Monday, April 1, 2024

Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas: Largest cruise ship's first voyage

icon of the seas inaugural cruise

ICON ships also have a new (patented design) crew cabin type with an L-shaped bed layout. "Panoramic Ocean View" cabins and suites are in the AquaDome Neighborhood and all are with floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall windows. Deck 15 is home to AquaDome, one of Icon of the Seas’ new neighborhoods that’s housed within a 363-ton glass dome. The centerpiece is the AquaTheater, where the vertigo-inducing Aqua Show takes place. But other venues -- like Hooked Seafood, Celebration Table, AquaDome Marketplace and the weirdly cool Overlook Pods hangout areas – also bring AquaDome to life.

Icon of the Seas Bars & Nightlife

There is also a suspended pool across the back of the ship that provides a spot high up with sweeping views of the horizon. However, it’s the features onboard that are found nowhere else that have most people talking. And catch showstopping spectaculars that will leave you in awe.

There are more dining venues onboard Icon of the Seas than any other ship in the fleet

Before returning to Miami, the vessel also pays a visit to Perfect Cay at CocoCay – where it remains docked for ten hours. A second week-long cruise to the Eastern Caribbean will also be offered by the ship during its inaugural season. Following a similar route, the Icon of the Seas sails to Perfect Dat at CocoCay and St. Thomas before visiting St. Maarten instead of St. Kitts. And while you may have some mixed feelings if you’re not aboard for that first cruise, know that those passengers aboard the trip — and any subsequent sailings — are paying a significant premium to sail. Icon of the Seas has generated lots of buzz for more than a year as the ship took shape while being built in Turku, Finland. At more than 250,000 gross tons and carrying 7,600 passengers at full occupancy, the size is definitely the first thing that jumps out about the new ship.

Hotels With Cruise Shuttles For Every Major Port in America

Icon of the Seas, biggest cruise ship ever built, arrives in Florida for first sailings - The Points Guy

Icon of the Seas, biggest cruise ship ever built, arrives in Florida for first sailings.

Posted: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

RCI's Icon OTS construction update teaser (released in May 2022) showed a huge white sphere installed midship on top deck. The spherical object weighs 175 tonnes, has diameter 50 ft (15,2 m), height 46 ft (14 m) and consists of 578 aluminum panels. In late-June RCI's President (Michael Bayley) called the big white ball "The Pearl". Metalcolour Group has subsidiaries/production plants in Sweden, Denmark and Singapore. In May 2021, the first hull blocks of Icon OTS (fabricated at Neptun Werft Shipyard, Rostock Germany) were loaded onto barges and shipped to Finland for drydock assembly (welded together). Meyer Turku also constructed RCI's mega-liners Oasis OTS (2009) and Allure OTS (2010).

I am constantly told by my fellow passengers that “everybody here has a story.” Yes, I want to reply, but everybody everywhere has a story. You, the reader of this essay, have a story, and yet you’re not inclined to jump on a cruise ship and, like Duck Necklace, tell your story to others at great pitch and volume. Maybe what they’re saying is that everybody on this ship wants to have a bigger, more coherent, more interesting story than the one they’ve been given.

Cruise ships' public spaces are also prefabricated (and later drydock-assembled) and made by the subsidiary Shipbuilding Completion Oy (in Turku). Technology design and engineering services are provided by the company ENGnD Oy (Rauma Finland). On October 10, 2016, Meyer Turku Oy (Finland) and RCG-Royal Caribbean Group signed the MoU agreement (memorandum of understanding) and officially announced the building order for two vessels under the project name "ICON". The units are LNG-powered (by liquified natural gas), employ fuel cell technology, and are classified by DNV GL (Hovik Norway-headquartered international ship registrar and classification society). The MoU ceremony was attended by Michael Bayley (RCI's President and CEO), Jan Meyer (Meyer Turku's CEO) and Harri Kulovaara (Finnish naval architect, RCCL's Maritime and Newbulding's Executive Vice President). Swim & Tonic is RCI's first shipboard swim-up bar (capacity 12 people).

Best crew members in the fleet

Like six record-breaking waterslides and an all-out test of courage dangling high above the ocean. In late-December 2021, to Meyer Turku were towed/barged by 4x tugboats the first pre-assembled in Poland (at Gdansk Shipyard) hull blocks, with weights tons. Their assembly/the ship's physical construction officially started with the keel-laying ceremony held on April 5, 2022. RCI's ICON liners run primarily on LNG but also on distillate fuel (MDO/marine diesel oil), in order to accommodate itineraries with call ports without LNG-support infrastructure. The design includes shoreside power capabilities allowing the main engines to be shut down while the boats are docked/berthed in ports fitted with such equipment.

icon of the seas inaugural cruise icon of the seas inaugural cruise

The gas supply is sourced from Eagle LNG's facilities in JAXPORT-Jacksonville Florida, shipped throughout the Caribbean and bunkered by Eagle LNG-owned newbuild vessels. The ICON ships debut the Microwave-Assisted Pyrolysis technology - an innovative (the first-at-sea) waste-to-energy plant. The technology turns solid waste (food/bio) into fuel (used to power the desalinization plant) while the remaining by-product (pelletized carbon) is supplied to farmers as fertilizer. In October 2023 was extended the 2019-signed contract with SOMEC Group's subsidiary SOMEC Navale(1995-founded, Italian company).

The Hideaway – Tucked away, this neighborhood 135 feet above the ocean combines the good vibes of beach club scenes around the world and the uninterrupted ocean views only a cruise can offer. The first suspended infinity pool at sea is at the center of it all, and it’s surrounded by a multilevel sun terrace with whirlpools, a variety of seating and a dedicated bar. Adults looking for some alone time won't find a Solarium onboard.

The ship's riff on Broadway-approved "Wizard of Oz" — 16-piece live orchestra and flying bed included — delighted me, a hater of most musicals. While I would've preferred a quieter atmosphere (the DJ did not, in fact, play smooth jazz), the pool's views, day beds, and lack of screaming children were hard to beat. The 7,600-guest Icon of the Seas has seven pools and nine hot tubs. As a kid-fearing adult, I loved the grown-ups-only suspended infinity pool.

A look inside the Icon of the Seas, world's biggest cruise ship - MSN

A look inside the Icon of the Seas, world's biggest cruise ship.

Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024 13:40:15 GMT [source]

I believe in meeting people halfway, and so the day before flying down to Miami, I visited what remains of Little Italy to purchase a popular T-shirt that reads DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL across the breast in the colors of the Italian flag. My wife recommended that I bring one of my many T-shirts featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, as all Americans love the beagle and his friends. But I naively thought that my meatball T-shirt would be more suitable for conversation-starting. There are new categories of cabins, new neighborhoods, and views never offered before on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. The suite sun deck concept is bigger than ever with a multistory area known as The Grove, with lounge space, pool, hot tub, and a complimentary Mediterranean restaurant. Chill Island will have ocean views galore from the three-deck pool area.

Royal Caribbean would not share the current median salary for its crew members, but I am certain that it amounts to a fraction of the cost of a Royal Bling gold-plated, zirconia-studded chalice. Because of the importance of the inaugural voyage of the world’s largest cruise liner, more than 200 Pinnacles are on this ship, a startling number, it seems. Mrs. Palo Alto takes out a golden badge that I have seen affixed over many a breast, which reads CROWN AND ANCHOR SOCIETY along with her name.

The story you are reading was commissioned at a moment when most staterooms on the Icon were sold out. Hence, this publication was faced with the shocking prospect of paying nearly $19,000 to procure for this solitary passenger an entire suite—not including drinking expenses—all for the privilege of bringing you this article. But the suite in question doesn’t even have a view of the ocean! The aforementioned gangway opens up directly onto a thriving mall (I will soon learn it is imperiously called the “Royal Promenade”), presently filled with yapping passengers beneath a ceiling studded with balloons ready to drop.

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