Icon of the Seas

Superb Icon!

My wife and I cruised on the Icon last week and came away very impressed overall. The ship is beautiful, the crew was helpful and very friendly and overall the food was great. We had sailed on the Wonder last year and were quite impressed with it as well. The only real negative we had was the lack of space for adults in the pool areas. Icon has resolved this with the adult only Hideaway area. This was a necessary and welcome change from the Wonder as there were literally thousands of kids on board. I must say I still don’t quite understand why RCI chose to have their new Swim and Tonic pool open to children. This should be the adult only pool. We had a balcony cabin on deck 12. It was very spacious overall with loads of plugs, USB ports etc and plenty of storage for anything you needed for a 7 day cruise. Probably adequate for a few more days as well. The bathroom was a bit on the smallish size, but the shower was quite large and water pressure/temperature was excellent. We had lunch in two of the specialty restaurants, Chops and Giovanni’s. Both were excellent. We ate in the Windjammer for the most part and I would give the food a very good rating overall. We also tried Aquamart and Chill Island, both were great. The crew was outstanding in all aspects. There was barely any time between finishing a course in the Windjammer and someone was right there taking your dishes! The bartending service was excellent, used various bars and never waited any length of time for a drink. I have to say this was a surprise considering the number of people on board. Our Cabin Steward, Gregory, was on top of his game. Room was clean as a whistle after being made up in the mornings as we requested. Obviously still being a new ship the room was in excellent shape. The entertainment was top notch as well, we really enjoyed the Aqua show, the Wizard Of Oz was surprisingly (for me anyway) very well done with awesome special effects and live musical accompaniment. Two of the 3 comedians we saw were hilarious. We very much enjoyed our week on the Icon, would not hesitate to recommend it especially a family with children. The Icon is really geared for their enjoyment, not so much for older folks.

Awesome Cruise!

The best ship I have ever cruised on. The food was an upgrade over Wonder and Symphony. The main dinning room was great in terms of food and service. Windjammer was excellent. Sure there a lot of kids, but there are so many places to go and be away from that, especially outside of Surfside. There were some teenagers having fun also, but honestly all the complaints about this is by grumpy old people. The ship is spotless. The cabins are tasteful. Excellent music, Jazz, Latin, reggae and classic rock bands. Great shows, with excellent aqua, ice and Oz shows. The comedians were not that funny to us. If you can afford it, choose Icon. It's not a party boat, Red and several late night events were basically empty. Coco Cay was a bit cold in February. Costa Maya is not fun. Roatan and Cozumel have great snorkeling. You will love it.

A Fun Cruise on a Huge Ship

The Icon of the Seas was beautiful! However, it was a little too big for our liking. We prefer the medium sized ships and would prefer to book those in the future. On a ship as large as the Icon, there is a ton of walking. Our calves got sore from all the walking. The Health app on my iPhone said for the entire cruise I walked three times as many steps as usual. As for the seas, they were as calm as you could want. I kept forgetting we were even on a ship for the entire cruise. The weather was superb except for the last stop, Perfect Day at Coco Cay. That was the only time we got off the ship. (We didn't book excursions in Mexico or Honduras as we have already been to these places on previous trips.) It was on the cool side that day and the breeze made it even cooler. So we only stayed at the Hideaway Beach Adults Only location for a couple of hours, long enough to have a cocktail and lunch. It was a beautiful beach. I thought the food on the ship was very good. My husband had a tough steak one night, but sometimes things happen. As soon as we got on the ship and were at the dining room where we had our Key Chops lunch, I spoke with the head waiter to change our My Time Dining to a regular time at same table every night in the Main dining room. We got the middle time of 6:45pm on Deck 5. Our wait staff was wonderful. I made sure to mention them by name on the Royal Survey. We only had one night where we ate in a specialty restaurant (Chops Grille). It was as good as always. The Icon entertainment was superb! We went to the Wizard of Oz stage production on Day 2 in the afternoon. The dancers and cast were amazing. That night we went to the ice skating show called Starburst. Again we were so impressed with the choreography and agility of the cast. On Day 4 we saw Aqua Action, their water show. Fantastic! The entertainers on this ship are absolutely the best we have ever seen. One of our highlights was meeting Rover, the chief dog officer. She is a beautiful year and a half Golden Retriever. Usually we prefer the Schooner Bar in the evening. However on this trip, we frequented the Point & Feather Pub most of the time when visiting with our friends. The bartenders there were attentive and gave us very good service. Of course I had to go the Lime & Coconut Frozen Bar a couple of times to have my favorite frozen drink, a Kahlua Colada. It is a Pina Colada with Kahlua in place of rum. One thing we liked was that there were a lot of people from Buffalo on the ship. They even had a Bills Mafia gathering at the Rye & Bean Bar. The Buffalo Bills fans are the most loyal fans there are for a football team. They seem to be everywhere. There were a lot of them even at our hotel before the cruise. Getting on and off the ship was a breeze. They have everything streamlined. The new elevator system was great! No more pressing buttons inside the elevator. The WiFi Zoom service was the best we have ever experienced on a cruise ship! Our cabin (D2) was very nice, on par with the other ships, and the bathroom was laid out better. The cabin attendants only service the room once a day, so you can select morning or evening. Ours was done in the morning. However he delivered the “daily bulletin” in the evening for the next day. We requested that because we prefer referring to a paper copy instead of searching for events on the online app.

Fantastic ship and experience

Many others have rated this ship. We have cruised many many times. This cruise we took our 2 sons and their families on the cruise. It was the first time for grandchildren ages 6-13 and the second time for a 9-year old and almost 3 year old. First of all, let me say that my husband was extremely leary to go on such a big ship. We tend to like the smaller ships. However, he absolutely LOVED this ship. There were 7300 people on board and it never felt crowded. In fact, he liked it so much we have booked the same ship for next year. The grandkids absolutely loved it and loved being with their cousins. So much to do. My husband & I didn't partake of the pools but did always find the grands to see them at the pools, golf, rock climbing, surfside, etc. Next year will be just my husband & I so we will partake of the bars/entertainment at night as well as during the day. Dueling Pianos is fantastic. The aqua show is the best show we have ever seen. All the shows were great including the juggler. And the grands loved the shows as well especially the aqua show. Embarking and disembarking were so easy. Extremely well organized. Loved the spacious infinite oceanview balcony. Generally we get regular balconies but we loved this set up. Gave us more room in the room. The shower was great as well. More room in the bathroom. Plenty of storage in the room. RCCL did a nice job on design. Down side was slides were crowded but just go at an off time. Escape room was great. Another reason we are going back is we didn't have a chance to try the complimentary food venues. The only thing I had was the chocolate crepes and they were excellent. Want to try the other foods in the aquadome market.