Now that school is in full swing, I finally had some time to reflect on our amazing cruise aboard the Icon of the Seas and write a FULL review for you all! As a travel agent, we had the unique opportunity to secure a group space for this Eastern Caribbean cruise long before the ship was even built, which allowed us to lock in an incredible deal—one of the many perks of booking through a travel agent! Our group consisted of about 15 agents and our families, making it a fun and lively experience. It was wonderful getting to know everyone in such a relaxed setting. We kept the schedule open, with the exception of a heartfelt toast to honor a dear colleague who passed away, making this trip even more meaningful.

The Icon of the Seas is truly a perfect choice for families with children of all ages. From toddlers to teens, there’s something for everyone. And while it’s an excellent family-friendly option, I would also recommend it for adult-only trips, as long as you're comfortable with kids being around.

I’m going to give you the good AND the bad in this review…although the bad isn’t really all that bad. Don’t forget to scroll down to the end for some awesome deals that are happening right now!

As always, I’m here for your travel needs and would be honored to help you plan your next trip! Get a free quote for your trip today!

Much love,
Patty :)

We took a catamaran to St. John to snorkel with Sea Turtles and it was amazing!

My FULL Review of Icon of the Seas

We didn’t buy the photo package but I couldn’t NOT buy this one:)

Overview: Crowds and our Favorite Spaces

The ship’s interiors and spaces were absolutely immaculate! Even with 7,000 passengers on our fully booked cruise, it never felt crowded. The only times we really noticed the large number of people were during big gatherings in the Promenade, in a few of the pools on sea days, and in the Windjammer buffet on the first day. The ship itself is super modern, with beautiful artwork and standout design elements like the Pearl, which is the stunning centerpiece of the Promenade. Some stand-outs for us:

• The Pearl-while it’s a centerpiece to the Promenade, the lights change and make for a fun place to take pictures. Not to mention, the Pearl Cafe is great for grab and go snacks!

• The Overlook-This is the very front of the ship located directly behind the Aquadome. It can get very loud there at night during the shows but the views and atmosphere can’t be beat!

• Surfside-This is a very kid friendly area that had everything you would want/need as a family with little ones

• Thrill Island-Our boys would have stayed in this area of the ship all day! It’s where the waterslides, mini-golf, rock wall, and more!

We enjoyed playing cards in The Overlook and Zion' won 1st place in the kid’s Speed Climbing event the first day at sea!

Our Stateroom

We stayed in the Family Infinite Oceanview Balcony Stateroom and it was the PERFECT fit for our family and our kids’ ages.

What we loved:

• The Bunk nook-it was awesome for our boys. They enjoyed having the seperate TVs and we enjoyed having the separate space! The Storage was also great for them

• The Split-bathrooms: one was had the toilet and sink and the other had the shower and a sink. Perfect storage for our family.

• That all of us had our own beds-Mattea was totally fine on the couch for sleeping.

• The Underbed storage was wonderful!

• The Infinite Balcony grew on us and we really did love that feature that’s brand new for Royal Caribbean Cruise ships.

• The chalk boards were so fun to draw on and leave notes! BIg hit!

• The shower-no more rounded showers. The square design was spacious and wonderful for a cruise bathroom.

  
  

What we didn’t love:

• While the bunks and couch were good for us, we feel it would be hard with another person in the room and/or bigger kids. It would be super tight with 6 grown people.

• No curtain between the main bed and the couch. It wasn’t a huge deal for us but we wish we had something to seperate us from Mattea at night.

• Storage: While there was enough for the kids, it wasn’t enough for 2-3 other adults. We hung most our stuff and then laid them on shelves that really didn’t fit them all.

• Limited USB-A ports near the beds. Brent had one on his side of the bed but I only had the USB- C plug which wasn’t helpful for me. There were also no plugs besides USB-A plugs in the boys bunk area. We had to plug their sound machine in the bathroom and crack the door open.

Click HERE to see a tour of our room!

Pools and Hideaway

With 7 pools on the ship, I thought it wouldn’t feel as crowded but both the Hideaway and the Chill Island pool(the largest at sea) were pretty peoply. We still enjoyed the pools but honestly, we hung out at Thrill Island/Surfside more than anything.

The Hideaway is the adult only area on the back of the ship. While I was hoping to spend more time here, the pool was super packed on sea days when the kids were in kids club. I did take some time on our Coco Cay day to enjoy the pool and hot tub. The hot tubs were never crowded but that pool was not something I preferred to get in.

Dining and Food

The Icon has over 40 places to eat on it. To say that we were never hungry is an understatement! HAHA! We didn’t hit any of the specialty dining venues because we had experienced most of them on other Royal ships. Some of the newer options just didn’t make sense for our family. Here's our Loves and not loves:

What we loved:

• Our servers were wonderful and took great care of us all week long, even when one of our kids(and me!) had a melt down.

• They served Lobster two times in the main dining room which was a huge hit!

• Aquadome Market: Crepes and a Mediterranean place were some of my favorites!

• Sorrentos: This pizza place is open very long hours and the pizza was fresh and really yummy! We may have had it almost every night lol!

• The Pearl Cafe: This Cafe is open 24 hours and you could grab little snacks to take with you. My fav was the hummus with veggies.

• Surfside Eatery: This is a kid-centric, small buffet style restaurant that is open for all meals and gave us a quieter location to enjoy options without having to go to Windjammers.

• The Free Ice-cream that was available pretty much all day long!

What we Did NOT love:

• Dining Time: While we usually love having a sit down every night, I did feel we were exhausted from it by the end of the week. We will probably still have a main dining time our next cruise but be ok if we decide to change our minds and opt for one of the self serve options a night or two.

• Windjammer: I only ate at the main buffet 2 times the entire trip. It just always felt crowded which I normally don’t care about but for some reason it was just too much for me. That being said, my in laws raved about the lunches at Windjammer!

• El Loco Fresh: We had a few tacos and they were good but the cheese dip was tasteless. Maybe throwing in some salsa would help it but it was NOT good.

Our Favorite Iconic Neighborhoods 

Neighborhoods are the hub for entertainment, dining, and everything there is to do on a Royal Caribbean ship. Each neighborhood has a unique theme and purpose, much like the different lands at theme parks. Staterooms are dispersed throughout these districts, so you can find a room close to the action. There are eight neighborhoods, with five brand new to this ship. Here are a few of our favorite neighborhoods:

Thrill & Chill Islands

These two neighborhoods were where our family spent most of our time on our at Sea days. Thrill Island has Category 6 Waterpark, which my boys lived at and even us adults got in on the fun! It’s also the place where the mini-golf, rock wall, sportsdeck, and flow-rider are located. There’s soo much to do that we really didn’t need to leave this area. The chill island are has the big pool and hot tubs plus Swim and Tonic swim up bar. While we never used it, it was a nice space. Cloud 17 was a hidden gem on the top deck that we really enjoyed hanging with friends at.  

Surfside

This neighborhood is specifically designed for families with children six and under. The area allows adults to watch their preschoolers and toddlers at Water’s Edge Pool while allowing kids to play and explore Splashaway Bay and Baby Bay. This area also has a carousel, arcade, and other boardwalk-style activities. As I already mentioned above, we loved the buffet here and stayed here quite a bit with the boys. This is also located very near the kids club which was convenient for when the kids club opened. We would hang out here until they opened and/or when they were about to close. It was super easy to get to from our room too!

Click the Picture below to see my reel of Surfside!

Entertainment and other Attractions

As if what we’ve already mentioned wasn’t enough to fill your days on Icon, the entertainment was a HUGE win for us! Here are the highlights for us:

• The Wizard of Oz: This broadway level performance was a hit for our entire family! The vocalists were beautiful and they even had a FULL orchestra which is a unique feature on Icon of the Seas.

• Aquatheater: Aqua Action was a jaw dropping show! With high divers, a “Wheel of WOW”, and Synchronized swimmers, it truly is NOT a show you want miss!  

• Effectors: This is Royal’s exclusive super hero musical show that they’ve written for Icon of the Seas. Another super talented cast AND drones that perform during the show.

• Dueling Piano Bar/Spotlight Karaoke: These two venues are right on top of one another and was a great spot for evening cocktails and enjoying the talent on the ship. Mattea loved the teen karaoke and yours truly thourghly enjoyed the adult karaoke times!

We honestly could not do every show/attraction the ship offered. One attraction we missed out on was the ice skating. We did see the show and while the skaters were fabulous, it was a bit hard to follow the storyline. They even had a Family Ice Skating show but our kids weren’t interested in it. I’m sure it was much more kid-friendly and easier to follow that the Absolute Zero show.

My thoughts on each port:

This particular Eastern Caribbean Itinerary is a very typically itinerary for many cruise lines. I’ve done this one a few times now and always love it. Here’s som highlights and low lights:

St. Maartin/Sint Marteen: We decided to take a tour that included a beach stop in both the French and Dutch sides of the island. While I enjoyed seeing the whole island, I would recommend picking a side and staying there for the day. Our tour didn’t include any beach chairs which we knew we we signed up for but I would much rather have that AND lunch included in the tour. Our lunch was really good and local but it was also very hot out and no A/c in the open air market we ate at. I really enjoyed Maho Beach where the planes land super close to the beach. It was a bummer that the beach had little beach to it because of storms in the past few years. It’s very rocky and a very busy area. We also should have checked the flights coming in because we only had 1 the entire time we were there. Orient Beach was a wider, longer beach but it did have some seaweed. It wasn’t terrible but was definitely not the best water for swimming. (NOTE: We were on the family side of Orient which meant that we saw no nudity. This was a small concern for us when we booked this!)

St. Thomas/St. John: Since I loved my excursion to St. John the last time I came to St. Thomas, I went ahead and booked it again for the family. We took a scenic drive to the other side of the island and took a catamaran to St. John’s Honeymoon Beach State Park. It’s gorgeous! We saw so much sealife and those who didn’t want to snorkel enjoyed the white sand beach and clear blue water. It was for sure the highlight of our trip!

Coco-Cay: We opted to not go to the waterpark on this day and while I’m sure next time we will get tickets, I was glad we didn’t. There were some storms around and many of the waterslides were closed for awhile and the lines got super long. We stayed at the largest lagoon pool in the caribbean and the boys enjoyed the free waterslide area for kids. The beach was rough this day so we took a short swim in it and went back to the pool. Some friends of ours had no kiddos and went to the new adult only Hideaway Beach and it looked dreamy! Maybe for our next cruise!

To see more of the Hideaway Beach for Adults only, click the picture below!

Final Thoughts and Offers!!

To say this family cruise was wonderful would be an understatement. It truly is an ICONIC ship and we would love to cruise on her again on day!

Now, if you got this far in the newsletter, you deserve to know some great deals we have going on right now!

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