise vacation.
That's not entirely new for the cruise line, but the soon-to-be-largest cruise ship in the world takes the concept even further.
The new ship, which begins sailing in 2024, promises the "vacation industry’s first-of-its-kind combination of the best of every vacation.
"From the beach retreat to the resort escape and the theme park adventure, with Icon, every kind of family and adventurer can experience their version of the ultimate family vacation," the cruise line said in a news release.
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That sounds like a bold promise, but Icon takes everything Royal Caribbean (RCL) has delivered with its Oasis-class ship and takes it a step further. The new ship will have an outdoor Central Park and borrows the neighborhood concept from the current largest ship class in the world.
The cruise line will amp up the theme-park feel with the largest-ever waterpark on a cruise ship.
"Adventurers on Icon of the Seas are in for the ultimate thrill at the largest waterpark at sea, Category 6. Thrill Island’s six record-breaking slides reach new heights: Pressure Drop, the industry’s first open free-fall slide; Frightening Bolt, the tallest drop slide at sea; Storm Surge and Hurricane Hunter, the first family raft slides with four riders per raft; and Storm Chasers, cruising’s first mat-racing duo" the cruise line said.
Add in that Icon of the Seas will also include some adults-only firsts, like a swim-up bar (Royal Caribbean's first) and a beach-club-like area reserved for adult passengers, and it's easy to see why the new cruise ship has delivered record booking numbers for the cruise line.
Now, based on that success Royal Caribbean has $10 billion in new ships on order across four of its five brands -- with a heavy focus on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity.
Image source: Royal Caribbean
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The biggest challenge facing cruise lines might be the lead time in building new ships. It takes more than a year to build an Icon Class ship, so Royal Caribbean has to forecast demand and make a bet on what passengers will want years into the future.
Icon has set sales records, but it's hard to know whether passengers will like the bigger-is-better, the-ship-is-the-vacation approach that the cruise line is taking enough to support multiple Icon-class ships.
The history of the Oasis-class ships suggests that Royal Caribbean passengers will embrace this approach, but demand may not be limitless.
So, before the first Icon-class ship has sailed a single day, Royal Caribbean has ordered two other ships in the new class, along with a seventh (and maybe final) Oasis-Class ship. In addition to those four megaships. the cruise line also has two Edge-Class ships on order for its Celebrity brand.
Those ships will be rolled out over the next three years, In total, four out of Royal Caribbean's five brands -- Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Silversea Cruises, and TUI Cruises -- have new ships on order that will debut by 2026, according to Cruise Industry News.
Royal Caribbean Bets On Big Ships
Aside from its high-end Silversea brand, Royal Caribbean in recent years has built very large cruise ships. To put it into perspective, you can look at the cruise line's largest class (Oasis) versus its smallest:
- Oasis: Can accommodate more than 6,500 passengers when fully booked.
- Vision: Accommodates 2,000 to 2,500 passengers.
Icon Class will have slightly larger passenger capacities, and the size difference is striking when you see an Oasis-class ship docked next to one of the smaller classes.
Royal Caribbean may cycle some of its older, smaller ships out of the fleet but does need some of them as both Tampa and Baltimore -- two year-round ports for the cruise lines -- have factors that limit the size of the ships that can sail from them.
In addition, some ports of call, specifically many European ports, cannot accommodate the largest ships, so it's logical that Royal Caribbean will keep a few smaller ships in its fleet.
