Icon OTS looks like a joke…

[nelblu]

There are Paxs that love smaller ships and others that are on the opposite Spectrum.  I'm on the side of big as it gives me more to do and explore.  Love the almost 1/3-mile track on the Oasis classes and the bigger Casinos.

[not-enough-cruising]

2 hours ago, deliver42 said:

Disney has it's own market, and they won't stop going. To change the subject back to the Icon, at least on this ship you will have the option of an Infinity balcony or a conventional balcony, depending on the deck. Only 2 decks have the IV's.

Actually 3 decks(9-11) have the IV ocean view rooms for a total of 497 rooms. (908 traditional OV balconies)

 

Additionally there are inward facing IV rooms as well 196 cabins (214 traditional inward facing balcony cabins)

[edrussell]

CC never fails to amaze me in that I swear people on here will argue about water being wet.  Then again I do read and get involved so who am I to judge....  My wife and I watched the video like most and we saw some things we thought were interesting and others not so much.  I feel as though they are trying to give families a completely separate area from the adults (well I know that is the case now with the solariums) on different decks.  Personally I like that idea.  Moving the aqua theatre and making it a space that can be used at different times of the day also will help spread people out on the ship more.  One thing I do know is that RCCL puts significant amount of time, effort and money into the design of these ships and it will be up to the cruising public if they made the right choices or not.  

 

While we won't likely be sailing on her anytime soon as we mostly cruise out of the North East, but if given the chance we definitely will try it.  Hard to tell if we will like it or not without first trying it.  We had our first experience on an Oasis class in Sept and truthfully it left us lukewarm.  With that being said for us any cruise is a good cruise.  Cheers!

 

 

 

[lovesthebeach2]

14 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

If one person wakes up before the other they can't go sit out on the balcony while the other person sleeps. 

I never stayed in one and now I probably won’t. I get up way earlier and love to sit on the balcony. 

[clskinsfan]

14 hours ago, flamingos said:

What, in specific, do they dislike about the infinite balconies?  I've never actually seen one before.

You dont have full control over them. The captain can turn them off at any time. So if you like going out on your balcony in the rain for example. Forget about it. IV's are a glorified OV room. We wont sail in one again. 

[KmomChicago]

11 minutes ago, edrussell said:

CC never fails to amaze me in that I swear people on here will argue about water being wet.    With that being said for us any cruise is a good cruise.  Cheers!

 

Good point, we can't even agree on facts. '

Commenter 1:  I once stood in a long line on a cruise ship.

Commenter 2:  I HAVE BEEN ON 32 CRUISES, ALL AT MAX CAPACITY, AND NEVER SAW A LINE FOR ANYTHING!

Commenter 3:  Both of you are sailing on the worst cruise ship/line, why would any fool do that?

 

Sometimes I lose track of what we are even arguing about.

[Cyn874]

I have to admit, I was excited about Icon at first, and I LOVE a lot of the new features. But it is very much geared towards children and young families. Not that there is anything wrong with that- but I hope one day they put a lot of the features like the unusual pools and cabin options on some of the other ships that have an older demographic. I am 46 and don't have kids- I'd rather sail with an older crowd.

[flamingos]

49 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

You dont have full control over them. The captain can turn them off at any time. So if you like going out on your balcony in the rain for example. Forget about it. IV's are a glorified OV room. We wont sail in one again. 

Oh, my. Yeah, that would be interesting.  Thanks.

[PhillyFan33579]

48 minutes ago, Cyn874 said:

I have to admit, I was excited about Icon at first, and I LOVE a lot of the new features. But it is very much geared towards children and young families. Not that there is anything wrong with that- but I hope one day they put a lot of the features like the unusual pools and cabin options on some of the other ships that have an older demographic. I am 46 and don't have kids- I'd rather sail with an older crowd.

Sounds like you would like Celebrity. If you haven’t cruised on Celebrity yet, I highly recommend you do. I still cruise mainly on RCI, but I usually do a couple of cruises a year on Celebrity for a more relaxing environment. 

[KmomChicago]

55 minutes ago, Cyn874 said:

I have to admit, I was excited about Icon at first, and I LOVE a lot of the new features. But it is very much geared towards children and young families. Not that there is anything wrong with that- but I hope one day they put a lot of the features like the unusual pools and cabin options on some of the other ships that have an older demographic. I am 46 and don't have kids- I'd rather sail with an older crowd.

Would that be the newer Princess ships? Sky, Enchanted and Discovery Princess?

[ocean sounds]

 

I can’t wait to explore this ship!   I want to experience Chill Island, and Aqua Dome, and the new ice show, all the entertainment, the infinity pools. Sigh. 

 

 I’ll probably go while Grands are in school. They would love the Thrill Island and stay there all day.  They are too old for the Surfside area.  But with little ones, Surfside is a fantastic neighborhood.  

 

I like that there are different types of rooms in different neighborhoods.  I like solitude and the sound of the sea from the aft cabins (sunset cabins?) - but not on this ship.  I really love watching kids have fun, but think maybe the sounds drifting up to the sunset balconies will be loud, all day and all evening long - or until the kiddie pools close 😉.  That’s OK.  There’s plenty of cruises I could take to get an aft balcony experience not on Icon. 
 

I noted from unofficial deck plans (not a Royal site) that there are many, many rooms for 4, and lots of 5+.    I’m curious if Royal will do many KSF on Icon class ships? That would really pack the ship!

 

I’m going to book Icon to experience it,  it looks fun,!  But after that I may cruise solo on other classes.  When we have multi-generational vacations, Icon will definitely be a consideration.  

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by ocean sounds
Added

[ronandcarla]

Looks wonderful to us and we're not young.  I doubt we would ever get back on a small ship.

 

[Cyn874]

36 minutes ago, KmomChicago said:

Would that be the newer Princess ships? Sky, Enchanted and Discovery Princess?

I don't know- maybe! I've only been on one Princess ship- Ruby Princess, back in 2019. There were some things I loved about it and some things I didn't like so much: 

 

I would have liked to have seen a few more fun attractions like a flow rider or iFly, just for people watching. I myself would never use one, but I think they're really cool and I love to just sit and watch other people on it. I would also love to see something like the Solarium similar to Ovation or Anthem of the Seas. 

 

What I DID love most about it were the fun, silly games, like elevator roulette and some game they played in the atrium where they would call out a random item (like a blue wallet, or socks with stripes) and people in the audience would win that round if they had it. I thought things like that were a blast, and I went to every single one of them. Royal didn't have anything like that, and during the day I found myself missing those games. 

 

I'd love to see a happy medium. Icon had a lot of things that I thought were great, but it leaned too heavily towards kids. I don't know anything about the Princess ships you mentioned, but I am going to look into them now. 

[FionaMG]

23 hours ago, Jimbo said:

The penny pinching cruisers aren't buying any pre-packages of any kind.  They are the first ones at the free buffet , free everything, etc.

 

Yup, that's me in a nutshell, except it's not free, it's included so I have actually paid for it. And it's exacerbated by the fact that, having reached D, I don't even have to pay for my drink at dinner or the one photo I take home with me.

 

However, they COULD tempt me to spend on board if they would set the speciality dining prices at a more sensible level and changed out some of their high-end retail for more realistically priced stores or added some of the latter. I never set foot in Regalia or Bulgari and I reckon a lot of the demographic targeted by Icon probably won't either. 

[celoplyr]

My parents were all like "oh we will never go on that ship", but I think we will hold off true judgement until travel agents and youtube people get on board, and we can really see what it's like.  They emphasized the "new" stuff, and not all of it excites me, but I do like the slides, and I never really spend time at the pool (it's always crowded).

 

I do love the LNG aspect btw...

[Mikew0805]

9 hours ago, time4u2go said:

Oh I know what it is. I was just curious about why one person being asleep would prevent another person from using it. 

 

LOL if it were me sleeping... because it would raise the temperature in the room, and I would throw a shoe at whoever had it open. I keep the cabin at icebox temperature.

[time4u2go]

10 minutes ago, Mikew0805 said:

LOL if it were me sleeping... because it would raise the temperature in the room, and I would throw a shoe at whoever had it open. I keep the cabin at icebox temperature.

Can't you close the doors to the balcony and keep the AC running inside? 

[CruiseBride926]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:21 PM, GetToLivin said:

I made the joke that I needed a xanax after viewing the marketing material for Icon but truth is, I think for those of us with kids/teens, first thought was, "This is a great ship to take a family on," and I'll do just that. There are many other ships in the fleet I can opt for when it's just DH and I. For this particular ship, I think DS will have the time of his life 😊

This 100%. Would it be my personal first choice? Probably not but neither are things like Great Wolf Lodge. I do it for the kids and I’d still rather be there than cooking and cleaning at home 🤷‍♀️

[karl_nj]

8 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Can't you close the doors to the balcony and keep the AC running inside? 

 

On Celebrity Edge there are these folding doors you can close, which helps a bit, but the AC still gets turned off in the stateroom.

 

[MrMarc]

4 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

 

Good point, we can't even agree on facts. '

Commenter 1:  I once stood in a long line on a cruise ship.

Commenter 2:  I HAVE BEEN ON 32 CRUISES, ALL AT MAX CAPACITY, AND NEVER SAW A LINE FOR ANYTHING!

Commenter 3:  Both of you are sailing on the worst cruise ship/line, why would any fool do that?

 

Sometimes I lose track of what we are even arguing about.

No you don't.

[DirtyDawg]

5 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

I'm not sure how I feel about the rest of it, but a lazy River seems like a cool idea, although admittedly a bit "out there," which is why DirtyDawg's comment about the Vegas structures made me think of it (except I was serious and I know DirtDawg was joking).

Was I? 🤔🤔

 

I do actually like your Lazy River idea. It would like a nice relaxing experience on the upper decks.

 

And it could be a great money maker for Royal. Just imagine a bunch of over imbibed drinks package customers passed out in their inner tubes going round and round ... and round the Lazy River for hours on end. And all the while Royal is charging $100 per lap. Heck Royal could pay off their billions in debt in no time! 😁 😁

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by DirtyDawg

[DirtyDawg]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:57 PM, Tree_skier said:

I will be booking as soon as Itineraries are out.

Then I'm booking too. I have to see you on the Flow Rider and on those slides. I hear the new advanced medical centre is state of the art. 😁 😉

[trajan]

6 hours ago, Aquahound said:

 

Something tells me there is going to be a revitalized of the NOOTS squad.  Reborn as NOITS.  

 

(Hopefully folks know what the heck I'm talking about 😉)

Count me in for both. 
Main problems I’ve had cruising on the bigger ships is how popular areas get swamped with people, too many bottlenecks, some ports get overloaded, specially if tendering. Splashy features and elbow room too often do not go hand in hand.

Then there’s also my semi-irrational fear that one of these ships will someday suffer a disaster, like stabilizers failing in rough weather, and the outcome won’t be pretty for these top heavy super ships.

[Nunagoras]

18 minutes ago, trajan said:

Count me in for both. 
Main problems I’ve had cruising on the bigger ships is how popular areas get swamped with people, too many bottlenecks, some ports get overloaded, specially if tendering. Splashy features and elbow room too often do not go hand in hand.

Then there’s also my semi-irrational fear that one of these ships will someday suffer a disaster, like stabilizers failing in rough weather, and the outcome won’t be pretty for these top heavy super ships.

Well: Actually, while your concerns may be valuable to a certain extent; bear in mind though:

 

Tourism in all the places those behemoths visit is not exclusively made of cruising. Cruising may be such a 25-50% of the crowd in areas, but not the totals.

 

Modern ships, like modern planes, do have a very strict regulation they must follow, especially coming from the European Union, so that they can be said as worldwide sea worthy. Just to sumarize: Once a year, big ships are mandated at least a weeklong wet dock for mechanical revisions. If an incident of certain sort is reported to a port of call's maritime authorities, that incident should be addressed accordingly. On top of that, the EU demands a mandatory dry dock for deep inspection and repairs each 5 years. While a severe incident can happen any day; those maritime regulations are strict enough to prevent such events. No notice of one with severe consequences lately, so, I have total confidence on the whole cruise industry.

 

The real problem over Icon's introduction is either way cultural: The generation's changing, but that's another subject.

[GatorGirl1313]

On 10/21/2022 at 4:27 PM, planefring1 said:

Its getting to the point, cruise ships are becoming floating theme parks. While cruising is an amazing way to vacation, New cruise ships are quickly becoming caricatures of themselves. Bloated, cartoonish, grotesque hunks of steel.

I was just on the new Discovery Princess.  No slides, no thrills, no amusement park type of activities.  It was just elegant although it was large.  So new "classic" style ships are oit there